The ATTACKS ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 were not the first time a terrorist act had captured my undivided attention. That distinction, that first entering into my consciousness of terrorism as a phenomenon, occurred in the late summer of 1972 when I was between my sophomore and junior years of high school. My father had just been transferred from New Mexico to Washington, D.C., and we were temporarily living in the Breezeway Motel in Fairfax while we looked for a house.
This was not a happy time in my life. I had just left a state I loved and all the friends I had ever known. I was dreading the idea of starting a new school where I didn’t know a soul. The only thing that gave me any solace was the hope that if I could only make it through the next two years—which seemed like an eternity then—when I graduated, I would return to New Mexico and attend college.
My feelings of loneliness and gloom were only made worse when our much loved black and tan miniature dachshund, “Smoochy,” succumbed from wounds received after being mauled by a pack of large dogs. The fact that Smoochy, whose courage far exceeded his physical abilities, had caused the incident by charging into the dogs, believing he was defending his owners, provided little comfort.
During those melancholy days the Summer Olympics were taking place in Munich, Germany, and I spent many an hour in our small hotel room watching the various competitions, grateful for the diversion. When the first news reports began to break that something was amiss at the Olympic Village, I was immediately drawn into the developing story. Soon the world learned that Israeli athletes had been attacked and were being held hostage. The armed hostage-takers were radical Palestinians from a group known as “Black September.” They were making pronouncements and demands that, if not met, would result in the death of the hostages.
I was shocked by what was happening. Who were these people, these “Black September” radicals? Did they seriously think they were going to accomplish their goals? And did they really believe they were going to get away with it? It seemed crazy. At times, one of the hostage-takers would even brazenly step out in the open on an apartment balcony, his head covered by a ski mask, seemingly unconcerned about being shot. Was he nuts?
The audacity of the attack was mind-blowing to me. It contravened what I knew or had assumed about how people were supposed to behave. This was the Olympics after all. Countries and the people of the world were supposed to come together in peace, putting aside their differences in pursuit of athletic competition. What was going on?
As the events unfolded I remained glued to the drama, following it to the bitter and tragic end. I did not go to bed, as the rest of my family did, when the late night TV news reported that the hostages were safely rescued by police and the radicals were dead. For some reason I doubted that this rosy outcome was true, and I stayed up waiting for more details. Later, when an accurate report did come, the news was terrible. Not only were the hostages not safe, they were all dead—eleven in total. Five of the eight Palestinians were killed and three captured.* As the news sank in, I sensed that a threshold had been crossed, that the rules of civilization that previously existed no longer did. The doors of the world had been opened to whatever evil desired to walk through, and I was gripped by a sense of foreboding. I’m certain this feeling was magnified by the general malaise I was already experiencing. Even so, after all these years, that same feeling surfaces each time a major terrorist incident occurs.
The 1972 attack at the Olympics was a catalyst for me. It sparked a serious interest in international affairs and national security issues, including terrorism, which I continued to follow as I progressed through high school and college. My commissioning into the Military Intelligence branch of the Army after college enabled me to follow these interests in a professional realm. By the time I had entered the Army in the late ‘70s, counterterrorism was evolving into a more formalized field. Within the Army the premiere counterterrorism element, popularly known as “Delta Force,” had formed and was actively recruiting from the ranks.
At the time I was serving as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, and I was envious when one of my battalion’s company commanders successfully made it through the selection program for Delta. I was interested in joining the force myself because special operations and the counterterrorist mission had great appeal to me. I was already Ranger-qualified having attended Ranger school as an ROTC cadet, so I thought that might count for something. But after checking with the unit’s recruiters, my hopes were crushed. I was told because I was only a lieutenant and had not completed my advanced branch course, nor served as a company commander, I was ineligible to apply.
I was eligible, however, for Special Forces, commonly known as the “Green Berets.” At that time, Special Forces was not its own branch within the Army and assignment was on a “branch immaterial” basis, meaning it didn’t matter if you were an infantryman or a mechanic, as long as you could pass the SF qualification course you were in. So in late summer of 1980 I transferred from the 82nd Airborne to 7th Special Forces Group located in the Smoke Bomb Hill area of Ft. Bragg. In September I began the SF Officer’s Qualification Course and graduated in December. Although not the Army’s dedicated counterterrorist element, as a direct action-capable force, CT operations were still part of the SF mission, and some of the unit training and specialized courses were directly relevant to that mission. Given this, my Special Forces tour helped to advance my understanding of counterterrorism at a tactical level.
In 1982, I received orders for an assignment as an instructor to the Army’s Intelligence Center and School at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. This historic cavalry post, located in the southeastern corner of the state, is where the great Apache chief, Cochise, had once roamed. Although glad to be returning to the Southwest, I left Special Forces with misgivings, but had little choice at the time. I knew my officer status meant I would likely only have one more SF assignment in my career, and only then if I was lucky. In future years Special Forces would become a branch unto itself, allowing officers to spend much of their careers in SF-related assignments, but that change occurred after I had left the Army.
In addition to being in the Southwest, another positive point of my new assignment was that one of the courses I would teach was intelligence support in low-intensity conflict, a topic that included terrorism. This teaching responsibility allowed me to deepen my knowledge and understanding of terrorism through research and working with others knowledgeable in the field.
It was during this assignment that I made the decision to leave the Army. I had already been in for over five years, which was longer than I had intended. I still aspired to a career in federal law enforcement, and I applied to the FBI and DEA. At my father’s suggestion I also applied to the CIA. Although not a law enforcement agency, Dad thought it might be a good fit for me, and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like it might be an interesting place to work. The CIA was the first to process my application, and in less than a year I was accepted for employment.
I knew the experience I gained from the Army would benefit me in many ways in the coming years at the CIA. What I didn’t know was just how well, seemingly tailor-made, that experience combined with my training and years of operational work at the CIA, would prepare me for when I would join the ranks of CTC/Special Operations.
* The three captured Black September members would be traded a short time later as part of an exchange for a hijacked airliner and its passengers and crew.