Within Arm's Length: A Secret Service Agent's Definitive Inside Account of Protecting the President (33 page)

This became a class joke and also the indicator of when we had run the tower enough times. After a few trips to the tower, the class caught on that we would stop running the tower after someone lost lunch. At that point, they decided ahead of time who it would be for each run, and the student would gag himself or herself, thereby reducing the number of trips up the tower. It was all good fun, and the class had a great time with it.

While it may sound strange to some, this type of training helps build camaraderie and aids in the development of dark humor, which is essential to people in dangerous professions. It is the part of training that teaches a person that, while being concerned with the welfare of others is important, laughter at misfortune and hardship while continuing onward can partially relieve the pain and stress of the situation.

We reminded the class for the first week of SATC that the pain could stop at any time just by saying, “I quit.” It was apparent at this point no one was going to quit and that the class was now really ready mentally and physically to begin their training to be Secret Service agents.

The class would travel by van from their hotel in Georgetown to 1310 L Street, where the students would proceed to their classroom on the tenth floor. There was of course an elevator, the same one I had been deposited in twelve years earlier handcuffed with my shorts to my knees, but for our students as well as John and me it did not exist for the ten weeks of their training. We required them to run up the ten flights of stairs with all their gear. John and I would be waiting for them there—to make sure they were all accounted for. Then we briefed them on the running route of the day. These stairs were also effective tools for addressing bad or forgetful behavior. If, for example, a male student neglected to shave in the morning, he would be running those ten flights of stairs until I was satisfied that his attention to grooming standards set by me were remembered.

While it was clear to the students that John and I were in charge and were not there to be their best buddies, the feeling began to develop that we were all in this adventure together, student and coordinator alike, not unlike Marine Corps officers and their men. We were leading this class, not managing it, and the difference was apparent. This class began to enjoy the reputation of being the most physically fit and academically bright class anyone could remember. They were also the most respectful of authority, sincerely addressing all staff as “sir” or “ma’am.” In short, they proved to be by far the best class ever to have done the training. It was not magic but quite simple: Lead by example, set the example, demand accountability, accept no excuses for anything, and people will rise to the occasion. It was really nothing more than leadership 101. I learned it in the marines and John had learned in the army, but it seemed a mystery to many.

We began each day with a six o’clock morning run down to the Washington Mall, the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, and back, which took about one hour. The sight of the sun rising over the Capitol and the monuments was always moving, and the students seemed to enjoy it. At least they never complained, but then again, complaining was not allowed.

Since John and I lived about thirty miles from downtown Washington, we had to get up earlier than the class, and we did not leave until the class had departed for the day. The class knew this, and leadership by example stopped any complaining before it started, at least from the class. Complaining from other instructors was a different story.

Some instructors complained to John and me that our class was having trouble staying awake during their lectures; they wanted us to ease up and give the students more rest. I told these instructors that if their classes were interesting, the students would not have a problem staying awake. Some complained to management about it, but, much to our surprise, management backed us up. It was a sign that at least some of the boys on mahogany row were starting to buy into the program. Many, however, were still watching in quiet disapproval.

John and I were purposely putting the class into sleep deprivation, because Secret Service agents are usually sleep-deprived, whether it is on protection or in the field. We were training them to become familiar with fatigue, to overcome it mentally and physically, and then to drive on with the mission.

In the real world, an agent could not tell the president of the United States he was tired and needed some rest. He could not say to him that it was too hot or too cold to run. John and I told our class that we had run with President Clinton in 100-degree weather and in close to 0-degree weather and that there was a purpose to everything we were subjecting them to.

It was now November. On many morning runs the temperature was below freezing in Washington and the sun was an hour from rising. One morning it snowed but we ran anyway, and if a run was planned it was never canceled for any reason.

In spite of our demanding approach, John and I still kept a close watch on the class for signs of injuries. We knew when to back off and give the class a little more rest at times, as needed. When we saw the students were reaching the end of their rope we would give them a Friday off from PT so that they could rest up for three days. If they had done exceptionally well in a certain area we would reward them with a day off from formal PT or allow them to do whatever they wanted during PT time. Without handing out awards or saying, “Good job, good job,” we were rewarding good behavior in our own way, and it was working. The class was beginning to buy into the fact that in the world of the Secret Service everyone did not get a trophy just for showing up. They were learning that the true reward for hard work was the satisfaction of having done a good job, not from someone patting you on the back.

The class was doing well in all areas, especially fitness, but we were beginning to bore them and ourselves to death with standard workouts. It was time to raise the bar.

THE OBSTACLE COURSE

During the 1980s and until 1997, when the James J. Rowley Training Center built its own obstacle course, part of CAT training involved running the obstacle course at Fort Meade, Maryland, located about ten miles north of the JJRTC. This ugly assembly of concrete and pipe was built sometime during World War II. It was several hundred yards long but seemed to go on forever and was laid out in the shape of a horseshoe. Although it was not a part of the SATC syllabus, John and I decided it would be a great morale booster for 138 as well as a hell of a good workout. It had nearly killed me during CAT school in 1988, while John sometimes ran it just for fun. After obtaining permission to conduct the obstacle course training from the ASAIC of training, a former marine and recipient of the Silver Star and Purple Heart, both awarded for service in Vietnam, we proceeded to Fort Meade and the awaiting obstacle course.

