The next morning, I reported to the Intelligence School and began in-processing. Once again I was to be a Class Leader. We had a good bunch of guys in my CI [counter-intelligence] class.  I liked the motel and that evening I had them switch me to one of their kitchenette units.

The majority of the course covered how to conduct BIs [Background Investigations] and how to complete the paperwork involved in a BI. In fact, BI training was about 90% of the course. The remainder of the course covered general subjects, typing, counter-espionage, and counter-sabotage. Ma Klicka did not move to Arizona with the school. She had remained in Baltimore.

An Air Force Master Sergeant, Walt Kubacki, was our Chief Instructor. This course used the same teaching method that the Agent Handler course had and we spent a great deal of the class interviewing one of the school’s many actors in front of our class or in the actor’s office. We also used the actors in our interrogation training. Our final interrogation exercise was conducted in the "fish bowl." We took turns interrogating an actor in a room that had a one-way mirror on one wall so the rest of the class could observe the procedure from the other side of the mirror. Compared to the Agent Handler course, the CI course was a piece of cake.

As a part of our training, we were required to interview a variety of people in their office and submit our report for grading purposes as our final examination for the BI part of the course. Each student had to do about four interviews as I recall. Walt only assigned us one interview at a time. Walt evaluated each report based on whether or not it was neat and in the proper format. Then the subject of the interview graded the report for accuracy and correct spelling of names and places. We interviewed military and civilian employees alike.

One of the people that a student always interviewed was a female warrant officer and Walt Kubacki hated to assign her to any student. She had given every student that had interviewed her a failing grade. In fact, he dreaded assigning her to a student so bad, he didn’t assign a student to her.  Instead, in our class when she was included in the group of people that we were to interview. He put all of our names on a slip of paper and placed those in his hat. Each student drew a slip of paper from his hat. Naturally, I drew the lady warrant officer. Walt apologized to me for at least five minutes because I had drawn that woman’s name. I said, "No sweat Walt. I don’t mind. I would rather interview her than give her to one of the younger guys." And I meant it.

So I telephoned the lady at her office and got an appointment to interview her the next day. Arriving at her office at the appointed time, I introduced myself. She was a tall thin lady, with a short military haircut and a very serious, business-like expression on her face. In fact, she reminded me for all the world of the prim and proper banker's secretary in the popular television series, Beverly Hill Billy.  She didn’t greet me with a smile, like the typical civilian woman would have. During our meeting, I always referred to her as "Ma’am" and "Chief." As soon as I sat down at her desk, I asked her, "Chief, do you have a couple of minutes to spare before we start the official interview?" "Sure, Mr. Valentine. Why?," she answered.

I continued, "Well, for starters Chief, since we haven’t officially began the interview, please call me Sergeant, Sarge or just plain Val. Now, I’ve been in MI as a agent handler for two years and in the army almost eighteen years and you’re only the second lady warrant officer that I have ever met. The other was a polygraph operator in Vietnam. How many lady warrant officers are there in the army?" "Nineteen," she immediately replied with a slight grin.

"I figured you would probably know the exact number," I said. She replied, "I know most of them personally. Who was the lady polygraph operator?" I answered, "I believe her name was Mary Smith, but I’m not sure." "Yes, it must have been her. I know Mary and she is a polygraph operator," she replied.

I explained, "Well I’ll be damned. Small world isn’t it? I only saw Mary once and that was when she tried to polygraph my native agents in Ban Me Thout. It didn’t work." She asked, "What was the problem?" "Oh, It wasn’t her fault," I answered, "My mountain natives were just too ignorant for the machine to work on them." She actually chuckled at that.

 Again I asked, "Say, Chief, can I ask you something else?" "Sure," she said. I continued, "I have been wondering ever since I entered MI why MI doesn’t have more female agent handlers and special agents. [This was true.] In fact, I don’t know any females in those jobs. If there was ever a job in the army that a woman could do as well as, or better than, a man, it’s those jobs. In many situations they would be better than a man.  For example on surveillance. A man and a woman together would attract less attention than two males. Also, if two male agents are following someone and that person is a female and she goes to a rest room, you’re both left outside. But if your partner is a female, she could go to the rest room also.

