I've known Burnie for over 30 years. We first met in Daytona Beach, Florida - I was fresh out of college and on spring break. One day on the beach, I spotted a mature gentleman wearing a set of headphones and holding some strange wand in his hand. The wand had a cord connected to his headphone. He seemed to be enjoying himself, waving that wand along the sand in front of him, as he slowly toddled along. Sometimes he'd stop, his brow furrowed, his mouth opened slightly, and his body froze, except for the hand holding the wand. Making a slow methodical circle over the sand, he then bent over with his garden shovel and dug something shiny from the sand.
Very curious, I approached him and introduced myself and asked him what he had found. "Just a quarter", he miffed. "Found my wife a gold engagement ring a year ago. Small diamond, but she was thrilled! She hasn't minded much since then, with me spending so many lazy afternoons here on the beach with this crazy contraption".
"Is this some sort of Geiger counter?" I asked.
"Geiger counters are used to detect radioactivity. This isn't one. But I had a lot of experience with them at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands." "What were you doing there?"
"You never heard of the Bikini Atoll nuclear bomb tests? I was in the Army, and we used Geiger counters to measure the radioactivity of the carcasses of goats and other poor animals left on the ships after the explosion. I got out of the Army soon after that; I was disgusted with it all. The whole world had gone mad."
"So if this isn't a Geiger counter, what is it"? "It's a metal detector. It's a dumbed down version of what I used in the war."
"World War Two"?
"After the invasion of France I was in a company of engineers in the 83rd infantry. Our job was to detect mines with the metal detectors and clear a path for the foot soldiers and mechanized columns. Problem was, the Germans began making mines from wood and the metal detectors couldn't spot them. I lost my best friend during the war, he was just 10 feet away when he stepped on one of those wooden bastards".
He stopped for a moment, determined to keep his composure. "Funny thing was, we began finding lots of things other than mines under the ground. You name it; if it was made of metal we found it. The Germans were looting and destroying villages as they retreated, Hitler's orders you know. Anyway, lots of stuff was buried all over the countryside. Most of the guys kept the valuable stuff they found or traded for goods in the liberated villages. But I didn't feel right keeping any, I just gave mine away to the people in the villages..."
And so began a distant friendship, Christmas cards, that sort of thing. Burnie's 92 and he's lost his hearing now. He's become very frustrated, his metal detector in the closet. In a recent letter, he expressed his desire wishing he could help the President find those weapons of mass destruction. "If they're there, I'd find them"
And so Burnie begins his new search for weapons of mass destruction.
