I Am Soldier of Fortune

by Brown, Robert, Spencer, Vann

  “The following morning, with a belly full of eggs, fried corn beef hash, biscuits and hot coffee, we were on our way. It took almost five hours to get to the cut leading to Black Water Sound. Once into the sound some teenagers in a speed boat came by and started yelling, ‘Cuban exiles, Cuban exiles.’ We ignored them as we passed the Caribbean Club, once the main set for the Bogart movie, Key Largo. A few minutes later we were tied up at the small dock. I walked to the Caribbean Club and called Lil Joe, who assured me they would arrive at 9 p.m. It was pitch black. Peder stayed on the boat while ‘Uncle Bob’ and I walked the few meters to the road, more a single-lane path covered in gravel. The path ran down to the water’s edge, then hooked back to the highway. ‘They’re early,’ whispered ‘Uncle Bob’ as we heard a vehicle crackling the gravel. Slowly the car advanced, its headlights extinguished. The car stopped. I was on the passenger side, Bob on the driver’s. Bob asked, ‘Are you the Cubans?’ as he pulled the door open. The overhead light came on to reveal a pockmarked teenager performing dubious acts who dropped the gear into low and sped off showering us with gravel,” Marty recalled.

  Peder’s recollection of the event was not so thrilling:

  The boys’ at Nellie’s had a scheme to bring some refugees out of Cuba, film the operation, sell the film to a major TV network, and with the proceeds finance an armed raid against Cuba. As I was the only one working, I financed the rental of the Toni. ‘The boys’ were to bring weapons by road, and a Cuban captain/guide was to rendezvous. We slept on the Toni when we weren’t hanging out in Key Largo. There wasn’t much else to do except slap mosquitoes or eat refugee beans and rice, or both. RKB said he would accompany me on the boat to Key West, but would not go on the harebrained scheme to rescue refugees. We, of course, encountered foul weather, ran aground on a sandbar, ran out of food but for refugee beans and rice, caught no fish except for one small barracuda (they are virtually all bones and inedible), and waited a frustrating five days for the boys and captain. After numerous payphone calls, we were told the captain had ‘to do his laundry’ and would not be joining us.

  I started feeling more and more antsy about this mission. Not only had the guns not arrived, it just didn’t feel right. My gut had kept me from getting whacked twice in Havana by not joining abortive revolutionary ex-peditions to the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. I told Peder, who was young, dumb and full of testosterone, “This is bad . . . I don’t like it. I’m not going.”

  Peder finally agreed, worried anyhow about having no Cuban captain.

  I left a couple of Army ponchos with Marty, who later used them to jerry rig sails when the boat’s putt-putt went kaput, which allowed them to make it back to Miami. Peder enlisted in the Army to circumvent the draft, and went on to get his commission the hard way as I did, at the Ft. Benning School for Boys.

  My Cuban adventures had wound down. I was still alive because I had run out of money and patience and, dreadfully disillusioned, headed back to paradise in Colorado. I had unknowingly avoided being a corpse on the wrong end of an assassinaton. It was not the last time that I would be on someone’s hit list.

  3

  THE NON-INVASION OF HAITI

  It was a typical, bright sunny afternoon in the Flaming Liberal People’s Republic of Boulder in 1966 when the first phone call came in.

  “Brown,” Little Joe asked, “do you have any mortar rounds?” “No, Little Joe, I do not. I have better things to do, like making a living,” and hung up. Little Joe had been one of a considerable group of American would-be adventurers who had shown up in Miami, hunting rifle barrels stuck out of their car windows, after the Bay-of-Pigs fiasco, hoping to get a piece of the action. A piece of Castro, that is.

  Most gave up and returned home after sleeping in parks for awhile. But there were a dozen or so hardcore would-be soldiers of fortune who would be involved, one way or another, in most of the numerous wild-eyed revolutionary plots that germinated in Miami in the 1960’s. Miami was the Mecca for anti-Castro Cubans, Castro spies, adventurers, con men, and the occasional sincere individual determined to bring down one Caribbean despot or another.