"And another thing, as an Agent handler, you are required to meet many strangers who are either potential recruits for your espionage net or are already your agents. Usually these people are men. Being an Agent Handler, you then must invite him, someone who is perhaps a total stranger that you just maybe met on a street corner, to a tavern for a drink and then maybe taking him to your motel room or meeting him again the next day and taking him to your motel room. This type of activity attracts attention. Let’s face it Chief, that just isn’t the way two American males normally act. I’m thirty five years old and I never once acted like that before I entered this business. But if a man and woman do the same thing or even two women, it would be the most natural thing in the world. Anyway, I think that the damn army missed the boat on that."

She smiled and said, "I think you’re right, Sarge." I continued, "You know when I was on that same tour, they gave me the identity of a Warrant Officer, W-2. They told me that I looked like an old Chief. They gave a lot of their enlisted agent handlers the identity of an officer or warrant officer. They usually made the young ones a second lieutenant and us older types became warrants. They were trying to make it easier for us to travel in-country without being constantly questioned or harassed. I don’t know how the young guys made out as second lieutenants, but I enjoyed being a warrant. I discovered that nobody messes with a warrant, not the officers and not even a damn sergeant major — nobody!" She laughed out loud and I continued, "Well Chief, we better get started on the interview. I know you’re busy and I don’t want to waste anymore of your time. I was just curious about that," and then I began the interview.

When I finally returned to the classroom, the entire class was there. They were waiting to see how I made out. Walt was still pacing the floor and wringing his hands when I entered the room. Walt looked up with a pained expression on his face and asked, "Val, how did it go? Was it very bad?"

I answered, "Walt, there’s nothing wrong with that gal. She’s just a soldier. A professional, like you and me, and she likes to be treated that way. The interview went okay as far as I could see. Did you know there’s only nineteen lady warrants in the army? She knows every damn one of them too, Walt." Walt just stared at me, I guess he couldn’t believe his ears.

About a week later, Walt was reading our grades out loud before he issued our next interview assignment. "Sergeant Valentine, you got a damn A! She flunked everybody else, but you got a damn A! You misspelled the last names of two of the leads that she gave you and she still gave you a damn A! How the hell did you get a fucking A?," he asked.

I jokingly replied, "Well Walt, I’ll tell you my secret. As soon as I sat down at her desk, I licked my eyebrows with my tongue and I had her eating out of my hand from that point on." The class broke out in a roar of laughter and Walt just stared at me, like I was from Mars.

[Even though I was just joshing Walt at the time, I now see that it was a dumb thing to have done. It would have been wiser, and much more professional, for me to have taken the time to explain to him and the rest of the class what the lady warrant and I had said and did during my interview. Better yet, I should have suggested that Walt have the lady warrant come to our classroom and explain why she gave me an A when she had flunked everyone else. After all, she was the only person who knew the answer to that question. Then even I would have known why I got an A. Otherwise, I can only guess that she did it because I treated her just as I would have treated a male warrant officer in the same situation.  Or maybe it was because I wasn’t intimidated because she was a female or by her rank. Maybe I’m wrong, but anyway, that’s what I think. Unfortunately, because I chose to be a clown, nobody will ever know the answer to that question, but her.]

Except for the actual interviews, interrogation training, and the last week of school, which was "field week," the special agent course was very, very boring. During Field Week the class was formed into an investigation unit and ran training investigations that were assigned to us by Walt just as if we were a regular CI unit. We had several re-treads, [soldiers from other branches of the army] like me, in the course. My Assistant Class Leader was another sergeant first class from special forces named Eleazer.  Eleazer had been an SF medic. He was about five foot eleven inches tall. He had thick dark hair and he was slim, very slim. He was intelligent, very cocky, and meticulous about his appearance.  Eleazer was married and had one young child.

One weekend a bunch of the guys in the class got together at one of the student’s mobile home for a party. I don't remember why we got together there. By the time that Eleazer and his wife arrived I had already been there drinking for two or three hours and was feeling no pains. Almost as soon as they arrived, I began teasing his wife like I always do with people that I like. I didn’t try to seduce her — I just pestered her.

During the first break on Monday morning Eleazer told me, "My wife is really put out because you teased her about being fat." I didn't recall telling her she was fat, but I apologized anyway. I told him, "I didn’t know she was sensitive about her weight. I think she’s beautiful — I really do. I was just teasing her. I thought she knew she was pretty." [Like I said before, I don’t know diddly about women. Apparently, they all think they’re fat, even the skinny ones.]

