Within Arm's Length: A Secret Service Agent's Definitive Inside Account of Protecting the President (3 page)

Many of my relatives were military veterans from World War II or Korea. Dad’s World War II service had included helping to liberate the Philippines from the Japanese. Like many World War II veterans, he spoke little of his military exploits, but when he did, I listened, completely fascinated. Uncle Olan had been an army tank platoon commander who was captured by Rommel’s forces in North Africa, and he spent the remainder of the war confined to a POW camp in Eastern Germany. The Germans were brutal hosts, and he nearly froze and starved to death on several occasions, emerging from captivity a broken man. He received a medical discharge. Uncles Fletcher and Bud had served in the European theater of operations and barely survived the experience. As far as the new generation, one of my cousins had just received his commission in the air force and would one day fly missions over Hanoi in an F-4E Phantom. His brother became a naval officer on board a nuclear attack submarine while another cousin was living in Germany, married to an army infantry officer.

Due to the constant exposure of being around military veterans, combined with a sense of adventure and patriotism that seemed built-in at birth, I always felt it was my duty, my destiny, in fact, to serve America, as had my father, cousins, and uncles. It was simply assumed by most of my relatives that, when my time came, I, too, would contribute. At the time, my future contribution was naturally assumed to be military service, and one day that would come to pass—I became a Marine Corps officer. But my contribution also turned out to include a great deal more.

A DEFINING MOMENT

On Friday, November 22, 1963, I had just emerged from school looking very Opie Taylor–like after another brutal week of third grade. I was walking down the sidewalk when someone said that President Kennedy had been shot and was dead. I was puzzled but discounted it as a hoax, as such a thing could not possibly happen.

On that day, Robert, one of Dad’s deliverymen, was designated to pick me up from school and deliver me to the store for another afternoon of homework and playtime. I approached the green pickup truck with “Emmett Furniture” on the side and climbed up into the cab, laboring under the weight of my books, which I carried in an official military haversack. Inside the truck, I found Robert wearing, as usual, his aviator sunglasses and smoking his usual Phillies cheroot.

Normally reserved in a confident way, today Robert’s demeanor was different. He was obviously disturbed about something. “What’s wrong, Robert?” I asked. With some degree of difficulty, he answered, “President Kennedy has been assassinated.” I was not familiar with the word
assassinated
and asked for further explanation, which he provided. So it was true: President Kennedy was dead. Not only had the world just changed, but without my realizing it, so, too, had my future.

Robert drove the 1962 Ford pickup to the store, a five-minute trip. We rode in silence, listening to the news on WDUN-AM radio. Upon arriving, I joined many of Dad’s customers gathered around the three or four televisions in the TV department and watched Walter Cronkite go over what details were known about the assassination, which had occurred in Dallas, Texas.

Oblivious of my presence, Dad’s customers talked about possible Russian or Cuban involvement. They probably did not think such a young boy could comprehend any of it. The mention of Russians concerned me, as I remembered the year before, when America and the world came to the brink of nuclear annihilation during the Cuban missile crisis, prompting our school evacuation drills. If the Russians had killed our president, there would certainly be war, according to those gathered around the television sets.

Over the weekend I watched live TV as Kennedy’s coffin arrived at Andrews Air Force Base (AAFB) in Maryland. It was a place I would come to know intimately twenty-seven years later. I recall seeing the president’s blood still on the First Lady’s legs and dress. I also recall with great clarity Lyndon B. Johnson’s first address to the nation and how I did not like him, as he was completely different from John F. Kennedy, whom I liked a great deal.

Later, on Sunday, November 24, my family and I watched as the accused presidential assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was gunned down in Dallas police headquarters, also on live television. Having yet to learn about the concepts of due process and guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, I remember feeling that justice had been done now that the man everyone seemed to believe had killed the president was also dead.