  I had met a number of them when I had headed to Miami in 1962 to continue gathering information for my Masters thesis.

  Little Joe, telephone pole thin with a drooping mustache and balding head from Bowling Green, Kentucky, was one of them. He was a “remittance man” whose daddy, a local judge, sent him $50 a week to keep him out of town after Joe got involved in dynamiting competitors’ after-hours night clubs. He also had worked his way up to Master Sergeant in the Kentucky National Guard. I paid his telephone call little mind and went about my business . . . in this case, packing and shipping books on guerrilla warfare for my small, barely profitable publishing company.

  Thirty minutes later, another phone call . . . another Miami soldier of fortune. This time it was Marty Casey a former Marine, jet black hair and stocky, who fit the stereotype of the hard-drinking Irishman. “Brown, we need some mortars. Can you help?”

  “Look,” I said. “Do you think I keep that kind of hardware under my bed? What the hell is going on?”

  He whispered, “We’re going to invade Haiti!”

  “Yeah, well, good luck,” I growled and hung up. Ten minutes later, a third call, this time from another of the crew, Bill Dempsey, a handsome, curly haired Canadian who had somehow found his way to stirring the revolutionary pot in South Florida.

  “We need some machine guns,” he said.

  I was hooked.

  “OK. I don’t have any machine guns, but I’m on my way. I’ll call regarding my arrival time.” I packed my military gear into a duffel bag, grabbed my scoped Model 70 Winchester hunting rifle and headed to the airport. How often do you have an opportunity to invade a country with which the U.S. is at peace—from the U.S.?

  In Miami, I was picked up and driven to “Nellie’s,” the ramshackle boarding house. Some of the aspiring invaders were hanging around cleaning AR-i 5’s. I was quickly read into the plot. . . .

  “We load our guns and personnel on the boat and invade Haiti,” pretty much summed up the invasion operations order. It wasn’t going to be a repeat of the Normandy invasion that was for sure.

  And then the waiting started—for the ship that wasn’t coming in. Finally, we got the word to move out to a safe house that turned out to be not so safe. Two carloads of us drove from Nellie’s across town to a large white two-story house on a corner lot with a “For Sale” sign planted in the front lawn. We pulled into the driveway in that upscale neighborhood— in daylight mind you—and unloaded the guns, which were somewhat con-cealed in ponchos.

  This was not good. With all the shenanigans of the anti-Castro Cubans, this type of unusual activity was bound to draw the attention of nosy neighbors. And the cops. We went inside and found some 40-odd Haitians with rucksacks. Not a stick of furniture in the house. I said, “This is bullshit, stupid. The snooping neighbors are going to call the cops.”

  Within i5 minutes, a police car pulled up across the street and an officer went inside.

  “Oh, shit, this is one time I wish I was wrong,” I said. “He’s going to come over here. Let me handle it.”

  And so he did, rapping none to gently on the front door. So I opened it. “The neighbors report there is some suspicious activity going on over here. What’s going on?” the cop growled, as he swiveled his head doing a quick estimate of the situation. Now how the hell do you explain 50 males of military age in a house with no furniture?

  “Well, officer, we’re attending a Boy Scout convention and rented this house to save money.” I replied. He was not stupid. He didn’t believe it for a minute.

  “And what, pray tell, are all those military backpacks?” he smirked. I replied, “Oh, just easier to carry clothes than in a suitcase.” And with that, he departed.

  “Ok, guys, we’re going to get raided. Get the guns back in my car and I’ll take them back to Nellie’s. While loading up, one of the gringos re-con
ned the area and saw a four-door sedan parked behind a row of popular trees on the south side of the house. Customs was surveiling the house till the cops could take us down. I backed the car over the curb using the trees as concealment, loaded the guns and took off. Within a half-hour the fuzz raided the house but found nothing—except a bunch of hungry Haitians. Well, one WWII hand grenade was overlooked. Little Joe grabbed it and shoved it down his jock strap. The serrations of the pineapple grenade showed though his pants but the law didn’t notice. Nothing really illegal there, so the cops left.

