All stories have a beginning, before the first words are even written. The idea that germinates for years, in the heart before the mind brings it into form. This story really began in the Presidential campaign of 1960 and the few but fertile years that followed. Fertile because they inseminated in the upcoming generation a drive to either enter public service, or to understand that they ought to be part of the fabric that constitutes what our country is destined to be at the highest level of idealism, and selflessness, instead of the lowest level of self-interest and duplicity.

The plot of a story, at least this story, is secondary to that premise, serving only to affirm the continuing importance of commitment to our country in particular, and to mankind in general.