The next day, Eleazer told me, "She wants you to have supper with us again. Tonight." "Oh No," says I. "I’m not about to eat at that woman’s table with her mad at me. If I did, afterwards I would probably either puke my brains out or shit myself to death, maybe both. Or maybe she would just load my food up with hot peppers." Fred laughed and said, "No, no Val, she’s not mad at you anymore." But I didn’t fall for it and still refused.  Until then, a man who had let a grenade explode in his hand could have counted the number of times I had turned down a meal with one hand and without using his good hand.

About half way through the CI course I had another brain storm: I called MI personnel in DC again and asked to be assigned to a technical course while I was there. I said, "It would save the army money because they would have to pay me travel pay to and from Fort Huachuca again if they waited until after I was back at Fort Bragg. They agreed and said that I would be assigned to the very next DAME [Defense Against Methods of Entry] Course and sure enough

A week later, I received the orders. The DAME course started the Friday before Field Week began for my CI course, but I was excused from attending it because I was already a fully-trained and experienced agent handler. However, I would be allowed to return to attend graduation ceremonies with my CI class.

It was about this time that I was involved in an incident at the country-western night club near my motel. Until three loud mouth drunks entered the bar, I was the only customer in the place and I was sitting at the bar. They all set together on the same side of the bar as me. One of the them, the loudest one, said to me, "How the hell are ya, baldy?" and laughed. That didn’t please me, but I said nothing; I just sat there — waiting. Sure enough, the other two guys got up and left the loud mouth bastard setting there all by himself. After they left, I got up and walked over to where loud mouth sat. "Maybe I’m too drunk to whip all three, but I’m pretty damn sure I can make this one wish he had kept his mouth shut," I thought. Then I grabbed him by the nape of his neck with my left hand and picked his fat ass up off of the bar stool. I whispered in his ear, "Remember me? I’m baldy." Then I hit him in the side of his head as hard as I could. I knocked him right out of the grip of my left hand and he dropped to the floor on his hands and knees. He was too addled to stand up, but he grabbed me around my legs to protect himself and I jammed both thumbs in his eyes up to the second knuckle and hooked them inside his skull. He froze and began begging for mercy. The lady bartender told us to leave so I released him and we departed. Me by the front door and him by the back.

The next evening, when I returned to the club, the owner was there and so was the same bartender. The owner came over and offered me a job as bouncer which I declined. He said the loud mouth that I had a problem with was an ex-marine and a bad actor who was always causing trouble in there and beating people up. One Saturday about a week later, I was in the neighborhood tavern and there that same loud mouth was. That was the first time that I had seen him since our first meeting. When he spotted me he recognized me immediately, even though I was wearing my Class A green uniform at the time. He grinned from ear-to-ear and jumped up and came over to where I stood at the end of the bar and introduced himself. There was no trouble, but I was ready for it because I had also recognized him. In fact, for a marine, he was very friendly and apologized for being rowdy and said that he didn’t know that I was a Green Beret. I guess, if you want to make friends with a marine, first you have to beat him to a pulp. Then you can socialize like normal people.

Being new to the desert, I found it to be a very lonely place. And, I couldn’t quite understand why so many pioneers had risked their life to settle there in the first place, much less understanding why they had fought the Apaches for it. Those people must have been nuts.

While I was at Fort Huachuca, I visited Tombstone several times, Bisbee once, and Nogales, where I saw my first and only bullfight, once. How anyone can call that bullfighting a sport is beyond me. First men on horseback, with their horses padded to protect them against the horns, stab the bull with spears. They try to cripple the bull by cutting the muscles in his neck and shoulder so he can not turn his head and hook the matador with his horns. Then some more little guys in tight britches each carrying two small swords, run out into the arena and try to stick both of those tiny swords into the same muscles for the same purpose. Then the prima donna in tight britches arrives on the scene with his cape and big sword. After dodging the poor injured bull for a few minutes, he finally kills the bull and puts the creature out of its misery. It is ritualized torture, pure and simple.  Much to the amazement of the Mexican fans that surrounded me, I loudly cheered for the bull. Most of the Americans that were there did the same. Either that or they left before the end of the first fight. Very few were drunk enough or insane enough to cheer for the prima donna in tights with the sword.