Up until that point in the weekend, I—along with everyone else in America—was in shock over the assassination, attempting to grasp the fact that John Kennedy was no longer the president of the United States. Since I had no memory of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, it seemed Kennedy had been president my entire life. Now he was gone. As depressing as the entire situation was, a moment was about to occur that would ultimately change my life forever.

Somewhere during the confusing and emotional events of that weekend, I viewed a photo made moments after the fatal shot to Kennedy’s head. The photo depicted Secret Service agent Clint Hill on the back of the presidential limousine attempting to protect Mrs. Kennedy and the president by shielding them with his own body. I asked my father who the man was and why he was on the president’s car. My father explained that the man was a Secret Service agent and that he was trying to protect the president by blocking the assassin’s bullets. He explained that it was his job to take the bullet meant for the president. I remember not quite comprehending the concept that a man’s job was to place himself in front of a bullet meant for the president. While I knew nothing much about anything at the age of eight, I knew enough to know that being a Secret Service agent sounded incredibly important and dangerous.

This dramatic image, which personified not only Agent Hill’s unquestionable courage and devotion to duty but also the importance of the Secret Service as an organization, was without doubt the chief factor in my decision to become a Secret Service agent. Children are indeed impressionable.

CHAPTER 2

College, the Marine Corps, and Ronald Reagan

As the years passed, so did many career ambitions, everything from astronaut to surgeon. In the end, however, two always returned. In addition to one day pursuing a career in the Secret Service, I had to no one’s surprise set the intermediate goal of becoming a commissioned officer in the US military. I viewed the military not only as my patriotic duty but also as a place where I could exercise my spirit of adventure.

I had been an extremely adventurous child, prone to risk taking, and I liked things that were just dangerous enough to produce some adrenaline. I could be seen many afternoons riding my homemade skateboard down our street, going as fast as possible with no helmet or protective pads of any kind. As I grew older the machines became more dangerous and my love for them more intense. That love was somewhat dampened on a summer day in 1971 when I crashed my Mustang Mach 1 into a tree. In two weeks the Mustang was repaired, with a new front end, and I continued on my way, delighted to once again be in control of a 351-cubic-inch V8 engine, albeit more cautious.

I graduated from high school in 1973 and enrolled at North Georgia College, in Dahlonega, Georgia, twenty miles from my hometown. A military college known for its academic excellence, North Georgia seemed like a good college for me to attend, since my first goal upon graduating was to serve my country in the military. All males living on campus were required to participate in ROTC, which meant wearing uniforms and learning the customs of the US Army.

The commandant of cadets was a West Point graduate who had served in the Korean War. He was one of the finest men I have ever known. Most of the army officer cadre on campus wore their hair long, even by army standards, and most sported sideburns. Some were a bit portly, although no one was hugely out of shape; but it was apparent that physical training was not a priority for most of them. Their appearance was in a sense a representation of the army itself during the early 1970s. Enrollment at North Georgia College was down due to the unpopularity of the yet to be ended Vietnam War, and the laid-back attitude of the cadre was probably meant to attract and retain more cadets.

With the end of the conscript army and the beginning of the all-volunteer army, recruiting commercials invited young men and women to “join the people who joined the army” and offered, “Today’s army wants to join you.” Conversely, I had seen marine recruiting commercials and posters with men sporting very little hair that boasted of keeping its standards high and its ranks small, wanting a few good men and not promising a rose garden. The hard-nosed Marine Corps approach to recruitment designed to attract unique, extreme individuals intrigued me, but I had never met a marine officer and there were none at North Georgia College.

After some discussion with other like-minded cadets I was informed that recruiters from the marines were allowed to search for suitable applicants for their officer programs on campus. They would usually set up a place in the student center one or two days out of each quarter for interested students to come by and talk; they would also set up a time and place for students to take the Marine Corps officers’ written exam. One day a marine recruiting team led by Captain Kenneth L. Christy was on campus, I decided to see what the marines had to offer. As it turned out, what they offered was an attitude and a challenge.

