More About John W. Aiken

Hello, my name is John W. Aiken, Jr., thank you for visiting my campaign website. The Primary Election is fast approaching and while there's qualified candidates to choose from, there’s also organized special interest groups who don’t have your best interests in mind.
A little about myself, I’m a son of a veteran, who's also a son of a veteran. I come from a long military lineage on my father’s side. His ancestors defended what would be our country before it even gained its independence.
My family arrived with William Penn as colonists in the 1670s-80s and settled in Pennsylvania. William Penn granted my early ancestor the lifetime right to brew beer and distill whiskey. I have seen this document at the National Archives. After the French and Indian War, Delaware and Maryland was broken off from Pennsylvania. My family then operated a tavern called Aiken's Tavern in Delaware’s New Castle region. Taverns were like inns in those days where people could find shelter, food, and news. Slowly, settlers built their homes around the tavern and Aikentown was formed before the Revolutionary War started. Back in those days everyone in America were British subjects and our future states were still colonies. The French and British had their colonies in Canada and the Spanish had theirs in Florida and Cuba. (The oldest city in the United States is St. Augustine in Florida. It was founded in 1565.)
Like my family, there were a lot of people already here in what would be the future United States of America. Whenever I hear someone say that our country is a nation of immigrants it tells me that they’ve never read past early 20th Century history. There is a big difference between colonists and immigrants.
My life experiences and education formed who I am. The two most influential factors in my life are my parents. My father was the disciplinarian and he did everything the military way since that’s all he ever knew. My father’s father served in the Army Calvary in World World I. I even pursued a career in the military at one time.
I was born at Shaw AFB, South Carolina, and David, my brother, was born at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, another US Army base. Growing up my brother and I shared a life of never being in one place for long as we were deployed to many different places in the United States and overseas. I saw a lot early in my life and learned to understand God, country, duty, and service. I experienced heart-breaking loss and know the hardships brought on from the loss of the family bread winner. I’ve known racism and I’ve seen miracles of faith. God tells us to pray often and to be specific in prayer, he also wants us to pray for our leaders and enemies, above all he wants us to always have hope.

MY FATHER and HIS FAMILY

My father was born in Columbia, South Carolina. He grew up with three brothers and three sisters. They grew up during the Great Depression. Life was hard in those days. My grandfather worked in a cotton gin mill and supported his large family until his death in 1956 when I was four years old. I don’t remember much of South Carolina, except with how much abusive white people treated black people back then. As I was so little I didn’t understand why.
I was raised by a black woman who my grandfather hired to attend the house. This lady was like a second mother to me and I loved her. She would feed me, rock me, and sing hymns to me. I’m sure her acts of kindness played a part in my development in life. I remember crying when she went home.
I have memories of the early days of NASCAR and my father’s brothers would race their hot rods on weekends at the local track. When World War II started, my father’s older brothers went off to serve. My father’s three sisters joined the WAVES and WAC. My grandfather eldest son, William, Jr, had a college education and was an Army commissioned officer during the war. One brother served in the Navy on a destroyer in the Pacific campaign. My father was 14 at that time and he ran away from home and joined the US Army. He served almost a year before they caught him and sent him back home to my grandfather. Since he already went through basic training and served almost a year, with my grandfather’s written permission, the US Army allowed him to reenlist when he turned 16.
My father wanted to work on airplanes so he joined the US Army Air Force. My father was in the USAF until the day he died. He just loved working on planes and often would take me with him to watch and/or play on the planes at the hanger. When I was little I got to sit in the pilot’s seat on many fighter jets. During the Vietnam War, when the F4C Phantom Fighter Jet came out, they were delivered in crates from General Electric. A crew of mechanics would then spend several days assembling it. The first crate was delivered on a Friday. My father assembled it all by himself over the weekend. When Monday morning arrived, there was an operating, brand new F4C fighter jet waiting for a pilot to try it out. The Air Force was so amazed that he assembled it all by himself over a weekend that they gave him a commendation and had him show everyone how to do it. For 26 years my father served our country in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. I saw pictures he took of the destruction in Europe. My father never talked about what he did in the wars but told me war is hell.
As I got older and understood what the medals were that my father had on his uniform, I discovered that he fought in the European and Pacific campaigns of WWII. He had two or three battle stars and other foreign wars medals, so I know he was active in many battles. He once told me about a time in Saigon when a kid parked his bicycle laden with explosives next to a bar that service men would frequent. It went off killing and wounding many GIs and civilians. He was fortunate to escape unharmed.
In 1969, at the age of 41, he died from a massive heart attack.

MY MOTHER and HER FAMILY

My mother is the opposite of my father. She didn’t swear, drink, or smoke like he did. She also had a college education, which my father didn’t. My mother is Japanese and was born in Fukuoka, Japan. Her father (my grandfather) was employed in the Forestry Service. He sold his birth-right of farm land for a college education. In college he met my grandmother who came from a samurai family who had previously served the Emperor’s family. She wore the Lotus blossom print on her clothes to show that she has some royal blood, but because of tradition only her and no one else in her family could. My grandmother had a life of leisure and died as she approached 100, missing it by a couple of months.
During World War II, my mother got a scholarship to go to Nagasaki University. She wanted to be a music teacher, but that dream ended on August 9, 1945 when the atomic bomb destroyed the City of Nagasaki, Japan. My mother was far enough away to not immediately suffer from the destruction and blast. I often think that if that B-29 carrying the bomb was a few second sooner, or later, I may have never existed. I have talked with her about that day but the memory brings her too much pain. She starts crying and I can see the hurt. When I was little, I remember her hating to see war movies.
While stationed in Japan during the Korean War, my father met my mother. I once asked my mom why she married an American when they destroyed her city and caused so much suffering? My mom said that my father was a good man and he didn’t bomb the city. It was a war that nobody wanted, but couldn’t do anything to stop.
When my father was gone to war, she would take over the role as parent. My mother taught me about music, art, and literature. When my father died, she went back to college and got her Associates of Art degree in Cosmetology from Spokane Community College, which was very hard for her to do since English is not her native language. She opened her beauty shop in the Fox Theater Building on South Monroe and was there for decades. She invested in the stock market and silver bullion with her earnings. Eventually, she bought rental properties and laundry mats and became a successful business woman in a time when women had a disadvantage in society. My mother taught me how to operate and manage a business. She also taught me that nothing is beyond reach and you shouldn’t give up just because someone tells you it can’t be done. It can be done with perseverance and hard work.