Oh yes, I also went across the border into Mexico somewhere southeast of Bisbee: I believe it was across the border from Douglas, but I’m not sure. It seems to me the name of the little town was something like Auqa Prieta. There I found a night club that looked like it might cater to Americans and went in. Knowing that I couldn’t drink any of the water for fear of coming down with Montezuma’s Revenge, I ordered a bourbon and coke. I only drank one and left. The place just didn’t interest me and it was a long way back to Sierra Vista. Long before I reached Bisbee, I had to pull over because of the terrible cramps in my stomach. It looked like I might have to crap right there in the middle of the desert in front of God and anybody who happened to pass by. It finally eased off enough for me to continue, but I felt terrible and seemed to have a fever. The next morning when I had a clear head, it dawned on me what had caused my illness — the water that was used for the ice in the mixed drink. If I had drank a full glass of that water, I probably would have cut loose at both ends right there on the Bisbee-Douglas Road.

Tombstone and Tucson were my favorite places in the Fort Huachuca area. The old part of Tombstone, one street, has been pretty well preserved for history — complete with the original bullet holes. Except for modern electricity and plumbing, many buildings on that street are just as they were a hundred years ago when the "Fight at the OK Corral" took place.

Tombstone's town marshal still dressed as Wyatt Earp must have in his time — long black coat, black pants tucked into the tops of western boots. A six-shooter on his hip in a western rig, black string-tie, a long bushy handlebar moustache that looked like two squirrels had ran up his nose and a black cowboy hat.

One of the bartenders in Tombstone told me about an incident between their marshal and a California motorcycle gang that had happened a few years earlier back in the 50s. According to him, "The motorcycle gang rode into town intent on creating havoc and taking over the town for the weekend — maybe longer. Their leader rode his big Harley into a bar and encountered the marshal face-to-face. The marshal told him, ‘Get out of town. Take your gang with you and don’t ever come back.’ The gang leader snarled and opened his mouth to back sass the marshal and quick-as-a-wink found the tip of his nose stuck down the barrel of a cocked forty-five pistol. The marshal said, ‘Ah said git!’ They left and never returned."

There was a stream bed about half way between Sierra Vista and Tombstone. The water in that bed was normally only about six inches deep and about two feet across. Southern Arizona was terrible for flash floods. If there were any dark clouds on the horizon, especially to the north, you had better watch your ass when you approached a gully. It only rained once in the six months that I was stationed at Fort Hoochie-Koochie and that wasn’t much more than a shower. Within a couple of days after that shower, that desert was as colorful as a kid’s coloring book. It was green with all colors of flowers sprinkled everywhere. That was a pleasant surprise and a welcome sight after months of nothing but dust and sand.  The pollen from those desert plants lays dormant until it gets a drop of moisture.  Then it pops to life produces more pollen and dies in less than a week. Its pollen just lays there waiting for the next shower which will most likely be several months later.

Way out in the middle of the desert, about half way between Sierra Vista and Nogales, we found a great steak house. Well, actually, if I remember correctly, it was a T-Bone Steak House because that was all they served.

It’s the only building in sight at that point, excluding barns and such. It’s a combination of a restaurant, tavern, general store, and gas station. There only seemed to be one employee, I reckon he was also the owner. He was a pretty good sized fellow and wore a white T-shirt, jeans, western boots and a white apron with barbecue stain all over it — and of course the western hat. He walked up to our table and asked, "How do you like your T-bone?" We told him and he left. He returned shortly with a huge pile of meat on a tray and tossed them onto the open pit barbecue grill that was built into the wall on the far side of the room. When they were finished, he brought them to our table. Each of those giant steaks hung over the edge of its platter — all the way around it — and they were big platters. He then brought us a large basket of hot rolls and a huge pot of steaming-hot pinto beans and left us with, "If you run low on beans or bread just holler out." That steak was about two inches thick and lip-smacking good. As they say back home in the hills of East Tennessee, "It was so good it made my tongue pert near flap my brains out."

Not a day had gone by that Dorey wasn’t on my mind. A little while before Easter, I telephoned Dorey and invited her to fly out to Arizona and spend Easter weekend with me at my expense. To my surprise, she agreed and I met her at the airport in Tucson. Our trip began the next morning from Fort Hoochie-Koochie with a tour of Tombstone. From there we drove north to the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert and the next day we visited the Grand Canyon. While we were enjoying the canyon, I tried to bring up the subject of marriage, but she flat refused to discuss it. She changed the subject every time I tried to squeeze marriage into the conversation and I felt like pushing that goo-goo-eyed gal over the rim of that canyon. Well, I almost felt like it.