  But the operation was compromised. And there still was no boat. Meantime the Cuban exiles in the operation started going down to Little Havana to get their fix of Cuban coffee wearing their camouflage uniforms. One of the Cubans’ mothers showed up in front of the “safe house,” screaming, “Jose, Jose, you can’t leave your mama alone!” The novelty of this farce had worn off and I decided to go back to packing books instead of going to jail.

  The core group of would-be invaders continued to fuss around with invading Haiti, until most of them got arrested in January 1967, including some of the American soldiers of fortune. Some went to jail, including a Haitian priest, Father Georges, who had been a Minister of Education under “Papa Doc.”

  I later wrote a scathing critique of the FBI’s involvement in the abortive invasion that appeared in National Review in ‘67. The Feds knew about the plot from the get-go and at any time could have taken Father Georges, one of the Haitian leaders aside and said, “Father, we know you wish to free your country from a brutal, oppressive dictator. But, Father, you cannot launch an armed invasion from the United States. It is against the law. Now, if you continue to pursue this project, we will have no choice but to arrest you.”

  This undoubtedly would have brought things to a screeching halt, but the Feds like to hang “trophies on their walls, and it is more exciting to play spy-counterspy in Miami than investigate run-of-the-mill miscreants. This would have saved the American taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  That put an end to that until 1969, when I was “safely” in Vietnam, when the SOF’s and a few Haitians tried again. The plan was to land a Super Constellation filled with Haitian exiles and American adventurers at an isolated airstrip and go from there. The Haitians got cold feet and did not show up. But the gringos, out of frustration, decided to go ahead and do something . . . like bombing the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince with 55-gallon drums of homemade napalm. Some of the drums actually exploded, starting an impromptu urban renewal program. Haitian anti-aircraft guns shot up the Super Connie; it was forced to land at a U.S. military missile tracking station and everybody was arrested. Enough already!

  It wasn’t the last run in I would have with the Haitian exile fantasy. In August of 1972 I got a call from a Haitian self-styled exile leader—name long forgotten as is how the heck he got my phone number.

  “How about leading an invasion and subsequent guerrilla war against “Baby Doc,” Duvalier’s fat, Lamborghini-driving son. You have to come to New York and then we will drive to Montreal to meet with the money man,” he explained with a thick French accent.

  I was working on a yet-unpublished manuscript on CIA covert operations in Florida, titled, “Ripped Cloak, Rusty Dagger,” and was bored.

  “Why not,” I responded, but being a bit wiser in the ways of would-be revolutionaries I added, “You will provide me with a round trip air ticket to La Guardia—not a one way—and pick up all my expenses.”

  He agreed and in a couple of days I was winging it to the Big Apple. Yeah, I should have held out for a “consultant’s” fee, but like I said, I was bored.

  I grabbed a cab to what ended up being one of the spookiest hotels I’ve had the misfortune to stay in. And I’ve stayed in some classic shitholes over the years. I checked in. It was not rocket science to figure out that they had put me up in this particular roach haven because the night desk clerk was— you guessed it—a Haitian exile! I could swear that the casting director for the first Star Wars movie got all the customers in the bar scene from this hotel. And going, with some trepidation, to my room, I almost got a secondary high from the marijuana smoke in the hallways. Whatever the in-habitants were offering to sell didn’t interest me. I didn’t need a case of clap no matter how cheap, much less uppers or downers or inners or outers.

  The next morning I met the leadership of the group and we chugged seven hours up to Montreal where we met the moneyman—a Canadian oil baron—and the leaders of this particular boondoggle. In short order I found out that the Haitians had promised the Canadian exclusive drilling rights for oil in the poverty-ridden country, in return for funding the operation.

  I was chosen to lead the invasion force. I was, with my team, to assas-sinate”Baby Doc” and the number two and three men in the dictatorship, all at the precise same time while they were in different locations: But there was a catch—none of the Haitians were going with me!

