Chapter 2

Morton Sneyd, by most accounts, was a failure. His neighbors and acquaintances often wondered why his wife remained with him. It had not always been that way.

Thanks to a ROTC scholarship and part-time work assigned by the university, Morty graduated from Texas A&M University with an MS in Mechanical Engineering. The part-time work helped Morty support himself while in school. He had enough math credits for a minor, and briefly considered majoring in that subject; but employment opportunities for mathematicians were limited, while mechanical engineers could pick and choose from a list of several companies they wanted to work for. But that would have to wait; ROTC had paid for his tuition and books, now the Army expected him to live up to his part of the bargain.

If Morty refused the commission, he understood that he’d almost certainly be drafted and he would also have to repay the government for what they’d paid out while he attended Texas A&M. Not to mention that being an officer was better than being a private. So it was that he’d gone along with his adviser’s suggestion and accepted a reserve commission in the US Army, branch Artillery, with concurrent call to active duty.

The Korean ‘police action’ was finished for all practical purposes. There was no peace, only an armistice, but the North Koreans had lost most of their military assets. Their Chinese and Soviet allies were not enthusiastic about investing more in the failed effort. For the time being, there was no enemy to fight and the Army had more officers than it needed. It was also once again short of funds, a chronic condition between wars. In practical terms, transfers were rare and it didn’t make sense to ship junior officers oversees with no immediate need for their services. Morty soon found himself at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, taking the prescribed entry course for artillery officers. From there, he’d gone to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, for duty with the Field Artillery Training Center. It was ‘duty with troops’, a goal for newly-commissioned officers. Sort of.

Lieutenant Sneyd was soon involved in the minutiae of recruit basic training. Occasionally he would conduct an inspection, always while accompanied by one of the NCOs responsible for actually training the men, and occasionally he would be called on to resolve problems associated with turning civilians into soldiers. Most of his day was occupied with paperwork. A loner with few friends, he spent the majority of his off-duty hours studying physics. In this way he became interested in the work of Newton, Einstein, and a relative unknown named Nikola Tesla. Newton and Einstein were theoreticians and mathematicians for the most part, while Tesla had built high-frequency devices and actual working models. In a sense, his work on alternating currents, transformers, and generators laid the framework for modern society. Not all of his work had succeeded, in part because Tesla was chronically short of money to develop his ideas.

Four years later, Morty finished his obligatory tour of active duty. Some are not suited for military service. He was glad to see the last of the Army, and likely the officers who knew him felt much the same about Morty. As a side effect, the tour of duty with the Training Center had forever changed his thinking, leaving Morty with an abiding distrust, even resentment, of authority.

He tried to restart his interrupted career after leaving the Army. He sent out résumés and soon had job offers. He worked for a year at Ford, designing parts for brake systems, but did not find the work challenging or interesting. Junior engineers produced technical drawings, while senior engineers decided which of several options would find their way into the final design. Morty’s engineering skills had also grown rusty while he was in the Army, which didn’t endear him to his supervisors. At the end of a year, he quit Ford.

A pattern was set: Morty drifted from job to job, doing competent work, but never really excelling. Between jobs, he began offering his services as a consultant. Morty had found his niche. Consulting was different; no two jobs were alike. He accepted the jobs he found interesting and the companies he worked for had no grounds for complaint. The contract work supported him and the new wife he married shortly after leaving his last full-time job. Morty’s consulting paid well, but there were often months between contracts. Like Tesla, Morty was often short of funds.

Fortunately, Mary Ellen’s job as a clerical assistant in an accounting department brought in a regular paycheck. They realized that Morty would never be a wealthy man, never become a pillar of the community, but he was a good father to their children and a devoted husband to Mary Ellen.

One of his consulting jobs had paid well enough to indulge Mary Ellen in a lifelong interest in riding. Morty bought a small West Texas ranch, rundown at the time, but with grazing and water enough for the horses she loved. Between jobs, Morty helped Mary Ellen care for her small herd of horses and worked on upgrading the ranch, and always, he tinkered. Occasionally he patented a device, which added to their income. The small family was happy during the 1960s as the children, two boys and a girl, grew up. But eventually they left home and moved away, never quite happy in the small west Texas town where Morty and Mary Ellen had settled.