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

by Dan Emmett

  After we’d introduced ourselves to each other, Captain Christy invited me inside the motel lobby, where we talked about the marines. While the purpose of my visit was to take the marine officers’ exam, it soon became apparent that this was actually an interview to determine if I would even be afforded the chance to take the written exam.

  Sizing me up, Captain Christy all but stated that, from the looks of me, I probably could never make it through marine training, and that another branch of the military might be a better choice for me. Whether he was serious about my appearance or whether his words were meant as a challenge designed to attract those seeking a challenge, I was sold on the marines at that point. Captain Christy smiled a bit and summoned his equally impressive gunnery sergeant, directing him to administer the officers’ written test to me. If I passed, it would signal the beginning of my journey into armed military service by way of the Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class (PLC) program.

  The PLC program trains college students as officer candidates during the summer at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia. Then, after receiving their degrees, successful candidates are awarded commissions as second lieutenants in the US Marine Corps. It sounded easy, but it was a program that had proven fatal for some and had permanently damaged others.

  The gunnery sergeant sat me down at a small desk and handed me the test booklet for marine officers. Four hours later I completed and passed the written exam to attend Marine Corps Officer Candidates School (OCS). Rebellious and undisciplined since adolescence, with a resentment of authority in almost all forms, I had for some inexplicable reason just joined the most disciplined branch of the military services.

  Perhaps I somehow knew that I needed the type of discipline that could only be found in the marines. As the great football coach Vince Lombardi once said, “There is something in all good men that yearns for discipline.” I apparently yearned for discipline and would soon learn it under the most trying of conditions.

  As the day for me to depart for OCS grew nearer, the reality became more sobering. It was one thing to take a written exam to qualify for OCS and quite another to graduate or even to get on the airplane to go. Later, I was reminded of a Troy Donahue movie in which his character makes the comment, “How can I lead other men, I don’t even know where I am going.” At the time that pretty well summed up my leadership skills.

  HELL UNDER THE VIRGINIA SUN

  Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class summer camp is a physically and psychologically brutal rite of passage designed to produce commissioned officers and leaders for the US Marine Corps. This period of my life was crucial in forming the person I was to become, as well as the type of Secret Service agent into which I would one day evolve.

  Almost from the moment I arrived in Quantico, on June 1, 1975, every waking moment became a challenge to survive. On most of the days that followed, my platoon mates and I would have taken odds that none of us would live through the summer, much less graduate from the program.

  Over the next several weeks, in the humid Virginia heat that never seemed to subside and with our heads shaved to the skin, we ran five miles each morning wearing leather combat boots, that seemed to eat skin while constantly being physically and verbally harassed by the staff. On my summer construction jobs in high school, many of my coworkers were ex-convicts, and a few were convicted murderers. I had been around profanity but now realized that the Marine Corps drill instructors (DIs) took profanity to a level approaching art. Their ability to weave meaningful profanity into every sentence spoken was almost awe-inspiring.

  Each day presented its own difficulties. On Saturday mornings, after three hours of physical training, we would stand motionless on the asphalt parade deck under the oppressive summer sun undergoing equipment and personnel inspections, during which candidate after candidate collapsed from heat exhaustion. The staff was essentially free to do practically anything short of killing a candidate in order to determine the candidate’s suitability to become a Marine Corps officer, and over the years there have been occasional fatalities. Each day began at 0430, or 4:30 a.m., with physical training that has killed strong men, hospitalized many, and caused others to quit the program. The day ended at 9:00 p.m. with lights out, at which time we all slept like the dead until the lights went on again at 4:30 a.m.

  Staff Sergeant McLean, one of several DIs assigned to our company, and our primary tormentor, threatened every day that if I and my fellow candidates did not get ourselves “unf—ked,” he would personally kill us all, or, worse than killing us, he would send us home well before graduation.

  Staff Sergeant McLean was twenty-eight years old, six feet five inches tall, and carried no unnecessary body fat. With piercing blue eyes and a voice that could be heard probably for miles, he was one of the last marines to leave Vietnam and was a veteran of several years as a DI at Parris Island, where he trained enlisted marines. He was the Hollywood poster image of what a marine DI should look like, and I knew from the moment I saw him that my platoon mates and I could expect from him the best and most severe training allowable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He did not disappoint us, ever.

  There were other DIs besides Staff Sergeant McLean. Gunnery Sergeant Gilpin, who chose to shave his entire head each morning, loved to repeatedly inform candidates that if any of us actually believed we were going to be allowed to serve as officers in his Marine Corps, we were all crazier than a “shit-house rat.” The statement might be addressed to the platoon as a whole or to an individual, and while no one really had any idea what a shit-house rat was, we knew it must be in some way worse than the standard rat.

