The U.S.S. Fisher's Island Sound was a Commencement Bay-class aircraft carrier that had seen thirty years of active duty by the time it was finally decommissioned at the end of the Vietnam War. Now anchored near Puerto Rico's Milwaukee Deep, the official story was that it had been downgraded to serve as an offshore annex of the naval flying school at Pensacola, Florida. So that their student pilots could have further opportunities to gain first-hand experience at making carrier-based landings. Towards that same end, it would also serve as a cross-training center for Fort Rucker* fly-boys, Marine Corps jet jockeys, Air Force hurricane hunters, and Coast Guard chopper pilots. The ship, however, was staffed mostly by rotating temporary personnel.
So, it wasn't long before rumors began circulating as to the "true" reason for the downgrade.
Most of the temps speculated that the ship was moonlighting as a covert refueling stop for CIA spy planes. Others thought it was fronting as a supply depot for some top-secret experimental undersea colony. And a few even thought it was a little of both! Yet the real truth was far more incredible than any of them could have imagined. Because the Fisher's Island Sound was actually the headquarters of the M.O.C. (Miniscule Operations Command). A top-secret subdivision of the CIA that specialized in "bio-miniaturization!"
In plain English? The shrinkage of living things (including people).
I'm serious! The M.O.C. was founded back in November of 1962. One month after the Cuban Missile Crisis...which is no coincidence. Because, as it turns out, it wasn't nuclear missiles that the Soviet Union had smuggled to Havana. It was twelve dozen metal drums containing some newly-developed biochemical solution that they referred to as "nolongitol." A small batch of which was promptly stolen by Lance Corporal Myron Meriwether (a USMC scout-sniper from Guanatanamo Bay) and Captain Pepe Garcia (Mexican Air Force, "retired") for chemical analysis by the Company's eggheads. Unfortunately, Garcia wound up spilling a drop or two of the stuff on himself. Consequently, by the time they got back to Langley (via the Isle of Pines, Mexico, and Texas) the good captain had been "bio-miniaturized" to a height of only FOUR INCHES!
Enter Dr. Ezra Long.
A Korean War veteran-turned-psychiatric consultant for Walter Reed Army Hospital, he had been personally recruited by CIA Deputy Dirctor Bryce Paxton to help Garcia cope with having to reorient himself to his new place in the world. The only trouble was...he didn't stay the good doctor's one-and-only patient. By the time my dad met the same fate, eleven years later, there were a whole lot of other people who were what you might call "in the same toy boat." Most of them being casualties in this new form of shadow war between the Company and the Kremlin!
That's how "Kleinmann University" was born.
A scale-model replica of Yale University (Dr. Long's alma mater), it had been specifically developed to help shrinkies learn how to help themselves when it came to reorientation. For example; Pepe Garcia not only became valedictorian of the first graduating glass. Eleven years later, he was now both Dean of Students and ROTC Director! As for my dad? Well, let's just say that not all of his classes were on-campus. There was at least one that was taught off-campus. The one that helped him and his fellow students learn how to mesh, mentally, and emotionally, with their hand-picked, normal-sized bodyguards.
In Dad's case, he had been partnered with Cecilia Finster. An ex-hippie draft dodger with whom there was naturally some initial friction. Especially when it came to discussions about the Vietnam War! But, as time passed, those philosophical differences got ironed out. Grudging mutual respect developed. That, in turn, is why--a month after Dad's graduation--the two of them were given their very first field assignment.
tbc