Within Arm's Length: A Secret Service Agent's Definitive Inside Account of Protecting the President (13 page)

Monday, August 22, 1988 found me and five other CAT hopefuls standing in the gym at the Secret Service training center in Beltsville preparing to take the CAT physical fitness test. Almost everyone who washed out of CAT training did so as the result of failing one event on this test, usually the pull-ups or the run. In order to pass the test, a student had to do ten dead-hang pull-ups, followed by forty perfect locked-out push-ups in one minute, followed by forty perfect-form sit-ups in one minute. Form was paramount in these events, and any repetition that did not meet the standards of the instructor’s staff was not counted. These events were followed by the 1.5-mile run, which had to be completed in less than ten minutes and thirty seconds. At the conclusion of the run, the candidates returned to the gym, where all upper-body events were repeated, this time with the pull-ups done using the opposite hand position that had been used in the first set. For example, if the first set was done palms facing out, the next ten had to be done with palms facing in. All events were video-recorded for the record should a student fail and protest.

I had essentially been training for this test my entire adult life without knowing it. In the Marine Corps, pull-ups and running were the two main areas of fitness, and all marines feel as if they were born on a pull-up bar. While I had no pull-up bar to train on at home, I improvised by doing them on the open stairs at my apartment. If one stood underneath the stairwell and gripped the rear of a step underhanded, it made a pretty decent pull-up bar. Each day for the past two years I had trained under those stairs with the hope it would one day pay off. Now that time had come, and when my turn came to do pull-ups I was so jacked up with adrenaline and years of pent-up frustration over various delays in fulfilling my destiny, I practically vaulted myself through the ceiling on the first rep. In order to assure the required perfect form I did the ten pull-ups overhanded, practically in slow motion, coming to a complete dead hang for at least one second. The push-ups and sit-ups were easy, and when it came time for the run, I exploded off of the starting line like a Thoroughbred at the Kentucky Derby, almost expending all my energy by the halfway point in the run. While reaching the halfway point in near record time, I was so depleted that I almost failed the run, finishing at 10:20. Just ten seconds separated me from continuing in the program or going home. It was too damned close, and I vowed from that point on to pace myself a little better for the remainder of the school.

CAT school was three weeks long in those days, each week consisting of six training days, with each day running about twelve hours. The most difficult part of training was weapons qualification.

During this period, the standard Secret Service agent was required to qualify with a 210 out of a possible 300 points for each issued weapon. CAT agents, on the other hand, were required to score a minimum of 270 out of a possible 300, or 90 percent, with the M16 rifle, MP5 submachine gun, and the Sig Sauer pistol.

The CAT courses of fire for these weapons incorporated almost impossible time requirements along with multiple magazine changes that challenged anyone with less than near-perfect motor skills. Failure to meet qualifications with one weapons system constituted total failure. For CAT students, failure to qualify meant going home without a graduation certificate. For operational CAT agents, it meant leaving the program short of tour. In CAT, weapons proficiency was everything.

The M16 rifle and MP5 submachine gun courses of fire consisted of sixty rounds that began at the hundred-yard line. Within eighty seconds of facing a target, the CAT student was required to fire ten rounds from the standing position, execute a magazine change while transitioning to the kneeling position, where he fired ten more rounds, followed by an additional magazine change, with the final ten rounds fired from the prone position. The student then moved to the fifty-yard line, where he fired five rounds standing, then dropped to the kneeling position for five more rounds in a ten-second time period. The final phase of fire was at the five-yard line, where the student fired a magazine of ten rounds, two rounds at a time within three seconds each time he faced the automatic targets. This was followed by a magazine change, and then ten more rounds were fired on full automatic in bursts of two to three rounds. Failure to fire all rounds in the allotted time resulted in five points deducted for each saved round, and thirty points was the maximum that could be dropped.