  Gunny Gilpin was a master of head games and he could play them at the most inopportune times. One morning before physical training I was seated in the head—the bathroom—with my red USMC shorts at my ankles when the Gunny appeared and sat down on the toilet next to mine. This was in the “old Corps,” when there were no patricians separating the porcelain thrones. Although the head was empty except for me and the Gunny, rather than him choosing any one of twenty other possibilities, he felt it necessary to conduct his business next to me. Now comfortably seated and reading the newspaper, the Gunny carried on normal small talk with me as if we were old friends. This is when I began to catch on that our DIs were actually human beings and in all likelihood pretty decent sorts. On the physical training (PT) field ten minutes later however, the Gunny was once again the inhumane maniac we all loved and admired.

  The main curriculum consisted of Marine Corps history, drill, weapons, leadership, and tactics classes, combined with a never-ending physical training regimen—all conducted under the critical gaze of battle-hardened officers and enlisted instructors.

  These men continually evaluated us for leadership potential. The Marine Corps philosophy of leadership dictates that, above all, before a man can lead and give orders, he must first learn to follow orders. As a result of this philosophy, failure to immediately carry out orders to the letter could result in one of many possible forms of punishment being inflicted on a candidate. It was a form of operant conditioning, Marine Corps–style, and it worked.

  One such corrective measure required a man to run the perimeter of the quarter-mile asphalt parade deck while holding an M14 rifle (weighing 10.32 pounds) above his head until collapsing in the summer heat, or until the DI felt that a point of instruction had been learned. If no rifles were available, a foot locker would suffice. These punishments could be doled out for something as small as failure to recall upon demand one of ten general orders, having a dirty rifle, or anything the DIs felt important; and everything was important to them. The point was to teach not only instant obedience but also attention to detail, all designed to save lives in combat. The program was also, as much as anything, a test of who could think and function effectively when pushed to the end of human endurance and who truly wanted to become Marine Corps officers.

  Every other week, we participated in forced marches of up to twenty miles with only
two quarts of water per man in 95-degree temperatures with 100 percent humidity while carrying full field packs, helmets, and rifles. Those who fell back or were too slow were pushed and dragged along by the DIs, all the while enduring the worst verbal humiliation imaginable. The scores of unfortunate souls who dropped due to heat exhaustion, heat cramps, or heat stroke were placed in the back of a deuce and a half truck, where a navy hospital corpsman who unceremoniously inserted a rectal thermometer to monitor their temperature packed them in ice. For me, death would have been preferable to this humiliating life-saving measure. If a man fell back too far, he was deemed unqualified to continue training and then simply placed in one of the safety vehicles, never to be seen again.

  One of the most important things we were taught was to overcome the natural human tendency to quit a task when physical discomfort becomes too great. Quitting was never an option in this world of real and would-be warriors, and practically anything or anyone could be used as an example.

  One morning during a three-mile run a platoon mate had to throw up, which was not uncommon. The problem as seen by the DIs was that my friend stepped out of formation and stopped running in order to disgorge his morning chow. Upon return to the platoon area, we showered and dressed for the remainder of the day’s training and then stood at attention in front of our racks (beds). It was then that we noticed that there was one man missing: the one who had dropped out to throw up. About that time, the ancient screen door of our Quonset hut, which had seen officer candidates come and go since 1942, flew open. Our missing platoon mate was propelled down the center of the squad bay by a host of DIs. He was scarcely recognizable as our comrade or even as a human being due to the fact his white T-shirt and red PT shorts were, along with the rest of him, now mud-brown from low crawling through various mud pits and culverts around the base. This seemingly cruel and demeaning treatment was designed to instill in each of us the awareness that if a marine quits in combat, much worse things can happen than being dragged through mud. Each of us from that day forward learned to throw up while running.

  In order to build aggressiveness and fighting spirit we were each schooled in the art of bayonet fighting. With each candidate armed with an M14 rifle and bayonet attached, Staff Sergeant McLean taught us the basic moves of the thrust, smash, slash, and horizontal butt stroke, designed to place cold steel in an enemy’s guts or smash his face and head into pulp. For hours and hours we practiced these moves until the rifle felt as if it weighed twenty pounds instead of ten and each movement became embedded in our muscle memory. Then it was time to practice on each other—with pugil sticks.

  A pugil stick is roughly the size and weight of a rifle. It resembles a giant Q-Tip and is padded on both ends. Each man who is to fight dons a football helmet and groin cup and is then paired up with an opponent. At the DI’s whistle, each man does his best to knock his opponent down or render what would be a lethal impact or blow with his simulated rifle. After about two seconds into the match, all formally taught moves go out the window and each man is essentially using his pugil stick as a club.

  * * *

  The real purpose of the exercise is to instill aggressiveness and fighting spirit as much as to teach bayonet fighting. The DIs had a great time watching their respective men fight one another like modern-day gladiators, and betting among DIs was not uncommon. If a man did not exhibit the proper amount of aggressiveness he was paired against two opponents and fought until he could no longer hold his weapon or had satisfied the DIs that he possessed sufficient killer spirit to be a marine officer. These drills were usually conducted in a secluded area, away from civilians and with a conspicuous absence of officers. The reward for doing well was a canteen cup of lukewarm iced tea and being left alone by the DIs for an hour.

