Chapter 1
The chair in which the man had been sitting protested rather loudly as he stood up relieving it of its burden. His clothes were rumpled and gave the impression he had slept in them. The odd reality was that he hadnt slept for almost three days. He absent-mindedly went over to the window as he had done on several occasions during the past few days. Remaining motionless, he stared out the window for almost thirty minutes. This is insane, he thought. You havent any other choice, came the reply from within his head. His mouth tightened into a thin line across his face. He had experienced this same mental battle more than a few times during the past several weeks. He wondered how he had gotten to this point as his mind wandered back to the beginning.
He was born James Robert Jenson on August 2, 1919 to Senator Robert T. and Mary C. Jenson. He weighed in at nine pounds five and one-half ounces and was twenty-two inches long at birth. The family he had entered was very politically oriented. His grandfather had been the governor of Texas for three terms and his father had just begun his second term of office as a U.S. Senator when James made his grand entrance. His parents had decided that one child was enough because of their ages at his birth.
The first few years went by quickly. He remembered that he had been noticeably taller than the rest of the children his age throughout most of his early years. This had been an advantage and a hindrance at the same time. At the age of seven his classmates began to call him J.R. He liked it. He could run faster, throw straighter, and jump farther than any of his classmates. This allowed him the privilege of being picked first every time when his class played a match-up game. Everything was great until the accident. He had been crossing the parallel bars and lost his grip halfway across. He fell approximately four feet and landed in such a manner that he lost his balance. The forward momentum caused him to break his right kneecap.
He was in a cast for almost six months. It was never quite the same after that. He couldnt perform at the same level as he had done prior to the accident. He began to change slowly from within as he watched the other kids play in the months that followed. They didnt pick him to participate in the games they played as they had before. He began to spend more time with his father to hide the bitterness he was beginning to feel. That was when the name that he hated came into existence. He had attended a fund raising party with his parents and was following behind his father when one of his fathers campaign workers said, Look at that. Theres Big Bob and Little Bob. Everyone laughed. It was comical at first to him, but that changed soon after. He began to hear snide remarks and this hurt.
By that time the name had stuck and it would follow him around like a lost puppy from that time on. He knew that it wasnt his fathers fault, but he hated that name. It made him feel small then and even more so as the years went by. He retained a slight limp throughout his teenage years that kept him from participating in the sports he loved. All running sports were out of the question, as well as any, which put pressure on the knee. He tried golf briefly, but became bored with it after a few weeks. The feeling of bitterness got stronger as he realized that he would never be able to participate as he once had. He realized at the age of sixteen that he would follow in his fathers political footsteps, as he had done at that party following his eighth birthday.
Two years later, he graduated from high school. He had not been in the top percentile, or in the lower, but right in the middle. He longed for recognition, but it seemed to elude him wherever he went. He started college immediately after high school majoring in political science. The courses were easy for him because of his background. His memory was excellent. His father had once commented that next to him an elephant had amnesia.
Remembering dates and names connected to those dates proved to be an invaluable tool for success. The professors for the most part were impressed by his hunger for knowledge. His fellow classmates did not embrace this feeling and he found himself alone as he made the journey through his college years at the University of Texas. Four years later, he graduated with honors with a BA degree in Political Science.
He began to work for his father. His entire four years at college had allowed him the fantasy of thinking that his despised nickname was a thing of the past and that he would be able to outgrow it as an adult. That idea was shattered three days after he began work by the very same man who had tagged that name on him several years earlier. It began to spread like a swarm of locusts just as it had the first time. It did not matter to them that he was taller than his father now. Little Bob did not want to cause any friction in his fathers organization, so he kept those feelings bottled within him. He knew he would not be staying in this position very long.
Then the inevitable happened. War was declared in Europe. Despite his fathers attempts to exempt him from military duty, he was drafted on May 19th of 1942. His fathers political influence allowed him to be selected as an observer, rather than a participant. He entered the military at the rank of first lieutenant because of his educational background. During the next three years he was promoted three times and attained the rank of Lt. Colonel by the end of the war. His primary job was liaison officer to the higher-ranking officers within the allied command. To most men, this would have been a prestigious position. However, Little Bob viewed himself as nothing more than a glorified flunky. He was required to obtain whatever these officers would need or request. He learned a great deal while accomplishing the requests.
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