Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL (17 page)

The leader of the Sandinistas, Daniel Ortega, promptly consolidated his rule, jailed opponents and former allies, and established an orthodox communist state. Civil rights were curtailed and elections postponed. Cuban aid propped up the junta, as did Russian arms and advisers. The increasingly radical regime was accused of aiding the leftist insurgency in nearby El Salvador, a charge Commandante Ortega made no attempt to deny.

In Washington, it appeared that the dominoes were beginning to fall, and the perception was that a Cuban finger was doing the pushing. None of this sat very well with Ronald Reagan, who, I am told, never got used to Cuba in the first place. For Uncle Ronnie, one communist country in the hemisphere was enough.

As Sandinista repression intensified, dissidents began to take up arms. Some of the fighters were from the military of the old regime, some were from the oligarchy, but many were from liberal and democratic elements that felt betrayed by the Sandinistas’ power grab. Harried by Sandinista patrols, most of these forces fled north across the Coco River and into Honduras. In 1981 their numbers were small and their equipment and arms almost nonexistent. They had no centralized command. They were not a viable military force in any sense of the word.

That would soon change.

These groups would come to be called
contrarevolucionarios,
or simply the Contras. With the backing of the CIA, these factions would be drawn together into a force dedicated to the overthrow of Daniel Ortega. The Contras were to become the pointy end of a continuing U.S. proxy war against the Evil Empire. The CIA needed a place where this surrogate army could be armed and trained, a place far from publicity or notice. That place was eastern Honduras: the
departmento de
Gracias a Dios.

ONE AFTERNOON IN LITTLE CREEK,
Frank and I were on our way to the pistol range. Mike Boynton waved at us from inside the ops office. “XO wants to see you,” he said.

As we started across the hall to the XO’s office, Mike asked, “You guys up on your shots?”

He meant immunizations, and we both knew this meant traveling, usually to someplace where diarrhea was a national pastime.

We knocked on Jon Wallace’s door. Rolled out on the his desk were a nautical chart of the Mosquito Coast of Honduras and a few satellite photos of a crummy little village at the foot of an extraordinarily long pier. It was my first glimpse of Puerto Lempira.

The XO didn’t say much. We were told that there would be a joint U.S.-Honduran amphibious operation, intended as a demonstration for the Nicaraguans. The operation was code-named Agas Tara. The U.S. intended to land marines and whatever forces the Honduran army could scrape together in the vicinity of Cabo Gracias a Dios, the cape that marked the border of Nicaragua and Honduras. Frank and I were to accompany the XO on a preliminary reconnaissance of the area and select a number of possible beach-landing sites.

“Hard data on this area is strictly guidebook stuff. The maps are a joke,” the XO said.

I looked at the bottom of the nautical chart. It was based on an admiralty survey dated 1856. A small caution also stated: “Cabo Gracias a Dios is reported to lay 15 nautical miles east of the position indicated on this chart. Navigators should use extreme caution approaching the coast.” The position of a major terrain feature was plotted with a fifteen-mile error!

If we were going to go there and make maps, our work was definitely cut out for us. I looked at the satellite photos. The vegetation around the Laguna was brutal. Swamp, jungle, mangrove, and various combinations of the above.

Fifth Platoon had just returned from a month of jungle training on Isla Peros and Vieques Island in Puerto Rico. I would have liked to think that we were selected for this operation because we were trained to razor sharpness. Actually, Frank and I had been picked because we were, well, available.

We would leave the next day, travel by commercial air to Panama, check in to a hotel, and wait for a go. We were to wear civilian clothes and carry nothing to identify ourselves as U.S. naval officers. Once the mission was green-lit, we’d report to Howard Air Force Base in the Canal Zone and insert by air force C-130. Once in-country, we would meet up with a Honduran naval vessel. We would be delivered into the area as discreetly as possible, scope the place out, and make a recommendation. The powers that be would select one of our suggested locations, and before the landings, a larger team would be dispatched to make a detailed reconnaissance, to include the creation of a beach-landing chart. It was a classic preinvasion operation, made a little spookier by the civvies.

