Somewhere in the late 70's I was one of the vice presidents of a CIA cover company, or vendor, or something of that sort called Evergreen Air Center in Marana, Arizona just 30 miles northwest of Tucson hiding in plain sight.
I was the VP of finance, accounting, security, hotel, administration, housekeeping, you-name-it. If it didn't didn't fly, or involve a wrench, and it went wrong, I got blamed for it. Got the picture?
Now, my handy calculator tells me that was 38 years ago, and what happened on that day surprised the hell out of me, being an AF vet, it should have, because I was used airplanes going forward, manned by pilots.
Sitting at my desk, crunching numbers, a stranger walked in and said, " You Fulton?" Yup, I told him. Your headquarters sent me, I'm from the DOD (defense) and I'm here to set up a test facility for a new airplane we're going to try out and then give to the ISRAELIS.
Oh, I replied, what kind of plane, I asked. He told me that it was called a pilot less drone, small, unmanned, equipped with a tv camera to broadcast what it sees back to ISRAELI AF headquarters.
" They want to keep tabs on the Arabs beyond the mountains so there are no surprise attacks," he continued. (Oh, I thought. Makes sense to me)
He plunked down paperwork, letter of credit, orders from Foggy Bottom, I arranged what he needed and that was that.
Recently, while cruising the aisles at Walmart, I found you could buy a top shelf Drone for $50.
And, it all started at my desk.
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