Frank Burns

Remember Frank Burns from MASH? He lives in the flesh and was part of the IAC. Burns was the Chief Moralizer at the IAC. At work, I had a picture of my daughter on my screensaver which I would update as I got new pictures. She was four at the time, and kids at that age change almost daily. Burns had a picture of his wife and daughter on his screensaver. He told me that I wasn’t a good husband because I only had my daughter on my screensaver! I told him that I know what my wife looks like, but my daughter changes in appearance almost monthly. Didn’t cut any ice. Burns would stream music onto his computer while working. Trouble is, the bandwidth was so big that everyone else’s computers locked up. You couldn’t get on the internet or send messages. It took a bit of snooping to find the culprit. Burns was the IAC Intel Officer. Christine worked for him. To his credit, he did outstanding work and his unclassified reports were much sought after by the NGO community. He and Christine went to lunch together from time to time. Finally, he put a stop to it telling her that it wasn’t right for her to be tempted into relations with a married man! She was taller than him. He was about 5 foot 6, shaved his head, and looked like Dr. Evil in an Austin Powers movie (ironic, no?). He was the moral monitor of the IAC. He didn’t live in our house (we wouldn’t let him, besides, it was a “den of iniquity” and he wouldn’t live there anyway). BUT, remember Ashraf and Dina? Well, he apparently began to approach Dina shortly after her dustup with Ashraf. He maintains that he was trying to “help her”, but she complained to us that he was stalking her. This was the same guy that admonished me one day because Sally and I took out an SUV and spent the day in downtown Baghdad in civilian clothes (there was a lot of that early on – inconceivable now). On another occasion, a car bomb exploded way off in the distance in the middle of our daily brief to the assembled NGO’s in one of the auditoriums in the Convention Center. Burns was sitting next to me. He sprung out of his chair, rolled on the floor, pulled his 9mm, cocked it, and sat in a crouching position with pistol aimed at the door. Scared the shit out of the NGO’s! Attendance dropped off after that. As the IAC Intelligence Officer, he was responsible for the SIPR room, the place were we had secure internet and safes with classified information. One morning, he forgot his key. Being a little guy, he had his driver start kicking the door down, which he did after several tries. He explained that he had to get into the SIPR room to get some information for a briefing. So the SIPR room with its destroyed door was no longer secure. The thing is, I rolled in 30 minutes later with a key for that door on my key ring. All he had to do was call me and I would have come to work early that day. Psycho. Finally, when it came to going outside the wire, he was just plain chickenshit. It got so bad that I had to ask Colonel Edwards to order him to go on missions. My guys were getting fatigued by having to go out all the time with no relief.
Burns at last check lived in the DC area. He hasn't been invited to any reunions.