We were to tell no one, in or out of the command, where we were going or what we were doing. In order to draw per diem and tickets, our orders would read that we were to travel to Fort Amador, Panama, for TAD, or temporary additional duty. Generic orders, until you read the fine print. We were authorized “to other locations as necessary and return,” authorized to observe relaxed grooming standards, and authorized to carry concealed weapons. We were to travel under our civilian passports.

Frank and I returned to our platoon hut, packed our gear, and reported to sick bay to draw malaria pills. I took mine that night, and they made me violently ill. Malaria wouldn’t have been any worse. Maybe I should have taken it as an omen.

The following morning we met at Norfolk International Airport for a flight to Miami. From Miami we would connect to another flight into Panama City. On the way to the airport, I stopped to buy a paper.
The New York Times.
It is axiomatic in the military that the more people there are who know about an operation, the more likely it is to go wrong. We were not off to a great start. Despite our civilian clothes and our circuitous, nonmilitary transportation arrangements, our mission was on the front page:
U.S. TO STAGE AMPHIBIOUS OPERATION ON NICARAGUAN BORDER.

Even the code name was in the article. I handed the paper to Jon Wallace as we waited at the gate. He read it with a bemused look. Whoever leaked to the
Times
knew everything. It wouldn’t be the first or the last time I would take part in an operation that was preannounced in the press. We got on the plane and hoped for the best.

We arrived in Panama and grabbed taxis to the hotel. At the time Panama was firmly under the rule of Manuel Noriega. Although it was nominally a U.S. ally and a “partner for peace,” the isthmus was a haven for narcoterrorists, money launderers, drug dealers, and international refuse. We checked in to El Marriott in Panama City, the lobby of which was arguably the king-daddy nexus of shady operations in all of Latin America.

We cooled our heels at the hotel for a couple of days while people higher up the food chain tried to figure out what to do with a clandestine reconnaissance element that had been deployed the same day
The New York Times
blew Operation Agas Tara.

We hit the weight room and the pool and hung out. The bar at El Marriott was like something straight out of a Warren Zevon song. Shoulder to shoulder were cocaine cowboys, thousand-dollar-a-night call girls, arms merchants, DEA agents, spies, squint-eyed bankers, and beribboned Panamanian military thugs. Swilling
ron y tonicas,
the crowd mixed it up until the wee hours. When asked what I was doing in Panama, I’d say I worked for a company that delivered sailing yachts. I said I was waiting for a ketch to transit the canal, and when the boat arrived in Panama City, I would sail it up the coast to San Diego. It was a cover I used frequently, and it always worked. It explained why I was just hanging around, why I was sunburned, why I owned decent rain gear; and chicks dug it. Sometimes people in hotel bars are not what they appear to be.

The decision was finally taken to let us do our thing. At 0400 we drove to Howard Air Force Base, boarded a C-130, and flew north to Honduras. The plan had changed, and “as discreetly as possible” now meant that we would directly fly to the airfield at Puerto Lempira. We’d still be in civvies, but since the amphibious landing was no longer a secret, we’d dispense with the midnight parachute drop.

We were met at the airfield by a CIA paramilitary officer. He was wearing an Izod shirt and tiger-striped camouflage pants. He had an Uzi slung around his neck, bolt back, ready to rock. Later, none of us remembered him mentioning his name. We were driven through “town” and out to Puerto Lempira’s single pier. The Honduran naval vessel we boarded was a surplus World War II Mike boat. It was a landing craft right out of
The Longest Day.
Beat up and rusty, this one looked like it might have been used at Normandy.

We crossed the Laguna and dropped the ramp inside on the bar. The coxswain put Frank and the XO ashore on the southern side of the channel mouth. Mr. Uzi and I were landed on the north side. The beach was broad and the sand extremely soft. I doubted that wheeled vehicles, even six-wheel-drive trucks, could cross it. The day was rainy and gray, and although the surf was almost flat, I noticed debris and driftwood well up the beach. The surf had been big here recently. Big surf is a negative factor in amphibious landings.

As we walked back to the pickup point, I asked Mr. Uzi if there were any other Americans here.

“Three of us,” he answered. He said he’d flown down from Tegucigalpa two days ago. There were some camps for “displaced persons” ten miles to the south of Puerto Lempira, and that’s where they spent most of their time. He had been there when he was told to go to the airstrip and meet us. I guessed those displaced persons were Contras but said nothing.