On a cool November afternoon in 1995, with the leaves on the trees bordering the Baltimore–Washington Parkway showing their brilliant colors of red and gold, John and I took 138 to Fort Meade. We began by explaining to the class the purpose of this training. We emphasized that, in addition to fitness, there was a job-related, practical reason for it. As criminal investigators in field offices, agents might very well find themselves in a foot chase with a criminal suspect, and failure to apprehend a suspect due to lack of fitness or the inability to negotiate a wall or fence was unacceptable. John and I then ran the course together as a team, demonstrating the best, most efficient way to negotiate each obstacle. Then it was the students’ turn.

We started them off two at a time and directed them to finish the course with their partner. After surviving the ordeal, we then sent them through again, this time individually. Some did well, and others looked, as we pointed out, like monkeys trying to mate with a football, but the exercise was a huge success. So much so, in fact, that our boss directed that all future classes undergo the Fort Meade obstacle course.

The problem with this order was that, other than John and me, few instructors would subject themselves to being checked out on the course. Many felt it beneath them to get dirty with a class, and many were afraid to try because of the risk of being embarrassed in front of a class if they could not negotiate an obstacle. This, in spite of never-ending offers by John and me to show each instructor all the tricks necessary in order to complete each obstacle.

As time went on, I took all SATC classes to the course and did demonstrations. Some course directors watched in sheepish discomfort, arms folded. Fatigue makes cowards of us all, and yet due to the true believers—among them John, Mike Carbone, Scott Marble, Todd Bagby, and a few others—no class failed to be introduced to the obstacle course during my tenure as an instructor.

As the week before graduation approached, it was apparent that all were going to make it. Our students would soon be agents. After our last official PT session together—as always, we ran the tower until someone threw up—I informed the class that they could now call us by our first names. There was stone silence as each student looked shocked and suspicious. Even after this offer, no one wanted to be the first to call us Dan and John. Training was almost over, and the Secret Service was about to receive a great group of new agents.

SATC 138 finally graduated, and at the ceremony, our students resembled recruiting poster models in their suits, with lean, chiseled faces created from the loss of any unnecessary fat. Awards were presented to students who had distinguished themselves in the areas of academics, firearms, and fitness. When the scores were read for the top fitness award, there was an audible response from the audience. All were amazed at the fitness level of this individual and of the class as a whole.

After the ceremony, our charges shook our hands and thanked us for the training, leadership, and guidance we had provided. John and I told them that no thanks were needed and that our final order to them was to be the best agents in Service history. I am proud to say that now, nineteen years later, most in the class lived up to that order.

The experience of being a course coordinator had been very rewarding but had practically consumed me, and I was ready to begin teaching the standard curriculum once more. After everyone had left the area following graduation, my boss took me aside and said that he wanted me to run another class, SATC 141, which would be arriving in the next few months. He said that he wanted 141 run exactly the same as 138 and expected another stellar class. I replied, “Yes, sir.” It would be done.

That afternoon, I had a few beers at home and fell into a deep sleep, totally satisfied that I had done the best job possible with the class. I never wanted another class. My goal had been to take one class, give it everything I had to produce the best possible group, then go back to my regular teaching in the Protection Squad. It was not to be so, as no good deed goes unpunished.

SATC 141

In that all classes were selected from the same basic applicant pool, I had always believed that most classes were more or less the same, with the only difference in class quality and performance being the people who led them. I firmly believed undisciplined coordinators produced undisciplined classes, while disciplined, demanding coordinators produced the best classes. While I continued to believe that throughout my years as an instructor, I came to realize that each class had its own distinct personality. I was also about to learn that, due to the new and yet unknown political sensitivity of Secret Service management at the headquarters level, it would only take one student’s groundless complaints of alleged mistreatment to damage careers and diminish most of what had been accomplished in changing the philosophy of training over the past year.

Unbeknownst to everyone outside of headquarters, the Service, like the US government, was in the process of moving into a new chapter of gender-related sensitivity. In this chapter, a vacuum was created between the old Service, where few complaints from any student would have been entertained, and the new Service, where one student making hollow accusations would result in an immediate rush to judgment against those accused. I was pulled into that vacuum along with my new assistant, Scott, and then we were both dropped into the perfect storm of the emerging political correctness mania of the 1990s, which, with the infamous navy Tailhook scandal, had overtaken the entire government.

Close to 141’s graduation, one of our female students failed to return to training on time after irresponsibly missing a flight from a city she had visited over the weekend. She was disciplined accordingly, as any other student would have been. The punishment did not sit well with her, and she made the accusation against Scott and me that we had singled her out for punishment and had imposed unreasonable physical fitness demands on her and the rest of the class.

While our student had merely alleged that she had been singled out for punishment, everyone who was aware of the situation assumed, because a female had lodged the complaint, that we were being accused of sexual harassment, which was never the case. The fact she had failed to return to training on time or at the earliest possible time after missing her flight seemed to go selectively unnoticed. It was also apparent that she either sensed or was informed of the change in the social paradigm of the Service as she continued to perfect her role of victim.

Although initially too naïve to realize it, she was a victim, but not of any action by my assistant or me. In the end, she was a victim of her own frivolous complaint, after which certain high-level managers used her as a pawn to demonstrate the new world order of the Secret Service.

INSPECTION

As a result of our student’s accusations, the assistant director of training ordered a formal investigation of the verbal allegations against Scott and me. After numerous interviews conducted by agents from the Office of Inspection with all students in the class, as well as with Scott and me, the investigation finally ended with the submission of a final report to the assistant director of training. The official findings of the six-month inquisition by the Office of Inspection were: “No evidence was found to support the accusations of individual harassment or the imposing of excessive physical training.” The matter was closed. Meanwhile, SATC 141, complete with the student who had complained, graduated and moved on to their careers.