Full Battle Rattle

by Changiz Lahidji

  The next day we drove six and half hours north through sandy plains to an army base outside the city of Saint-Louis called Military Zone 2. There we spent two months training Senegalese infantry officers in close-quarter battle drills, battlefield medical treatment, and mission planning and movement.

  We lived in open barracks and slept under mosquito netting. Every night after training, we walked 200 meters outside the base to a Lebanese restaurant where we feasted on rice, kebabs, and hummus. Our workweek ended at 3 P.M. on Thursday. Friday was a day of prayer.

  I made friends with a number of officers. Several of them invited me to their homes, where they would spread a tablecloth on the floor and I would join members of the family and eat with our hands from communal plates placed on round brass trays.

  Somehow, I never got sick.

  11

  SPAIN

  Days after I returned to Fort Bragg I received a special assignment to go to Spain to work for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Spain, I thought. Another country on my bucket list. Sangria, flamenco, and beautiful dark-haired women. But what’s the job?

  Third Group SF command sergeant explained that the request had come through the State Department for Farsi and Kurdish speakers to assist the DEA and the drug squad of the Spanish National Police—known as Unidad de Droga y Crimen Organizado or UDYCO—in their investigations of international trafficking.

  “The Spanish have a serious drug trade problem,” he said. “They’re overwhelmed and need our help.”

  “Happy to assist in any way I can,” I responded.

  “The problem’s so pervasive that our DEA is running out of resources. That’s why they’ve turned to us.”

  “If nothing else it will give me a chance to get to know Spain.”

  According to a recent report by the European Union’s Drug Observatory, three-quarters of all European seizures of cocaine and heroin were now taking place in Spain and Portugal. The same report estimated that enforcement agencies in those countries were stopping less than 10 percent of the illegal trafficking of both drugs.

  I also learned that following the death in 1975 of military dictator General Francisco Franco, Spanish legislators had taken a highly tolerant approach to drug use. Considering it a personal liberty, they decriminalized the use of cannabis, cocaine, and heroin. As a result, demand soared, particularly for heroin, and international organized crime moved in to provide supplies, despite the fact that the distribution of drugs in Spain remained illegal.

  In 1988 alone Spanish police seized over 4,000 kilos of heroin, far exceeding the amount confiscated in the rest of Europe. A portion of the drugs entering Spain went to domestic consumption, but most of it was transshipped to Northern Europe.

  Previously, the Dutch cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam had been the primary transfer point for drugs entering Europe. After Dutch officials cracked down hard, traffickers changed routes and started using Spain.

  Language and cultural links to Latin America, where many of the drugs were coming from, made it relatively easy for Latin distributors to operate in Spain. In addition, that country’s thousands of miles of unguarded or poorly patrolled coastline provided easy access. And Spain received more than 50 million tourists and visitors a year.

  Under pressure from the European Union and Washington, and in the face of one of the fastest growing AIDS rates in Europe—due almost entirely to needle sharing among heroin users—the newly installed Socialist government of Spain had recently passed laws making it a crime to consume controlled substances, including cannabis, cocaine, and heroin, in public places. It remained legal to consume them at home.

  In the summer of ’95, when I received my orders, the new Spanish laws and increased supply were putting enormous pressure on the understaffed local customs and police forces. So me and three other guys from SF and a Hispanic Army officer were going to Spain to assist the UDYCO. We’d learn our specific duties when we arrived.

  A few days after Independence Day, July 1995, I packed my bags for a commercial flight to California for five days of leave before deploying. Having just purchased a Taurus 911 9mm handgun, I planned to take it with me and leave it at my mother’s house in Santa Clara. This special model made of stainless steel with a gold trigger and accents usually retailed for over $900. I bought it from a friend in SF at a bargain price of $250.

  Knowing the law for traveling with a concealed weapon, I cleared the pistol and stored it in a box in my suitcase. Since I had arrived at Charlotte Airport a day early, I decided to check my suitcase and carry a change of clothes and toiletries in my backpack, which I took with me to a nearby hotel. When I informed the clerk that one of my bags had a pistol in it, she marked it with a special tag.

  The next morning as I went through security with the suitcase with the gun in it and my backpack, I was pulled aside by cops, two male and one female.

  The woman said, “Step aside, sir.”

  I asked, “What’s wrong?”

  She cut me off abruptly. “Keep your mouth shut. Kneel down over there and face the wall.”

  “Ma’am, if it’s about the weapon, I cleared it earlier—”

  “Kneel down, I said!”

  “For what reason?”

  “Do it and shut up!”

  Police officers shoved me hard against the wall and handcuffed my wrists. Then with dozens of passengers watching, they zipped open my suitcase and tore through my things, throwing clean shirts and underwear on the floor. They removed the box with the pistol and, with my suitcase and clothes remaining on the floor, escorted me downstairs.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as politely as I could manage under the circumstances.

  “Don’t talk!”

  Downstairs, I was locked in a metal cage. After twenty minutes two men in plainclothes arrived, removed the handcuffs, and escorted me to a windowless interrogation room.

  “Stand facing the wall,” one of the men ordered.

  “I’m with Special Forces. I’ve been standing for a while. Can I sit?”