The course of fire for the pistol was equally challenging, with the last six rounds being fired at fifty yards. Anyone who has fired a handgun can appreciate the difficulty of hitting a human torso–sized target from a distance equal to half a football field. Yet this is what every agent in CAT is capable of doing.

This was anything but target shooting at the neighborhood range where a person has unlimited time. The goal in CAT firearms training was to be surgically accurate while laying down a heavy volume of fire and demonstrating the motor skills necessary to conduct magazine changes in almost no time flat. Over time, with the firing of thousands of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of magazine changes, these skills become imbedded into the muscle memory so that in a crisis, when there is no time to think, training takes over.

Learning to quickly clear a malfunctioning weapon was also a critical part of the training, and we practiced clearing these stoppages until our hands literally bled. A CAT agent’s primary weapon is the Colt M4 carbine, a variation of the M16 rifle. If one of these weapons malfunctions the team is now down one rifle, which can easily mean the difference is success or failure of mission as well as the life of the agent with the now useless piece. It is paramount to get the weapon up and running in short order.

The standard M4 malfunction drill taught by the Secret Service begins with the slapping of the magazine base with the heel of the shooting hand to ensure that the magazine is properly seated and that the top round on the magazine follower is in the proper position. M4 magazine bases tend to have sharp edges that can and did slice the palm of the hand. This drill was repeated sometimes up to fifty times consecutively or until the instructors felt the response was becoming automatic. After raw flesh was exposed on the hand from scores of magazine slaps, the student then looked forward to doing more push-ups that ground the bleeding hand into the pavement of the range. In the summer heat, with our hands constantly exposed to dirt, grease, and weapons solvent, everyone’s shooting hand became infected and swollen. Gnats and all manner of insects loved our bleeding hands and elbows.

In addition to torn hands, another memento of CAT is something known as the CAT tattoo. This occurs when a hot expended cartridge casing ejects from a rifle and lands on the sweat-coated neck of the agent to the shooter’s right. The hot piece of brass tends to stick to the skin. If it is not immediately removed, it can leave a second-degree burn—a permanent reminder of that day’s training. Today, twenty-five years after our CAT class graduated, my friend and CAT classmate Scott Marble retains such a scar on the left side of his neck.

As time progressed, the instructors made the courses of fire more difficult by requiring us to sprint a hundred yards in full kit prior to firing in order to put us into oxygen deprivation simulating the physiological combat condition of hyperventilation. Some students when placed under this stress found the relatively simple act of conducting magazine changes in both shoulder weapon and pistol to be almost impossible as they fumbled to get their weapons on line. Wearing full kit and hyperventilating while the clock is running for qualification can make the hands feel clumsy, as if one were wearing gloves.

I was the first in my class to qualify with the M16 rifle, although I did not finish first for final qualification. That honor went to my good friend and Robert Redford lookalike Craig Carlson, who, twenty-five years later, is still movie-star handsome. Others had difficulty with the rifle, especially operating the weapon under stress, and it appeared that not all were going to make it to graduation. With the expert tutelage of the best firearms instructors in the world from the Uniformed Division, however, all pulled through.

We did most of our firearms training in the mornings, when we were at our most rested state. There comes a point of diminishing returns in tactical shooting that is directly proportional to fatigue. When the instructors observed everyone’s scores in a steady decline, we stopped and cleaned weapons until they were factory-immaculate.

In the afternoons we conducted a never-ending series of immediate action drills simulating responding to an ambush both from vehicles and stationary positions.

A CAT team consisting of between five and six agents employs what is known in the military as fire team tactics. These tactics are based on the age-old but tried-and-true concepts of fire and movement and fire and maneuver. In each case, agents from the team attempt to envelope the enemy by moving out as a maneuver element while one or more agents provide cover fire for their movement. The iron rule: Never move out without cover fire. To do so is a sure way of getting killed.

