A Moment In “I” Time

Once upon a time a long long time ago, I was assigned to a U.S. Army CID Drug Suppression Team way out West.  Had some experience working on Army drug teams in the U.S. and in Europe, but still did not know all that I needed to know about working on drug suppression teams.

Was real happy that on one assignment I managed to get on the property team working on recovering stolen vehicles. I was happy, and that should have given me a clue of what was to come.

One day while sitting in my office I received a quick phone call from the CID Operations Officer (OPS). As usual, the OPS barked a few words into the phone and hung up. I sat there in shock; another Warrant Officer had just been relieved of duty from the drug team. No particular reason, burn out, quit, could not do the work, or the OPS just got tired of him or her.

I was now the drug team chief and was just congratulated and cautioned at the same time. Congratulated on being the new Drug Suppression Team (DST) Chief and cautioned about keeping the team gainfully employed. In other words the team better get out and find drug users and dealers, get involved, make arrest and seize drugs or else.

Seems not only the team chief quit but the entire drug team quit. So now all I had to do was find a few CID Agents and Military Police Investigators (MPI) to volunteer to help suppress drug activity in the Western United States area in the late 1970’s! Yes this was also a volunteer team, unless you were picked by the OPS.

I managed to find another newly accredited CID Agent who liked the idea of spending time in bars, night clubs, dives, tourist hang outs, and all the areas military and civilian drug users and dealers might hang out in.

It did not hurt that the team got paid to go to these places and reimbursed for any money spent on the job. The young agent knew two MPI’s who would also love to work on the team. So in the late 1970’s way out west, I continued my career as a narcotics agent for the U.S. Army CID with the help of a few friends.

Now we were still new at this drug agent business and operated on the principal of learn as you go and do the best you can while trying to stay out of jail and keeping from getting shot.

Our lives became very busy, very quick. We had a lot of sources who liked to get paid for giving drug information. The information paid for resulted in the team making a lot of drug contacts, buys from drug dealers, and in identifying a lot of U.S. soldier drug users.

Now as the DST chief, I still had to manage sources, buy drugs and do all the stuff a team manager does. You know, write reports, get vehicles, get money, get weapons, get ammunition, keep the OPS informed, and brief everyone and their brother and sister on what the team was doing.

Of course all of the DST activity took place from about 12 PM through 3 AM when not many other CID Agents were out and about. So you guessed it, when the team came back in from being out all afternoon, day, evening, night, and early morning, they had to do reports on what had been done. Then they got to stay around until the OPS arrived so he cold be briefed along with the Commander on what we had done. The team did not get much sleep.

Early on in this DST stuff, I got a call from one of his very reliable sources who said he could purchase 100 hits of LSD from a unit arms sergeant. The source said he was the only one the sergeant would sell to. I was not happy about this, since he wanted to be introduced to the dealer and make the purchase. If the source bought the drugs, LSD in this case, he or she would have to go to trial to testify against the drug dealers. I did not want his sources in court. I wanted my sources out meeting and greeting drug dealers and users and introducing us and the rest of the team to the drug dealers and users. This way, the team could make the purchases, make the arrest and be the ones to testify in court.

The source told me he could make the purchase of LSD at 1PM in the unit arms room. I advised the source to meet me at the CID DST office. When the source (Red) arrived, Guy searched him to make sure he was not carrying any drugs of his own. Sources were not always of the best character but they helped the team out a lot. Guy made sure Red did not have any of his own money. Red as usual did not have any drugs of his own or money of his own. Guy told Red he would follow him to the unit, watch him walk into the unit and give Red five minutes to make the buy and return to him at a nearby drop off point. Red and Guy with me watching then walked down to Red’s car which Guy had already searched to make sure Red did not have any money or drugs in the car.

Guy followed Red to the unit, watched him park his car and enter the building. Several minutes later Red came out and got into his car and then drove to where Guy and I were parked. I got of my car as Red drove up. As Red got out of his car, I asked if Red was able to purchase the LSD. Red said he made the buy and arranged to purchase more LSD later in the week. I not knowing that much about LSD at the time asked Red for the LSD.

At this sprawling military post way out west it was summertime. In summer it gets real hot and humid. Red and I were both wearing shorts and Tee shirts and sweating heavily from the stress and the heat. Now I knew better but just had to say, “Give me the LSD”.

The way it worked, if the source bought the drugs, he or she would maintain custody of the drugs from the time they purchased them until they turned them over to a drug team member. Then the DST member would retain custody until they got back to the CID office where the drugs were turned over to a CID evidence custodian.

Of course there were a million forms to fill out on this purchase of drugs, chain of custody, use of funds, tracking the action for the report and such. It seemed like time was suspended and everything was happening in slow motion as Red pulled the 5X8 blue sheet of paper out of his pocket. I could see the blue sheet of paper was not wrapped in anything but Red’s sweaty hand. The 5X8 blue paper was serrated and had 100 dark blue dots on it.

I could see the sweat from Red’s hand dripping onto the paper. I was mad because Red knew better and knew he should have placed the LSD into a bag of some sort to make it easier and safer to handle. I was just about to yell at Red, about his not placing the LSD into a bag, when it dawned on me, the LSD was about to be placed into my sweaty palm from Red’s sweating hand!

Now I knew LSD was used normally by the user taking the dot off the paper and placing it under his or her tongue. In other words, the LSD was absorbed under the tongue into the blood stream or in this case it could have been absorbed through the palm of a hand! Yes folks, Red slapped the LSD into my hand just like he knew what he was doing.

Now all I could see was my military career going to hell right there and then. I  managed to maintain his cool and not get outwardly upset for a moment. I calmly turned without saying a word and placed the LSD into a small paper bag I had in the front

seat. 

I  then turned to Red and showed him the blue dye that was on my palm and pointed out that Red also had dye on his had. Red started to laugh until he noticed I was solid red and was about to explode. 

I  explained the facts of life to Red for about ten minutes until I got most of the anger out of his system. I was not as calm in those days as I should have been. I took Red and mself down to the emergency room and explained the problem to the emergency room doctors who thought the whole thing was funny.

Lucky for me and Red, the LSD was not absorbed into our systems. I then had to go and report all this to his OPS who was also not amused.

So as you can see working on the DST was always exciting but not always fun. I could just see himself getting high on LSD while trying to suppress the sale of LSD. 

I also thought the doctor was nuts and that he had absorbed the LSD that day and would take an LSD trip any day. So for the next few months I was on pins and needles worrying about getting high on LSD by accident.

Of course the Army CID would not have found me taking an accidental LSD trip very funny. Most of the time that I was in the Army CID I had fun no matter what.

There were days I could have sworn I was on an LSD trip but remembered the doctor telling him I had not absorbed the LSD.

Being a Special Agent for the Army CID sounds exciting and fun most of the time even though I swear my life as an undercover agent  had its not so fun moments.