  “No!”

  “Why are you carrying a weapon?” the second man asked.

  I explained how I had checked the suitcase the night before and according to regulations had cleared the pistol and hadn’t stowed it in my carry-on bag. I didn’t realize that my mistake had been to try to take the bag with the gun inside it with me through security. I should have checked it instead.

  “I didn’t ask you what you did,” the plainclothes cop responded. “I asked you why you were carrying a weapon.”

  As I turned to answer, he shouted, “Shut up! Don’t say anything. Keep your nose against the wall.”

  I obeyed. Another fifteen minutes passed before the two policemen arrived and started to pepper me with questions.

  “What kind of name is Lahidji? Where are you from? Why are you carrying a weapon? What were you planning to do with it?”

  As calmly as I could, I explained that I was an American citizen and a member of US Army Special Forces. I was on my way to California to spend five days of leave with my family before deploying to Spain.

  “Spain?” the female cop asked.

  “Yes, Spain.”

  “Are you on an A-team?”

  “Yes, I am. I’ve been in A-teams for nineteen years.”

  “Really?” she asked. “Are you sure? I don’t believe you.”

  “Of course I’m sure. Check my military ID card,” I answered. “It’s in my wallet.”

  They found the card, called Fort Bragg, and confirmed that I was telling the truth. But instead of releasing me or telling me what was going on, they locked me back in the cage. I waited there, pissed off that I had missed my flight, and wondering when this situation was going to end.

  Seventeen years earlier I had gone through a similar experience in Las Vegas. I kept reminding myself that there were ignorant people everywhere and tried not to take it personally.

  Three hours passed before a man named Captain McNamara from th
e Metropolitan Police entered.

  He walked over to me and said, “Don’t worry, son. I’ll get you out of here. What were you trying to do?”

  I explained everything again and waited another three hours for the paperwork to be completed and signed. Finally, I was released. Captain McNamara stood waiting for me in the hall.

  I said, “Sir, I hope this doesn’t go on my record, sir.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he answered as he patted me on the shoulder.

  “The thing that annoys me is that the police officers, particularly the woman, showed me no respect.”

  He said, “Forget about it.”

  Upstairs past the security gate, my clothes and suitcase were still in a pile on the floor. I packed everything, but couldn’t find my pistol. Looking up at the male police officer standing over me, I said, “Excuse me. But I need my weapon.”

  He answered coldly, “Come back tomorrow.”

  “I’m leaving early in the morning and need it tonight.”

  “Okay then.… Come back in an hour.”

  An hour later, Captain McNamara arrived carrying the box with the pistol. As he handed it to me, the box opened and all the rounds fell out and scattered across the floor. I retrieved them, packed the pistol in my backpack, grabbed my suitcase, and walked back to the hotel.

  In the morning, I made sure to check my suitcase at the check-in counter and inform the clerk that there was a registered pistol inside. She tagged the bag. With great trepidation, I went through security again.

  No problem. Safely through, I found the nearest bar and ordered a beer.

  Six days later, I arrived in Spain, minus the Taurus 911, which I had left at my mother’s house in Santa Clara. In Madrid I was put up in a downtown hotel. A day later, my three colleagues arrived and our team leader, Kip from Special Forces, drove us to the US Embassy where we were briefed by two guys from DEA.

  They informed us that we were going to spend the next seven months helping the UDYCO unit analyze surveillance tapes of suspects talking in Farsi, Kurdish, and Spanish.

  Every morning we drove to National Police Corps (CNP in its Spanish acronym) headquarters, where we drank beer and coffee for breakfast, and then we went up to our cubicles on the third floor to spend the next four hours listening to tapes. Every evening, we’d report anything suspicious we’d heard on them to Kip.

  The more I listened, the better I got at deciphering the oftentimes mundane code the drug traffickers used and was able to identify which conversations were important. Sometimes it had to do with a nervous tremor in someone’s voice, or the very serious manner in which individuals discussed rugs or a trip to the beach.

  One day in my third week, I heard a guy speaking Farsi on a wiretapped phone say, “I got the offer. One point two million. Where should I get the purses?”

  “I got the purses,” a guy on the other end answered. “They’re made of the finest leather.”

  “Can you sell them?”

  “Of course. Of course.”

  “They’re good quality?”

  “Very good. You can inspect them yourself.”

  “When?”

  “I can’t show them today. I’ll call you.”

  “When?”

  “Soon. Don’t worry.”

  Over the course of several more calls, I pinpointed a house north of Madrid and the time when the exchange was going to take place. I reported everything to Kip, who passed it on to officials in the UDYCO. A raid was quickly organized. Kip and I were told that we could witness the operation but weren’t allowed to participate.

  “Fair enough.”

  That night we dressed in black and followed six Spanish police and drug enforcement officials to the site—a two-story stucco house on a quiet suburban street. Spanish officials displayed their plastic-encased IDs outside their civilian clothes and were armed with shotguns and pistols.

  On a signal from their leader, they smashed in the front door and entered. Fifteen minutes later, they emerged with five suspects—three men and two women—all in handcuffs. One woman looked Iranian and spoke Farsi. The others were Spanish.

