Cam pulled the car over to the side of the highway as if the gravity of what he was about to say required all of his attention.
Cam: “Mike, what I am going to tell you something you can never tell another person in your life… unless I authorize it.”
Mike nodded with some reservation. He knew Cam had the means of punishing infractions, so this was a dangerous thing to promise. Still, he needed to know what Cam was about to say.
Cam: “Have you ever read Plato’s Republic?”
“Some of it” Mike replied. He had gone through passages in a philosophy elective at college.
Cam: “What about the allegory of the Cave?“
“Yes” said Mike. It was the part he remembered best.
Cam:”Tell me about the allegory.”
Mike: “In the allegory, many people were chained in a cave. All they could see were shadows projected on the wall in front of them by people they couldn’t see behind them.”
“To them, the shadows on the wall were the whole of reality because it was all they could see. However, one of them escaped and climbed out of the cave into the real world and saw the real sun.”
“When the escapee came back into the cave to tell his friends about this new reality, they were incredulous with him for disagreeing with their version of reality, and they killed him.”
Cam nodded. “That sounds about right. This is the most important truth I am going to tell you: The allegory applies to Kennedy. He was a visionary, so those without vision had to stop him.”
“This is who we are dealing with. They are utterly ruthless.”
Mike couldn’t believe he was hearing. Cam implying that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy, not a lone gunman. Then again all of this was pretty unbelievable. There were times Mike had wanted to get out of the car and hitchhike home. Still, he felt Cam had demonstrated he deserved a fair hearing.
Cam: “The group which Kennedy created was assembled from a core of senior Green Berets, and the best of all branches of the military, the intelligence agencies and some gifted citizens. From the outset, we were to operate independently of the chain of command in case the government was compromised. It was financed by patriotic partners in the private sector. The Storm Riders was founded as the centre of gravity of the network. The whole network is given a lot of freedom to act creatively, but we direct the strategy and vision.”
Mike: “But why would President Kennedy choose a team of commandos to direct such a political task? Why not have some civilian leaders?”
Cam: “There are lots of reasons, the first being we might have to fight a war. The second is that, Kennedy, who served with bravery in WW 2, viewed the military tradition as being rooted in patriotism and character. Commandos who risk their lives every day for their country are the ones you can trust the most to save our country.”
“Plus, we are not just commandos. We are students of the human condition. Many of us have worked with the CIA to foster revolutionary movements overthrow tyrants. The Farm, which was founded as our research support centre, has been a commissioning social science research for years. This has allowed us to develop scientifically informed whole-of-society approach to defending the nation.”
“Our goal is to stay left-of-bang, so we are trained to deal with political and social issues before they lead to war. We are a new wave of soldier, comfortable in the operating in society and in the battlefield .”
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