Mark Gagnon

But today I'll be giving you the brief on who this guy was, what he did, and how he met his untimely demise.

Now, before we dive into the death of Frank Olson, we need to understand what was actually going on.

because his story doesn't start in a lab or in a CIA meeting room.

This story ultimately starts in Wisconsin, where Frank Olson grew up.

And from an early age, he showed interest in two things that would eventually define his career.

One, a curiosity about how the natural world worked.

And two, a talent for solving problems that other people found impossible.

He wasn't

rebellious necessarily as a kid.

He wasn't particularly like political.

He was just the kind of kid who would take things apart to understand how they worked and then rebuild them even better than before.

And that mindset ultimately led him into the sciences.

He went on to earn a bachelor's degree and then a master's degree and then a PhD in bacteriology, the study of literally bacteria.

And by the time he finished grad school, World War II had busted out and was already well underway.

And the U.S.

government was actively recruiting scientists who could help build a new generation of weapons and defenses.

Now, Frank Olson was the exact kind of person that they wanted.

He was brilliant and methodical and, above all, patriotic.

He's someone who trusted the government and believed that national security depended on scientific innovation.

And that's how he ended up at Fort Detrick in Maryland, the epicenter of America's biological warfare research hub.