  In order to teach merciless killing, a match was not considered to be over until the DI blew his whistle. Even if one man was on the ground, the victor was to continue pounding the vanquished until the sound of the whistle could be heard. I suppose it could be said that this was literally the school of hard knocks.

  I had two bouts. In the first I soundly defeated my opponent, while in the second I woke up staring at the clouds in the blue Virginia sky through the grill of my football helmet. While it may be great in baseball, batting 500 in bayonet fighting is not considered successful. The biggest lesson I learned from this training was that before I tried to engage a man with a bayonet at the end of a rifle, I would first have to be out of ammunition.

  With a total attrition rate of around 50 percent, the seemingly merciless nature of the program was partly designed to convince as many candidates as possible to drop on request (DOR) or quit. The philosophy was that if a man would quit on a run or a march, he would probably quit in combat, and these types of men had to be identified and weeded out. While many from other platoons quit, none from my own platoon dropped out. Nor did anyone from the ten platoons run by Staff Sergeant McLean during his tenure as an OCS DI (1974–1978). This was a record that no other DI could match, and it was not the only record our DI held during this assignment. No officer candidate or staff personnel ever bested his three-mile run time of less than seventeen minutes.

  As bad as things were at times, the thought of quitting never entered my mind. Of all the things learned about myself that summer, perhaps this character trait was the greatest, and it would serve me well as a Secret Service agent, when challenges tested both my nerves and my stamina.

  Days and weeks passed, and the DIs never let up their relentless pressure. We were constantly reminded that being dropped from training, even on the last day, with our families sitting in the graduation audience, was always a possibility. There was, of course, a method to the seemingly total madness of the DIs. Those of us who graduated would become Marine Corps officers and in the future might command our enlisted instructors. Each of these instructors wanted to be certain that we were competent to one day lead them under the worst of conditions, and they went to great lengths to make certain we were up to the task.

  As the training became more vicious with each passing day, and with our ranks within the battalion continuing to dwindle, one thing was always clear to everyone: No matter what the undertaking, whether it was a twenty-mile hike or a five-mile run in boots, Staff Sergeant McLean and our other DIs and officers always participated in these events. They led from the front. None ever commanded us to do anything they could not or would not do themselves. This type of leadership, known as “leadership by example,” was one of the main lessons hammered into our very souls during that hard summer by our seemingly callous mentors. I would take such lessons with me throughout life, and my Secret Service career.

  The night before graduation, I sat on the cool cement floor in our dark squad bay with three of my best friends drinking vodka and grape Kool-Aid from a metal canteen cup stamped “1944” on the bottom. That cup somehow made it home with me rather than being turned in with the rest of my equipment and now serves as a pencil/pen holder on my desk.

  On graduation day the ordeal finally ended, and those of us who had survived stood on the same parade deck where we had endured so much misery. We hardly believed we had made it. We had begun with over 600 candidates and finished with 321. I came in at 118. Final class rankings were based on three main areas: physical fitness, academics, and leadership. While my final ranking was not numerically superior, even the man who finished last, at 321, had much to be proud of.

  At the graduation ceremony, Staff Sergeant McLean shook hands with me and then smiled one of the few smiles I had ever seen on his face as he congratulated me on finally getting myself “unf—ked.” It was a day never to be forgotten, and I have not.

  Marine Corps Officer Candidates School was my first experience in a world where a man was expected to do his job and do it well, and yet there would be no accolades given. Graduation was the reward, and doing one’s job was simply expected. With the hell that was Marine Corps Officer Candidates School now behind me, I headed back to air-c
onditioning, cold beer, civilization, and the remainder of college.

  I completed college with a degree in criminal justice, and on August 19, 1977, I realized the long-sought-after goal of being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Marine Corps. As I stood in my summer service alpha uniform, taking the oath of office of a commissioned officer, I could scarcely believe it. The entire day was a blur, and after working for so many years to attain this seemingly impossible goal, I felt it was all happening to someone else while I merely observed.

  The celebratory festivities of my commissioning lasted well into the evening and then moved into the following morning. When I awoke sometime around noon and saw my uniform strewn about, the realization began to set in that I was now a Marine Corps officer and no longer a civilian. It was a great feeling that helped abate the hangover.

  After completing the Basic School and the Infantry Officer Course, I proudly served four years of active duty, most of it with Second Battalion, Ninth Marine Regiment, at Camp Pendleton, California, and was honorably discharged with the rank of captain.

  During my service, I was placed in command of from 38 to 180 enlisted marines. I put into use all the traits and leadership skills taught by my drill instructors and officers at OCS. As a leader I was certainly a work in progress, but I had learned above all else that the principle of leadership by example was the most important of all. If a man leads from the front, others will invariably follow. This was to become a critical part of my leadership inventory in the years to come as a Secret Service agent. Eventually, I would train new agents and lead other agents while protecting the president of the United States.