Hey, everyone! We go live tomorrow with the tail of Mary Catherine. But here’s a tiny teaser.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="
title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Mary Olenchuk was only thirteen years old when she was abducted from a resort town on the coast of Maine. Her dad was an Army major general
An Army major general is a big deal. You get two stars and it’s the highest permanent peacetime rank in the army, currently you’re in charge of a division between 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers.
And Peter George Olenchuk was a big deal among Army elites. He was in charge of a United States Army program back in the 1960s.
The operation? It was controversial like so many things governments and militaries do across the world. But this one was pretty big time controversial, allegedly riling up student groups, congressmen and governors.
This one was all about getting rid of nerve gas rockets. And eight million tons of nerve gas. The Army decided that these outdated rockets had to be disposed of. So they disposed them off the coast of Florida. To be vaguely fair, it was hundreds of miles off the coast, but it was still a big dump.
Not of the poopy kind.
They called this Operation CHASE and chase was an acronym for Cut Holes and Sink “em and it was part of the Chemical Warfare division of the Army. With a college major in biology and minor in chemistry, Peter became a major general back in 1972 and retired in 1975, ages and ages ago. But in the 1990s he was a consultant for the Army and private businesses and was on a ton of boards the way rich people often are.
It sounds pretty interesting, right? Or at least it’s good information for an obituary. But the thing is that Peter George Olenchuck from Bayonne, New Jersey didn’t really become part of popular culture because of the Army or Operation Chase or because he did two tours of duty in Vietnam and also served in North Africa in World War Two.
The short man, who was known to wear glasses and to have a pretty pleasant attitude became part of podcasts and popular knowledge, sparking debate well after his death in 2000 because of a thirteen-year-old girl.