  UDYCO officers found three big garbage bags full of cocaine in one of the closets and a suitcase packed with hundred-dollar bills. They brought the evidence back to HQ, and officials from the Interior Ministry arrived to stand beside it and have their pictures taken.

  Very late that night our UDYCO counterparts took us out for a celebratory dinner with lots of vino rosado and sangria. The next day, we returned to listening to phone intercepts and developing new cases.

  Over the course of seven months, our work resulted in fifteen more raids by the Spanish police. I accompanied them each time, observing the op from a distance and feeling left out. The suspects were Iranians, Kurds, Spaniards, or Latin Americans, and the drugs seized most often were heroin, hashish, or cocaine from the Middle East on its way to the US.

  It was a different experience for an action junkie like me, developing cases instead of busting down doors and chasing suspects. But Spain more than compensated with its other charms, including history, art, food, wine, and lovely women.

  One weekend every other month, the four of us on the drug detail would borrow two cars from the US Embassy carpool and drive six hours to Barcelona. On our way back to Madrid, we’d take a detour south and stop at US Naval Station Rota just north of Cádiz. At the PX we’d stock up on supplies—mostly snacks, drinks, videos, and chocolate.

  When I passed through Charlotte Airport in February ’96 on my way to Fort Bragg, I asked to see police Captain McNamara.

  “Sergeant Lahidji, welcome back,” Captain McNamara said as he bounded out of his office and wrapped me in a bear hug. “How’d it go in Spain?”

  “Excellent, sir.”

  “Good to hear. No more problems getting through airport security?”

  “None at all, sir. I got you this,” I said handing him a beer stein I had bought in Spain.

  “It’s beautiful, Sergeant, but I can’t take it.”

  “You must, sir. I insist.”

  He refused in the end, citing police department regulations forbidding the acceptance of gifts.

  * * *

  A month later, I got a PCS to return to Fort Lewis, Washington, and rejoin 1st Group. I was assigned to ODA 176—a special seven-man team led by a broad-chested captain who was big into weightlifting.

  Our first assignment was to fly to Laos to provide assistance as part of a comprehensive Ordnance Removal and Community Awareness training program that had been approved by President Clinton. Our job was essentially to train a select group of local trainers in demining.

  Laos had the unenviable distinction of being the most bombed country on the planet according to statistics kept by the Mines Advisory Group. One tragic consequence of the Vietnam War was that approximately 2 million metric tons of unexploded ordnance (UXO) had been dropped on Laos’s northern provinces of Houaphan and Xieng Khouang and along the border with Vietnam. Included in this figure are 270 million submunitions—or bomblets dispersed by cluster munitions, known in Laos as bombies.

  An estimated 80 million—or 30 percent—of these submunitions had failed to detonate. Some had been dropped at such a low altitude that the fuses didn’t have time to arm. Others simply malfunctioned.

  As a result of extensive ground fighting during the war, parts of Laos were also contaminated with unexploded artillery shells, antitank rockets, mortar rounds, and land mine grenades. In fact, UXO contamination was so widespread that it denied the use of agricultural land and hindered economic development.

  From 1973 through 1976, the number of UXO victims in Laos had averaged 1,100 per year. Since then the number of dead and injured had dropped but remained in the hundreds. Sadly, a large percentage of the victims were children.

  Children were attracted to the bombies, which were the size and shape of tennis balls, and often painted bright yellow. Other accidents occurred as people were going about their everyda
y work—for example, a farmer who hit an UXO beneath the soil’s surface while digging. Other causes included lighting fires over hidden UXOs or deliberately breaking UXOs open in order to sell the scrap metal or explosives inside.

  Sent to address this problem, we landed in the capital Vientiane, along the country’s southern border, then loaded our gear and ten duffels of equipment onto jeeps and drove several hours north to a camp that had been set up by the UN called Nam Souang. We were in the Vientiane Valley, which was some of the most fertile land in the country and dotted with picturesque rice paddies. Most of landlocked Laos was mountainous and not arable, which explained why its 5.5 million people were among the poorest in East Asia.

  At Nam Souang we taught classes of students selected by the Ministry of Social Welfare on how to spread community awareness, mine and UXO clearance techniques, medical training, and leadership development. In the morning, we did classroom work, working through translators and showing slides to male and female students of what to do and what to avoid. We’d tell them that the only way to disassemble a mine and other types of UXOs was to deactivate them one by one.

  Afternoons were reserved for hands-on instruction. We’d bus students into the field and show them the slow, methodical process of UXO detection. It would start with clearing strips of land three feet apart with a metal detector, then marking them with furrows. Then we’d run the metal detector over a ten-foot swath between the furrows.

  If the detector remained silent, meaning it hadn’t found any UXOs in the area, we’d mark that patch of land with stakes on all sides. If the detector beeped, the person holding it would back away, and I would move into position with a long stick and probe the ground for the location of the UXO. Once I found it, I’d dig around it very carefully with my hands.

  If I discovered a mine, I’d use pliers to cut the detonator wire and remove the blasting caps. Some types of unexploded ordnance could be defused and others had to be detonated in place once the area was cleared of livestock and people.