We met back at the Mike boat. The XO and Frank had the same story to tell about the sand on the other side of the channel. I mentioned the debris on the beach. River mouths and bay entrances can get nasty when a swell is running. Though it was slack water at the time of our visit, the current out of the bay would also be a factor. Landing on the outer beaches was probably a nonstarter—there were beach exits, but they led only into mangrove and impassable swamp. If there was to be a landing here, it would have to be inside the lagoon.

We chugged back into the bay, the Mike boat doing maybe seven knots. As we crossed the bay, it started to rain, hard, and my malaria pills kicked in again. I spent most of the crossing puking over the front of the bow ramp.

Three miles east of Puerto Lempira, in a quiet mile-wide cove, we found a landing site. The exits led to a logging road, and the beach flanks were bordered by mangrove and several slow-moving streams. The terrain here would favor the landing force. Although it would not be within the line of sight of the landing ships, an amphibious squadron and attack helicopters could control access to the bay. It was a sweet piece of real estate.

“We’re going to want to move trucks across the beach,” Mr. Uzi said. The XO didn’t think that was going to be a problem. This beach, unlike the others, was hard-packed sand.

Frank gave me a look. Those trucks, we guessed, would be making deliveries to the displaced persons. This landing beach was out of Puerto Lempira’s view and not visible to vessels offshore. Privacy was a plus. The beach exits connected to the road linking Puerto Lempira with the border. Besides being able to service the displaced persons, this landing site would be a perfect back door into El Salvador.

Our CIA friend was delighted, and we were happy for him.

We chugged back to Puerto Lempira, said good-bye to Mr. Uzi, and boarded the C-130. Five hours later, I was back in the bar at El Marriott, telling a Dutch stewardess how I got my job with the yacht delivery company. The following day we flew back to Virginia Beach.

Nothing happened for a couple of weeks. Then, as is usually the case in the navy, everything happened at once.

Fifth Platoon was preparing for another training deployment, this one to Fort A. P. Hill in central Virginia, where we would undergo three weeks of air-to-ground training, learning to call in air strikes and artillery. Our trucks were loading when Jon Wallace called Frank and me into his office.

“One of you is going back to Honduras,” he said.

“When?” asked Frank.

“Agas Tara is on for next week,” the XO said. “You’ll need to select an element to conduct the prelanding recon and prepare a beach-landing chart. You’re going to do an at-sea boat drop to rendezvous with the amphib ships after they leave Puerto Rico.”

“We’re scheduled to go to A. P. Hill tomorrow morning,” said Frank. ANGLICO (Air/Naval Gunfire Liaison Company) was a critical part of our mission, and it was certain to figure in our operational readiness inspection, which was three weeks from now.

“Either Chuck takes the platoon to A. P. Hill or you do. But I want someone who’s had eyes on the target to make the recon,” said the XO.

“How many guys in the detachment?” I asked.

“No more than five,” said the XO.

“Five guys to do a prelanding recon and survey?” I asked. It was normally a job done by an entire platoon, sixteen men, or even two platoons.

“Not my problem,” the XO said. “Now get out of here and make it happen.”

Meeting over. Frank and I left.

Frank Giffland was one of the best officers I ever had the privilege to work with. “You’re going,” he said.

I couldn’t believe my ears. This assignment was a plum, and there were few officers, me included, who would let it devolve on a subordinate. I said, “Frank, you’re senior, you oughta go down there.” Not that I didn’t want the job—I did.

“This is going to involve a boat drop,” I went on, “and briefing the commander of the landing forces,
and
the commodore of the amphibious squadron . . . Then there’s the little problem of conducting a prelanding recon with only five guys. Not to mention the fact that I speak French—my Spanish is still limited to ordering beers and telling people to get fucked.”

“I think you can handle it,” Frank said. He said the recon would be fun, but his job was to prepare the platoon for deployment. The platoon was his command, and platoons were commanded by platoon commanders. Detachments were commanded by assistant platoon commanders. So that settled it. The entire time I worked for him, Frank Giffland applied this logic, and I was to be afforded opportunity after opportunity. It was not a lesson I would forget. Later, when I got my own command, I’d do things the Giff-land way.