My first meeting with Captain Christy occurred at a motel just outside the campus where he and his recruiting team were staying. As I pulled into the motel parking lot on a beautiful autumn afternoon, Captain Christy stepped out of his vehicle, and I immediately realized that I was looking at what a military officer was supposed to look like. He was a little over six feet tall, with large biceps, resembling a shorter version of actor Clint Walker. With a large chest created by thousands of bench press repetitions and a small waist honed from thousands of miles of running combined with hundreds of thousands of sit-ups, he looked more like a model wearing a marine uniform than an actual marine. In addition to his imposing physique, he wore aviator-style prescription glasses and intentionally sported extremely short hair. His perfectly tailored uniform was made complete with the addition of silver parachute wings and three rows of combat ribbons, which included a bronze star and two purple hearts from his tour in Vietnam during 1967. His highest award was the Bronze Star, with combat
V
for valor. Years later, at no request of his own, it was upgraded to the Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest award for valor after the Congressional Medal of Honor.

After we’d introduced ourselves to each other, Captain Christy invited me inside the motel lobby, where we talked about the marines. While the purpose of my visit was to take the marine officers’ exam, it soon became apparent that this was actually an interview to determine if I would even be afforded the chance to take the written exam.

Sizing me up, Captain Christy all but stated that, from the looks of me, I probably could never make it through marine training, and that another branch of the military might be a better choice for me. Whether he was serious about my appearance or whether his words were meant as a challenge designed to attract those seeking a challenge, I was sold on the marines at that point. Captain Christy smiled a bit and summoned his equally impressive gunnery sergeant, directing him to administer the officers’ written test to me. If I passed, it would signal the beginning of my journey into armed military service by way of the Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class (PLC) program.

The PLC program trains college students as officer candidates during the summer at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia. Then, after receiving their degrees, successful candidates are awarded commissions as second lieutenants in the US Marine Corps. It sounded easy, but it was a program that had proven fatal for some and had permanently damaged others.

The gunnery sergeant sat me down at a small desk and handed me the test booklet for marine officers. Four hours later I completed and passed the written exam to attend Marine Corps Officer Candidates School (OCS). Rebellious and undisciplined since adolescence, with a resentment of authority in almost all forms, I had for some inexplicable reason just joined the most disciplined branch of the military services.

Perhaps I somehow knew that I needed the type of discipline that could only be found in the marines. As the great football coach Vince Lombardi once said, “There is something in all good men that yearns for discipline.” I apparently yearned for discipline and would soon learn it under the most trying of conditions.

As the day for me to depart for OCS grew nearer, the reality became more sobering. It was one thing to take a written exam to qualify for OCS and quite another to graduate or even to get on the airplane to go. Later, I was reminded of a Troy Donahue movie in which his character makes the comment, “How can I lead other men, I don’t even know where I am going.” At the time that pretty well summed up my leadership skills.

HELL UNDER THE VIRGINIA SUN

Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class summer camp is a physically and psychologically brutal rite of passage designed to produce commissioned officers and leaders for the US Marine Corps. This period of my life was crucial in forming the person I was to become, as well as the type of Secret Service agent into which I would one day evolve.

Almost from the moment I arrived in Quantico, on June 1, 1975, every waking moment became a challenge to survive. On most of the days that followed, my platoon mates and I would have taken odds that none of us would live through the summer, much less graduate from the program.

Over the next several weeks, in the humid Virginia heat that never seemed to subside and with our heads shaved to the skin, we ran five miles each morning wearing leather combat boots, that seemed to eat skin while constantly being physically and verbally harassed by the staff. On my summer construction jobs in high school, many of my coworkers were ex-convicts, and a few were convicted murderers. I had been around profanity but now realized that the Marine Corps drill instructors (DIs) took profanity to a level approaching art. Their ability to weave meaningful profanity into every sentence spoken was almost awe-inspiring.