MY GRADUATE SCHOOL YEARS

When I was accepted to graduate school at Eastern Washington University, I didn’t go for an easy quick degree. I saw graduate school as an opportunity to do my own research on things that mattered most to me, being an explorer and scientist. Nowhere else could I have immediate access to the scientific equipment I needed for what I was studying. I also had access to any book in the world library through the student loan system.
Much of the material written on my research came from Russian scientists who were ahead of us in this research. The equipment I used was for determining the genesis of our universe through the study of meteorites. To properly study meteorites chemically and cryptographically you need a lot of sophisticated equipment. Used was expensive to operate x-ray diffraction and fluorescence, optical spectroscopy, electrons microscopes, colorimetry, electron microprobe, atomic absorption, neutron bombardment, and inductive coupling plasma devices. Unfortunately very few were around.
Eastern Washington University let me use their equipment for free since I was their graduate student. However I had to pay for instrument usage at Washington State University where I spent many weekends at night renting their equipment. I logged 120 hours of instrument time on my research project just from Washington State University alone. I have no idea how much lab time I put in at Eastern Washington University’s lab. I did most my studies on x-rays, and I used the expensive inductive coupled plasma and atomic absorption testing to standardize my results for accuracy. It became unnecessary for me to use these expensive testing equipment as I refined the accuracy of the cheaper x-ray and electron microprobe testing equipment. My work did not go unnoticed by geochemists and their graduate students that ran the expensive equipment for me and was drawing interest in my samples that had properties that no one every thought would be there.
I have been a mineral and fossil collector almost all my life. I’ve collected many different rocks, minerals, fossils, and meteorites when I go out into the field. I would gather so many that it was difficult to store and protect them from damage, so I started to sell my duplicates and the specimens I didn't want. This is when I started my own gem and mineral business. It took me to Arizona Pow-Wows and the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in January and February of each year. All the mineral and jewelry manufacturers in the world attended those two annual events, including world museums curators and buyers. It’s not unusual for valuable and/or rare minerals or fossils to be sold for only a few dollars while they should have sold at the hundreds of thousands to million dollar range. Going to these shows only made my interest in collecting expand further, and I would trade or buy minerals and fossils from different areas to sell to other collectors.
I got my wholesale and retail certification and I became a type of broker for other collectors and sellers. I got interested in faceting stones and lapidary (work involved in engraving, cutting, or polishing stones) for the jewelry retail market. I learned more about it at Spokane Community College. I studied Jewelry Retailing from the Gemological Institute of America. I learned how to grade pearls, diamonds, and colored stones for appraising replacement value. I got very skilled and competed at the Master Level in gemstone faceting. As my reputation and business activities grew, it opened more doors for me and I found myself sorting through gem parcels called sites. I would sit on a light table sorting uncut diamonds, emerald, sapphires, and garnets that mine owners wanted to sell. I got to hold the sixth largest diamond in the world and a $300K goose egg sized black opal from Virgin Valley, Nevada that the Smithsonian Museum bought from the guy who found it.
One day many years ago I found a piece of what is called float rock. Prospectors look for float rock to get a clue of what geologically is in an area that they’re prospecting in. It helped my lab work as I looked for the geochemical signature that could lead me to a pegmatite (a coarse crystalline granite or other igneous rock with crystals several centimeters to several meters in length) somewhere in northeastern Washington State. These pegmatites could yield gem grade emeralds and garnets. I figured that there must be others and started to look for pegmatites all through northeastern Washington. I went to 38 locations and took many samples for study. In Okanogan County, Washington I found a chunk of black float rock with emeralds all over it! This float rock reminded me of the matrix rock in the famous Muzo and Chivor mines of Columbia, where the world best quality of emeralds are mined. I also discovered the kin of emerald, aquamarine. (It’s blue instead of green, however an aquamarine can be green and look like an emerald but emeralds have trace amounts of the element chromium in it, and aquamarines don’t.) I also found some tiny gem grade red and orange garnets along with some green tourmaline in some of the pegmatites. I was originally looking for emeralds, but my research for using geochemical signatures for prospecting discovered something that shouldn't have been there and now the scientific community was aware of this from testing my samples for me.
My research took years to do and is worthy of a PhD, not just a MS degree that I would have received, if I gave them my thesis. I figured I spent in 1984 dollars about $10K from my own savings and earnings to fund my studies in Washington State geology. What I have is no longer for the public domain, but is proprietary information. If I submit my study for my thesis, I would give it to the world and somebody else would take my data to make their own discoveries. This is why I did not submit my thesis. However I did the next thing, I incorporated my own mining and processing companies to exploit my discoveries for my own personal gain. I staked mining claims on the best ground that I knew of and prepared to look for financial backing to get it going.
I no longer concentrate on science but instead for good old capitalism, and that which benefits Washington State.

John Aiken’s Work Experience Record

John Aiken’s School and Military History

John Aiken’s Scouting Accomplishments