I Can Dig It
Thomas Calabrese …. Mohawk Indians have an impressive history of being fearless and adept iron workers. Seven generations of this special breed of men have climbed halfway to the heavens on two foot wide steel girders with a steady gait and unwavering balance to create monuments of architecture. Their contributions to the construction industry include the; Empire State Building, Time Warner Building, Rockefeller Center, Chrysler Building and most of the bridges in the New York area. Countless projects around the country had Mohawk ironworkers on their construction crews.
Even more distinguished and awe inspiring is the legacy of the iconic Rockman family. Every major underground construction project in the world over the past several centuries had either had a Rockman personally involved or used the innovative engineering technology developed by the Rockman brain trust.
Benjamin Rockman was technical advisor to General George Washington during the Revolutionary War and had already completed a tunnel under the Potomac just in case General Washington couldn’t make it across by boat. During the Civil War, President Lincoln pleaded with George Rockman to dig a tunnel under the field of Gettysburg, allowing General Grant and his entire army to come up behind the Confederate forces and defeat them in battle. This was the turning point in the War.
Teddy Roosevelt contacted Caleb Rockman in early June 1898 and asked him to build a tunnel for American troops and Cavalry during the Spanish American War. Three weeks later on July 1, 1898, many of the famed Rough Riders rode through a tunnel that was large enough for them and their horses to the top of San Juan Hill.
When world renowned magician, Harry Houdini was working on a new trick to escape from a coffin that would be buried ten feet underground, he called on Cecille Rockman to help him develop an escape plan. Members of the Rockman family designed the New York subway, as well as the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels. During World War II, Adolf Hitler became so paranoid and delusional when he thought that Errol Rockman was tunneling into his supposedly impenetrable mountain fortress, “The Eagle’s Nest” that he committed suicide.
In the late 1950’s and 1960’s, there were a rash of coal mining accidents in the country and Wyatt Rockman was called in to evaluate the safety procedures and construction of current mines in the Appalachian area. After his suggestions were implemented, mining accidents dropped by over ninety percent. The songwriting couple of Boudleax and Felice Bryant, descendants of coal miners wrote the song, Rocky Top Tennessee in 1967 as a tribute to Wyatt for his contribution to the miners and their families.
John Rockman won the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War. He went into an enemy tunnel near the city of Hue with only a three foot length of piano wire and a K-Bar knife and for six days, he strangled, stabbed or captured every enemy soldier that he came across. No sooner did he exit the underground military complex that he began construction on a tunnel under the DMZ, from South to North Vietnam. The war ended before it was completed and the construction project was designated a historical site by the Vietnamese people and is still visited by thousands of tourists yearly. He was the commanding officer of the “Tunnel Rat Brigade”, the most decorated unit in the Vietnam War. North Vietnamese soldiers fearfully referred to the underground warriors as the “Muddy Vipers.”
Roscoe Rockman, famous spelunker and cave explorer spends so much time underground that he can communicate with bats and see in total darkness. His brother Oscar Rockman, a professor at Mira Costa College has taken the traditions of his family and elevated them to astronomical levels. Holding P.H.D’.s in geology, archeology, seismology, gemology as well as nuclear, electrical and mechanical engineering. Oscar is a multi- billionaire many times over. Having an uncanny instinct in finding precious minerals, he has accumulated tons of gold, silver, plutonium and diamonds. It has often been said that Oscar Rockman could find valuable mineral deposits easier than an Oceanside surfer can find water under the city pier. He readily admits to feeling more comfortable being three hundred feet underground with tons of dirt and rock over him than being in a high rise penthouse with a panoramic view.
Ronald Rockman was the chief engineer on the thirty –one mile Channel Tunnel that connects Folkestone Kent, England with Coquelles Pas de-Calais in France He developed the innovative technology that allowed the tunnel to be built 790 feet below sea level without any leakage.
Clark Rockman developed a nuclear powered land submarine with a laser drill assembly that could cut through solid rock easier than a hot knife can cut through a bowl of oatmeal. In a field test Rockman traveled underground from Los Angeles to Boston without surfacing in less than two weeks. Clark then volunteered his services to NASA to explore the cores of various planets in the solar system. He hollowed out a mountain in the Sierra Nevada region of Lake Tahoe for his primary residence and keeps a vacation home inside the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii.
Louise Rockman is the only woman in the world to have ever skied down a lava flow. She strives not only to make the world a better place to live, but the entire universe as well. She is currently working with private companies to build underground cities on the planet Mars for inhabitation by earth’s citizens.
In 2010, a copper and gold mine in San Jose, Chili collapsed, trapping 33 miners, 2300 feet underground. Randall Rockman immediately responded to the international SOS and after arrival, he informed the mine owners and the country of Chili about the innovative rescue technique that his family developed for such a situation. The authorities deemed it too great a risk, when in reality, it was a politically motivated decision and they refused the offer, choosing instead to go with more conventional and less effective rescue procedures. After sixty eight days of failures, mine owners pleaded with Randall to enact the rescue. A lesser man would have denied their request, but Randall would never place his ego above the safety and welfare of the miners so on day 69, Randall rescued all 33 miners without any serious injuries. The entire extraction took less than eleven hours to complete and Randall left the country without hesitation.
Joseph Rockman is a consultant with the United States Border Patrol and is often called upon to detect tunnels that are used by drug smugglers and human traffickers. He designed plans to render the tunnels useless and has been one hundred per cent successful in his endeavors. When there was excessive terrorist activity in the Achin District of Nangarhar, Afghanistan, Joseph developed a plan for the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast to be dropped on an Islamic State cave complex. The exact location and altitude of the detonation of the “mother of all bombs” was meticulously calculated to ensure maximum efficiency. The extensive cave complex was thoroughly destroyed and one hundred ISIS fighters were killed.
When terrorists captured the now defunct San Onofre Nuclear power plant, along with dozens of workers that were working on the decommissioning process, The Department of Defense and Nuclear Regulatory Commission called the Rockman Organization for assistance. Even though the facility was no longer in operation, the power plant still posed a significant risk to residents in the surrounding areas of San Clemente, Oceanside and Camp Pendleton if the terrorists were able to use the uranium from the spent fuel rods to make a bomb. Time was of the essence and the Rockman Emergency Response Team headed to Camp Pendleton from their headquarters in Minden, Nevada.
It was determined that the best way to enter the besieged facility was from the east side of Interstate Five near the San Onofre mobile home park on base. Even though members of the Rockman family were also highly trained operators in the art of counter terrorism as well as underground construction, they still decided that it was best to bring a Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance team with them for back up when they entered the facility.
They burrowed to a depth of two hundred feet with the Rockman Prototype 643 land submarine then headed west and with their precise navigational equipment and came up in the middle of reactor number one. The thickness of the walls silenced any sound from the turbo powered engines.
In some places the concrete walls were six feet thick, but this posed little difficulty to the Rockmans who cut through the wall in a matter of minutes with their laser saws. They were able to catch the terrorists by surprise, just minutes before they were able to contaminate the area with nuclear material. After regaining control of the San Onofre power plant, the land submarine was loaded on to a flatbed truck and the Rockman Team flew out by helicopter. There was no time for celebration because there would always be another mission, rescue or impossible challenge waiting just over the horizon for the family who soars to new heights by digging to new depths. Rock on, Rockmans!! The End