The whole story. with Terry's permission
The story starts with Nancy’s secretary receiving a phone call from the White House (WH), asking to speak with Dr Anderson, they were informed that Nancy wasn’t in her office; she was in fact at home. They asked for Nancy’s home phone number and LuAnn refused, after repeated calls, and with the WH stating that it was urgent that they speak with Nancy, LuAnn gave them our telephone number.
The phone rang with Nancy rushing out the door running late. Nancy answered the phone, and was informed it was the WH. Nancy’s response? “I’m running late, I don’t have time to talk right now; you’ll have to call back. She hung up on the WH.”
They called back and told Nancy that she had just been awarded the National Medal of Science. She was told that the ceremony would be held in the WH, over a two day period. Nancy immediately me asked me if I could be good in President Clinton’s presence for two days? I said, “No.” She then asked me if I would do it for her since she had just been awarded the NMS. I responded, “For you, of course I can.”
We were given a behind the scenes tour of the WH, normal tours shut down four days a year while the Christmas decorations are put up. We were allowed to go just about anywhere we wanted, and were provided with a Secret Service agent (Presidential detail), as our guide. I was excited; I presumed that I would be seeing people in uniform. Every time we turned a corner I was disappointed. There were NO uniforms, only suits. I did not see one person in military uniform in the WH. That REALLY F-ING pissed me off, and I was grumping pretty loudly about it, when our Secret Service agent took me aside, and asked me, “I was trying to get him in trouble?” My response, “No of course not, but don’t these f-ing people realize how we got a WH in the first place? That people in ragtag uniforms fought and died in order for us to have this place.” The Secret Service agent informed me that the rule is, if you are in the military, and assigned to the WH, you are ALLOWED to wear your uniform one day during the week, but they would prefer that you didn’t. I found out later that it wasn’t Bill, but in fact Hillary, who didn’t want to see military uniforms. That really pissed me off, and still f-ing does:
The next morning we arrived at the WH, with 11 other NMS awardees, the NMS was established in 1957, and has only been awarded to 374 scientists in all that time. So you guys ought to be proud of our little Nancy. Among our group were 2 Nobel Laureates, one of whom is the oldest living Nobel Laureate, he was 89:
We walked into the Oval Office single file, Nancy preceding me, she said to President Clinton, “I’m Dr Anderson, I’m from the university of Iowa and I won for my research in Biological Sciences.” I was supposed to state my name, shake his hand and move on. I was f-ing wound up, pissed off, and totally upset that people serving this country in uniform weren’t welcome in this WH:
I wore a miniature DFC in my lapel it’s visible in the picture, and I started off by telling President Clinton that, “Nancy had been the youngest professor in the history of the University of Iowa, that her Ph.D., was in English Lit, and that she taught for 5 years before attending Medical school.” The room became very quiet, I was not following protocol.
Clinton reached out to shake my hand, I ignored his hand, and pointed to the DFC, I asked him if he knew what it was? He said, “No.” I spent the next five minutes telling him why I joined the military, and why it was important for me to be able to serve MY Country in uniform. That I would have willingly given my life any number of times to protect the freedoms that he and everyone else in this country had grown up with.
President Clinton extended his hand even further, gripping my hand and squeezing it very hard, he held on for the longest time, I was staring him directly in the eye, and his eyes teared up slightly, it was obvious that he was trying very hard to speak without his voice breaking when he was finally able to speak, he said, “THANK YOU SIR!”
There were maybe twenty people in that room, and you could have heard a pin drop on the carpet.
Later when Nancy was getting her picture taken with him, I went charging back up front, and said to Clinton, ”You just got back from Vietnam?” He said, “Yes, I did.” I said, “What did you do over there, now that the bullets have stopped?” He said, “I turned over 800,000 documents,” and continued with a whole laundry list of nothing, (in Flight School we called that "mealy mouthing") I said “You should have taken someone like me along.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Someone who would have said B.S., every once in a while when you are being told things that are patently untrue.” He then pointed to the side of his desk, where I then noticed a brick from the Hanoi Hilton with Pete Petersen’s name on it, He said, “I took Pete Petersen, Pete was a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton for seven years, and he’s now my Ambassador to Hanoi.” I said, “You should have taken John McCain.” He said, “You know John runs hot and cold on this thing.” We went at it for a few more minutes and I finally said, “You know, if you really have any information whatsoever, you need to get it out to the American people. We still have over 2000 families in this country who are still in turmoil because of the MIA/POW situation.” He said he would, thanked me again and we left the Oval Office:
There were 11 other winners besides Nancy, they were all older, were all of an age where they would not have considered refusing to serve their country (as did this President). Several of these gentlemen came up to me, and were hugging me, shaking my hand, patting me on the back, telling me how proud they were of what I had said to the President. A couple of minutes later the door to the Oval Office opened up, and the President's National Science Advisor, walked up to me and said , “The President asked me to convey to you his personal thanks, for the forthright, and honest dialogue you two shared.”
Later when Nancy was getting her picture taken with him, I went charging back up front, and said to Clinton, ”You just got back from Vietnam?” He said, “Yes, I did.” I said, “What did you do over there, now that the bullets have stopped?” He said, “I turned over 800,000 documents,” and continued with a whole laundry list of nothing, (in Flight School we called that "mealy mouthing") I said “You should have taken someone like me along.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Someone who would have said B.S., every once in a while when you are being told things that are patently untrue.” He then pointed to the side of his desk, where I then noticed a brick from the Hanoi Hilton with Pete Petersen’s name on it, He said, “I took Pete Petersen, Pete was a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton for seven years, and he’s now my Ambassador to Hanoi.” I said, “You should have taken John McCain.” He said, “You know John runs hot and cold on this thing.” We went at it for a few more minutes and I finally said, “You know, if you really have any information whatsoever, you need to get it out to the American people. We still have over 2000 families in this country who are still in turmoil because of the MIA/POW situation.” He said he would, thanked me again and we left the Oval Office:
There were 11 other winners besides Nancy, they were all older, were all of an age where they would not have considered refusing to serve their country (as did this President). Several of these gentlemen came up to me, and were hugging me, shaking my hand, patting me on the back, telling me how proud they were of what I had said to the President. A couple of minutes later the door to the Oval Office opened up, and the President's National Science Advisor, walked up to me and said , “The President asked me to convey to you his personal thanks, for the forthright, and honest dialogue you two shared.”
I rolled my eyes at that, because I thought he hadn’t liked it worth a shit. Dr Lane got a little annoyed at this, and said, “Well, the President of The United States, didn’t have to send me out here.” He then went on to say, “You would be surprised at how many people just say Yes Sir, and No Sir, to that man, you did not, you told him some things he needed to hear, you were a breath of fresh air in there, and for that he thanks you.”
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