  This was insanity at its apex! To try and take out three targets in three separate locations at the same time means they had been smoking too much of their own bad dope. And none of them were going to risk their sorry asses? God protect me from the loons of the world. I decided to extricate myself from this inanity as quickly and gracefully as possible. I thought for a moment as they continued to babble, and came up with an alternative plan.

  “Look, guys, think about this. You say that Baby Doc drives to his beach house with some bimbo every Sunday afternoon in his Lamborghini about 2 o’clock, right? I suggest that I charter an upscale yacht, get a couple of my buddies and girl friends, and sail down to Port-au-Prince where we will hit the casinos. We’ll play the part of wealthy playboys and meet fat boy.”

  “After developing rapport with him, on one sunny Sunday afternoon we’ll sail up to his beach house, invite him aboard for drinks, neutralize any of his security and put the grab on him. Then we hold him for ransom, since his mother, who adores him and is in France, allegedly has $450 million in Swiss bank accounts.

  “Meanwhile, I have a plane to catch. Give me a call when you’re ready.”

  Needless to say I never got that call. But I had been smart enough to get a round-trip ticket.

  4

  WANDERING THROUGH THE ARMY; ANGLING FOR NAM

  A short-lived, turbulent, to say the least, and totally unsatisfactory marriage to a local bottle-bleached Boulder psycho siren left me . thoroughly pissed at the world in the summer of 1963. I had been promoted to Captain and was broke, and the only prospect of earning a decent paycheck to cover alimony and child support was going back on active duty to attend an Army school. I popped down to the local Army Reserve center where I looked for and found the longest school I could attend, the Infantry Officers Advanced Course at Ft. Benning, Georgia. Six months of an Army Captain’s pay and I could pay my bills. I should have never been sent there, as my branch in the Army was Intelligence, not Infantry.

  At Benning, I found myself in a sorry predicament as I was competing with classmates who were both active-duty and Reserve infantry officers who were about six years ahead of me in experience and knowledge. However, I struggled through once again.

  I made friends with the student company first sergeant in a plan to get an assignment to Airborne School. I knew it was unlikely, as the regs stated there were to be no airborne school slots for reservists unless you were assigned to a reserve airborne unit, of which there were none in Colorado where I was stuck for graduate school.

  “Sarge,” I implored, “any strings you can pull to get me in that damn school?” He gave me a bemused look and said, “Well, Captain, we NCO’s do have our ways, but it’s going to cost you a bottle of Jack Daniels.” No problem there. Somehow (another mystery never to be solved) through the old boy NCO network he got me orders, even though I was not assigned to an airborne unit.

  THE MYSTERY OF THE BAY OF PIGS OFFICERS

  I had a number of interesting classmates. Three or four had just returned from the White
Star mission in Laos. And there were about a dozen Cuban Bay of Pigs officers who had been ransomed from a Castro hellhole only a few months before.

  We non-Cuban officers raised our eyebrows as to why this might be, since in a normal infantry officer’s career, one first went to Basic Infantry Officers Course (BIOC), then served several years in various assignments before attending the Advanced Course. These guys were going directly from BIOC to the Advanced Course and a couple of them were scheduled, immediately upon graduation, to attend the General Staff and Command College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. Normally one would have to have ten years of active duty before such an assignment. Only explanation we could come up with was that either Kennedy planned another Bay of Pigs or he was manipulating the Cubans’ hopes for political reasons. Little did we know that Kennedy had cut a deal with Khrushchev not to invade Cuba. The mystery was solved, but not until much later.

  A number of these Cubans, virulent anti-communists, went on to distinguish themselves in combat in Vietnam and subsequent assignments in the States and elsewhere. A couple dropped out of the course to work with CIA-sponsored Cuban exile groups that were conducting para-military operations out of Nicaragua against the Cuban mainland. One, Gustavo Vil-lado, a jovial, blue-eyed, sandy-haired tiger, was in on the capture of Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967. Nestor Pino rose to the rank of full colonel and was Vice President Dan Quayle’s military advisor.

  Since I was now jump qualified, I was eligible to apply for the Special Forces Officers Course (SFOC), since back in those days, one had to be jump qualified before one could even volunteer for SF.