From there we visited Old Tucson where many westerns had been filmed. I think Dorey enjoyed Tombstone, the Grand Canyon, and Old Tucson best. Dorey was great company, but I was still a tad put out because she didn’t appear to enjoy being with me as much as I enjoyed being with her. The day after we visited Old Tucson was Sunday so I said goodbye to Dorey at the Tucson airport and ole dumb ass headed back to Fort Hoochie-Koochie. I was not a happy camper and my disposition didn't improve much over the next several months. I wasn’t angry at Doris: I figured that she probably had better sense than I did.

Shortly after that, I left the CI course and began the DAME course. We had three instructors in the DAME course, two warrant officers and one civilian. Two students were Petty Officers from the Coast Guard, one was a USMC Gunnery Sergeant, and the rest were from the Army. We learned basic locksmith techniques plus clandestine methods of by-passing locking devices. We even had to make our own set of lock picks. Our lock-picking instruction began with the easiest locks and we worked our way up to the toughest locks. We learned to pick wards, wafers which are sometimes called discs, pin-tumblers, mushroom pin-tumblers, and levers. We also learned how to open combination locks by manipulation, sawing, drilling and, in the case of some padlocks, shimming.

One of the first things the instructors told us was "Never show off. If you do, you will most certainly screw up. Never say, ‘Watch this.’ If you do, no matter how simple the lock is, you will not be able to open it." The next thing we learned was "Don’t overlook the obvious. You should only try to pick or manipulate locks as a last resort. It is not the first method you should try. The first thing you should do is make damn sure all of the damn doors and windows are actually locked."

Several guys that I knew from before were attending the SF Intelligence course at the time. One was Sergeant First Class Bill "Big Knut" Knutilla from the 46^th Company and another was Theodore "Ted" Sampley. Their class would graduate at the same time as my CI class. Ted was single and renting a mobile home that was located off of the Bybee Road and I decided to take it when he graduated. He had been screwing his next door neighbor's wife, but I had no interest in fooling around with the next door neighbor.

Finally, my CI class graduated — the uniform of the day was Class A, greens. Of course I attended the ceremonies. The SF Intelligence class was also graduating and they sat behind my class. They seated me in the rear row of seats that had been allocated for my class. My old teammate, Big Knutt, sat directly behind me. A marine corporal that was a student in our CI class sat on my left. Many of the SF guys had apparently partied all night the night before and at least one was still slightly crocked. When the SF guys started filing across the stage to receive their diplomas, one of their sergeants was obviously drunker than all the rest. He looked sharp, his uniform was okay and his boots were highly polished, but he staggered a tad as he made his way across the stage and he had a big stupid grin on his beet red face. The marine turned and spoke aloud to me, "That bum is dead drunk." Big Knutt leaned forward, tapped the marine on his shoulder and whispered in his ear, "How long has it been since you had your ass kicked, mother-fucker?" The marine’s eyes bugged out and he never said a word for the rest of the ceremony.

Every so often we would have a lock-picking test. We had a test on each different type of lock that we studied. On each test we were each issued a board that several hasps attached to it and a padlock was firmly secured to each hasp. We had to open all of the locks within the specified time limit. Each test consisted of six to eight locks. We learned how to by-pass combination locking devices whether they were installed on a padlock, vault, high-security filing cabinet or safe.

For the first couple of weeks, I spent a great deal of my evening hours trying to pick padlocks. It was very frustrating because I wasn’t very effective — I could only open the easiest ones. After a while, my right eyeball began to feel like it was shaped like a damned keyhole. Somehow, I managed to pass all of the lock-picking tests. In fact, I opened every lock on every test and some of those locks I had never before been able to open. Each time I did that, it totally amazed me.

Our class was interrupted one day when in walked the School Commandant. We all stood at attention and he handed me orders promoting me to master sergeant and a set of new stripes. Naturally that called for a party. So that Saturday, we held a promotion party at my mobile home. For refreshments, I bought a barrel of beer from the VFW, lots of whiskey and some steaks. Somebody brought a BBQ grill and that Saturday it got very drunk outside my mobile home.

