Page 85 - Lunacy and the Age of Deception

and that night they slept in my bed.

It was a real long night. I don't think I got much sleep, but when I did I had changed sides of the bed.
I don't know if I thought I was going to be closer to Roger by sleeping on his side, but it meant a lot
to me at the time. Roger was buried on Jan. 31. After the funeral I slept with the flag that had been
draped over his coffin. It was the last thing that was closest to him, and it was a comfort...

For a year I went through all sorts of processes. At first I was afraid of the unknown. My life had
changed dramatically overnight; I guess I was scared that sort of thing would happen again. Then
I went through a period thinking that no other tragedy could happen to me because it already had.
It's a false padding of your feelings, but it happens. The one thing that really got to me was that
Roger never made it into space. It was something he wanted to do so much.

There were comforts too. For example, people appreciated that Roger and the others were killed
going into new frontiers. I got such moving letters from schoolchildren. My No. 1 help had to be
prayer. I prayed out loud, and it calmed me and reinforced things for me. I prayed for strength and
for direction. I remember somebody telling me that death was like a little child going to sleep on the
couch and his parent going and getting him and putting him in his own bed. I thought it was such
a beautiful transition, the Father getting Roger and putting him in his right place. That helped me
an awful lot.

So did my family and friends. They just had a sense of knowing when I was down. Sometimes I would
be sobbing uncontrollably, and they would help me get those feelings out, and other times they'd
distract me. Betty Grissom and Pat White were going through their process. We visited each other
on occasion. Knowing that we were going through some of the same emotions was reassuring.
[Source: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20093022,00.html]

In the wake of the Apollo 1 fire, Congressional investigations were convened. One man who was
called upon to testify was Thomas Baron. Baron was a quality control and safety officer for North
American Aviation (NAA). In January of 1967 Baron presented a 57 page report to NASA citing
discrepancies, failures, and numerous irregularities he had witnessed while working at Kennedy
Space Center. NAA managers acknowledged that some of Baron’s concerns had merit, while
discounting the majority of what he wrote. Baron, dissatisfied with NASA and NAA’s response to
his concerns, leaked the report to the press. He was subsequently fired.

Thomas Baron was called to testify before a Congressional subcommittee investigating the fire. He
prepared a 500 page report and delivered it to the committee members where he also provided
spoken testimony. The committee members ostensibly determined his report was too lengthy to print
as part of their official record. They therefore categorized it as an “exhibit” which did not require it
to be entered into the Congressional record. Six days later, Baron, his wife and stepdaughter were
all killed in what was reported to be an accident when their automobile was struck by a train at a
crossing. Baron’s 500 page report was subsequently “lost” and Congress states to this day that they
do not know what happened to it.

At the time Baron gave his testimony to Congress he was questioned by a television reporter about
whether there had been any pressure on him by NASA. He responded that both he and his wife had