We conducted this training in a crawl, walk, and run. In the crawl phase we studied diagrams of our tactics, then practiced and choreographed them in slow motion using unloaded weapons. In the walk phase we sped things up a bit by moving first at half speed and then at full speed employing both empty weapons and those loaded with blank ammunition. Here we also practiced exiting from a vehicle in response to an attack. The type of attack dictated what side of the Suburban you exited on as well as actions taken after deployment. This deployment from the vehicle by the team was triggered by the team leader’s command describing the attack, which would be: “Left, right, front, or moving.” After many, many repetitions over the first two weeks, by the third week we moved our training to Fort Meade, Maryland, where we would go to the run phase. In this, the most dangerous training in the Secret Service, we would use live ammunition.

Students under stress carrying live weapons jumped in and out of now moving vehicles—but also ran with those live weapons with a round in the chamber.

This was the phase of CAT school that has washed out more than a few. The work not only requires strength and stamina but is also a thinking man’s game. No matter how well a student had performed up until now, if he did not display the proper situational awareness he would be sent back to his field office minus a diploma. Safe weapons handling had to be second nature, and certain violations were met with dismissal. Such infractions as sweeping, or pointing a live weapon at a fellow CAT student, or, worse, not keeping the finger off the trigger until ready to fire, would result in one warning. A second violation usually spelled the end for the student. One mistake in this type of training can be fatal, and through the years, there have been many close calls, prevented from becoming fatalities only by the focused attention of the superb CAT instructors.

In addition to live-fire exercises, where we fired live ammunition scant feet past one another, I was to discover that CAT was the only school in the Secret Service in which students experienced what it was like to be shot at. Part of our realistic training involved all CAT students standing about three hundred yards downrange with an instructor firing an M1 Garand rifle chambered in 30.06 at an impact zone within mere feet of where we stood. The purpose of this exercise was to familiarize the CAT student with the sound of a bullet as it traveled almost directly toward him.

The bullet from a high-powered rifle travels faster than the speed of sound. Therefore, when being shot at, the first thing a person hears is not the sound of the weapon being fired, but the “crack” of the bullet, which sounds like a bullwhip as it goes supersonic. So, the sounds of being shot at by a high-powered rifle are “crack,” followed by “kaboom,” not just kaboom, as most would imagine. The instructor firing the M1 was an expert rifleman, and we weren’t concerned he would shoot us, although he always delighted in putting his rounds as close to us as possible without hitting someone. Close enough that we could feel the dirt from the impact of his rounds kicking up around us.

As August dragged on into September, the very long days wore on. Things became more difficult as knees continued to swell and elbows rubbed raw from firing on cement in the prone position became infected. Tempers and emotions were also being rubbed a bit raw at times, which is part of the training. CAT agents sometimes spend up to sixteen hours at a time together, confined in a Suburban, and weeks together on the road. Each student is constantly under observation from the staff, who look for breakdowns in emotional control. If a man is not a true team player and cannot get along with others under these conditions, he will not become a CAT agent. Some of us had to work on this as much as on tactics or shooting skills.

Other than one of my classmates who had survived Plebe Summer and Beast Barracks at West Point, none of my classmates were former military. CAT school was the most physically demanding thing some had yet to encounter, and few were accustomed to being verbally harassed. This was not a gentleman’s school and was very paramilitary in nature. Although everyone in the class had been an agent for at least four years, we were treated by the staff as mere trainees and were constantly harassed, although nowhere near as badly as in Staff Sergeant McLean’s program. For me it was like old times, although no one told me I was crazier than the enigmatic shit-house rat of Quantico lore. While some fretted and complained privately over the treatment, I took it all in stride with a smile and was just glad to be there.

After finally being deemed worthy as CAT material, graduation arrived. Much as my drill instructors in the marines had done, these Uniformed Division instructors transformed into human beings. The turnover rate in the CAT training department was almost zero, and these would be the same instructors who would continue to help train us for the next several years as we became operational CAT agents.