The only building within 500 yards of my place was the mobile home next door. When I had been on R&R from Vietnam in 1971, I had bought a boomerang. It was laying on the kitchen counter and the two Coast Guard men in our class wanted to throw it. Those two guys were booze hounds, party hounds and loud, very loud. We went on the side of my mobile home opposite from my neighbor’s home and I showed them how to throw it so it would return to you. About five minutes later, I’ll be damned if that thing didn’t sail back right over my head and my mobile home and smack into the side of my neighbor’s mobile home. It made a little dent, but I knew it upset the lady because she was home alone at the time so I went over an apologized for me and my bunch of drunks. She didn’t seem to be all that upset and I could see why Ted had been interested, she was a pretty little thing.

About the time that I staggered back to my place, the little Coast Guard guy found a snake and threw it on the only black student in our class, a Sergeant First Class as I recall. That poor bastard went ape shit and I don’t blame him a bit. That was a stupid thing to do and the black sergeant said that and much more. He cussed the Coast Guard guy out. The muddy water sailor became insulted — then angry. He was actually angry because the black guy was upset with him for throwing Mister No-shoulders on him. That turn-around in attitude totally amazed me. We managed to keep them separated and that was the end of my birthday party. That was okay, it was almost dark anyway and I had already drunk enough beer to last me the entire weekend.

We had two FTXs during the DAME course. One was on post and the other was off post, in Tucson. During the on-post FTX, the students were broken down into small teams and each team was assigned a different target. My team was assigned to enter a small office building in the middle of the night and retrieve some papers that were locked in a locker in the building without leaving any indication that we had ever been there. The office was in one of those small World War II wooden buildings that resembled the old Day Room buildings. We pulled this off without experiencing any noteworthy problems. Not so with the off-post FTX or the Graduation Exercise as the instructors liked to call it.

While we were on our Graduation Exercise, we stayed in a Motel Six that was just off the west side of the interstate highway in Tucson. My team was assigned the job of retrieving a document from a locked metal box that was locked inside a wall locker inside the War Room in the Headquarters building of the local Arizona Air National Guard. The building was located on the U.S. Air Force Base. Armed security guards were stationed at the gates and periodically, some of them made "rounds" and checked the buildings. Only the Air National Guard unit’s security officer and commander were aware of our operation. Their security officer and one of our instructors would be hidden inside the building so they could observe us and, should the security patrol detect us, they could hopefully intervene before somebody got shot.

My team had a short chubby warrant officer on it and a Specialist Fifth Class Quigley, who was also in the Army, and three others that I can’t remember. Quigley had been a member of the Air National Guard in his hometown before he had joined the Army. We decided to send Quigley on base to pose as a civilian who was interested in joining the guard. While there he was to go to the rest room and leave a window open or jam one of the exterior doors so it wouldn’t lock.

On Quigley’s return, he said that he had left two windows open in a rest room, but didn’t have the opportunity to jam a door lock. So we selected one of the guys to be our driver and come darkness, off we went. Somebody wanted to paint our faces and hands black, but I voted against that with, "What the hell will your cover be, if you’re caught looking like that?"

Instead, we stopped at a package store and bought a pint of evil smelling whiskey. Which we passed around to be used like mouthwash and aftershave lotion. Only a damn drunk could be walking down a highway that borders a military base that is enclosed by eight foot high chain link fence one minute and the next minute be wandering around inside the base and not have the foggiest idea why he’s there or how he got there.

We got out of the car at a lonely spot near the fence where there was a deep gully along the road. Right away we found a place to crawl under the fence. It was easy — someone else had cut the bottom of the wire a long time ago and it was apparent that hole had been used many times by somebody as a short cut.  Either that or Tuscon had a large number of traitors stealing secrets from the base.  I suspected it was the former.  As soon as we all had cleared the fence and before we started across the hundred yards of open space to the Headquarters building, I advised them, "Do not run. Walk like you belong here. If you run, you will attract attention." That chubby little warrant was the first to haul ass. Well, his "spirit" spread through the team like wildfire and they all disappeared in a cloud of dust, wheezing, and farting as they raced for the building. As it turned out, I was the only son of a bitch that walked across that damn field. When I reached that building, I was pissed, but I didn’t chew anybody out. I just said, "Hell, I didn’t know you sumbitches could walk that damn fast," and they muffled a few embarrassed snickers. Quigley led us to the latrine windows which was the first door on the left inside the main entrance.

Fortunately, a latrine window was still open so we pushed Quigley through and he opened the front doors for us. He led us down the first hall to the left and found the War Room door. It was a wooden door with slats in the bottom half and a key-in-the-knob type of lock. I thought, "Great, it sure could be a lot worse. This is going to be easier than falling off a log." We decided to try picking the lock and if we had a problem with that then we would remove the slats and open the door from the inside. The chubby little warrant began to pick the lock.

We had decided earlier that he and another man would get us into the War Room, two other guys would open the locker, and myself and another man would get us into the box that was inside the locker. The nervous warrant had a problem with the door lock — it was taking him what seemed like forever to open it. Actually, he had been working on it for about ten minutes. I strongly suspected that it might have something to do with his hands shaking like a dog shitting a peach seed. That guy was really a "Nervous Nelly."

Our lookout came rushing around the corner of the hall and said that a security guard jeep was headed our way. We all scurried like mice trying to find a place to hide. As for me, I went under a desk in the room directly across the hall from the War Room. About two minutes later the lookout said, "The coast is clear," and we went back to work.

The warrant finally opened the lock and the instant he pushed the door open — an alarm shrieked! It was attached to the inside of the door. It so startled the nervous warrant that he slammed the door shut and the damn thing locked again. I said, "Aw fuck this shit! Here chief, get the hell away from that door and let me have a crack at it. Quigley, you work on the slats and I’ll work on the door knob." Quigley began unscrewing the screws in the frame that contained the slats and I started trying to pick the lock, meanwhile the door alarm was still shrieking, but it was just a local alarm and could only be heard by someone in the immediate vicinity. The only thing we could do was hope that we were the only people in the immediate vicinity. The lock opened just as Quigley removed the last slat. It had taken us about 30 seconds. I whispered to Quigley, "Peek through the slats and disarm that alarm, if you can." He spotted it with a flashlight and shut it off — you could hear a collective sigh of relief. Then we opened the door and entered the War Room Our instructor and the security officer were probably laughing their asses off during this whole episode. Our instructor must have installed the local alarm that evening just prior to our arrival because Quigley said, "That alarm was not there when I was inside this room earlier today." We found the locker that we were supposed to enter by its number — each locker was numbered. My partner chose to open the wall locker and left me with the job of opening whatever type of lock was on the box inside. He had the simple lock open in just a few seconds and inside I found the box that was the object of our search. As soon as I spied the padlock on the box, I sighed because I had just bought a set of master keys for that particular type of lock, but had decided against carrying them that night. It was a new type of Yale pin-tumbler that had a sixth pin instead of just five and I figured it was so new, the Air National Guard wouldn’t have one. They didn’t have one: our instructor had furnished it. "Six damn pins and dumb ass Valentine, didn’t bring his fucking set of brand new master keys," I whispered out loud to myself as I felt in my pocket for my home-made hook and tension wrench. I thought, "This is going to be tough. I’ll be picking on this thing until my beard is dragging the ground. I’m going to cause the whole damn team to flunk."

I slipped the pick gently into the key way, gently twisted the tension wrench, and pressed down the pin that seemed to need pressing the most and, "Pop!" That son of a gun popped open. It had only taken about five seconds at most. I must have sat there for a full minute with my mouth gaped wide just staring at that damn lock. Once again, I was totally amazed. I thought, "This must be a faulty lock." I finally opened the box, removed the object we were after and re-locked the box and wall locker.

We locked up as we exited the building. This time when we reached the back of the building, I didn’t even get a chance to remind them to walk across that open field because they immediately disappeared in a cloud of dust as they broke out in a dead run for the fence. That damn chubby little warrant had led the way. Once again, I was the only one that walked across that open field.

Shortly afterwards, we graduated and everyone left for their new assignment. My brand spanking-new Camaro was crammed full with all of my gear. I had traded my Galaxy 500 for it while we were there and I was just then regretting the lack of room in my pretty little sports car. There was barely room left for me in the Camaro, but almost all of my junk would have fit in the trunk of my old Galaxy. I had eventually adapted to living in a desert, but I was sure glad to be leaving it, I just wished that I was headed somewhere other than Fort Bragg, North Carolina.