“I imagine something important. They look very presidential.”
—
Wednesday, September 23, 2015, 10:30 A.M. Marshall and Hurricane stand post near the gleaming white popemobile. The modified Jeep Wrangler is parked in a heavily protected area off the South Lawn. Gone is the crushing crowd that had gathered on the lawn to see the pope with President Barack Obama. Many have rushed out to try to nab a spot along the parade route.
The rear of the popemobile, where the pope greets his fans, is completely open on the back and sides. Pope Francis, ever surprising his protectors with impromptu interactions with people in the crowd, is not one to go around in a bulletproof “glass sardine can” as he has called a traditional popemobile. “Let’s face it,” he said in a newspaper article. “At my age, I don’t have much to lose.”
In the center of the popemobile’s regal red carpet is a comfy-looking white swivel chair. With the exception of the papal crest it bears, it looks like it would be perfectly at home on a high-end fishing boat. The chair doesn’t get much use, since the pope enjoys standing during parades.
Marshall knows that Pope Francis will soon be climbing into the popemobile for the big parade. He has watched over many luminaries in his Secret Service career, but the pope is his rock star. Seeing him up close like this would be a moment he would never forget.
Marshall takes his Catholicism very seriously. Like his father, he was born on Easter Sunday. His mother went into labor at church during Easter services.
At his house, a foot-tall crucifix is poised above a main door. On a wall near another door hangs an intriguing picture of Christ. If you look at it one way, it’s a soulful rendition of Christ’s face. If you look at it from a slightly different angle, the image transforms into Christ on a cross with angels flying above.
But as close as Pope Francis will be getting to Marshall on this red-letter day, Marshall will not see him. His job isn’t to look at the protectee. It’s to look away, at everything else in his sector. If trouble is going to come roaring in, it’s likely to come from anywhere but the protectee.
As much as he would want to turn around and see the pope, as much as he would love for the pope to give him and Hurricane a nod and a smile, he’ll have to settle for just being within his realm. The “complacency is cancer” mind-set of ERT is muscle memory for Marshall. Turning around is completely out of the question.
—
Tuesday, September 29, 2015. The pope is safely back at the Vatican, his whirlwind three-city tour a huge success. President Xi has flown home to Beijing. A few days remain for the United Nations General Assembly, and security is running smoothly.
Marine One lands on the South Lawn of the White House. President Obama and the First Lady disembark. On his way to the White House, the president stops to speak with a group of reporters.
“I wanted to make a special commendation of our Secret Service,” he says over the noise of the helicopter. “When something goes wrong, when there’s a fence jumper, everybody reports on it.
“The Secret Service had to manage the pope’s visit, President Xi’s visit, and a hundred something world leaders in an unprecedented fashion during the course of the last several days, and they did so flawlessly.
“And Joe Clancy, the head of the Secret Service, and the entire team and detail and professional services, they all deserve a huge round of applause for being such great hosts and keeping everybody safe,” Obama said. “So I just wanted to make sure everybody heard that. All right? Thank you, guys.”
For the next few days, canine program instructors at RTC make sure handlers know about the president’s words of praise, grateful he tried to bring positive attention to the Secret Service.
There’s been a whole lot of negative attention of late.
CHAPTER 6
WORTHY OF TRUST AND CONFIDENCE
Emblazoned in brushed-metal letters across a gleaming metal-paneled wall at Secret Service Headquarters are these five words:
WORTHY OF TRUST AND CONFIDENCE
It’s the Secret Service’s longtime motto. “It’s what we are looking for as candidates go through the hiring process, and ultimately, it’s the expectation we have of everyone in the Secret Service,” says an agency spokesman.
The motto is also written on Secret Service ID credentials, which state that the bearer “is commended as being worthy of trust and confidence.”
Occasionally the motto takes a hit, but in the last few years it has taken a beating. Scandals involving prostitutes in Colombia, DUI agents at the White House, and an officer charged with soliciting a minor for sex are just a few that have made headlines.
Then there are the security breaches: a knife-wielding fence jumper who made it into the White House, a man pretending to be a member of Congress who found his way to President Obama in a secured area, a drone that landed on the White House lawn.
Articles and news reports have taken to describing the Secret Service as “the beleaguered agency” or “the scandal-tainted agency.” A bipartisan congressional investigation resulted in a 439-page report in December 2015. Its title: “United States Secret Service: An Agency in Crisis.”
The report noted that Secret Service morale was “at an all-time low.”
A longtime dog handler was recently sitting in a diner where the news was on TV when a story about a Secret Service scandal came on.
Not again.
He felt a knot in his stomach. He looked down at his food and hoped no one would notice his uniform.
“It’s embarrassing. People see these stories and it taints everyone in the Service,” he says. “They don’t see that the vast majority of us take our responsibilities extremely seriously. We devote our lives to the Service. They don’t see the birthdays and Christmases and first steps and recitals we miss. They don’t understand the tremendous dedication almost everyone has.”
It’s some comfort to him that no dog handlers have been involved in the scandals. “And much to everyone’s relief, no dogs have been implicated either,” he jokes. “They keep their noses out of all that.”
Secret Service dog handlers have responsibilities others in the Secret Service don’t. After a shift, most can’t or don’t go out with other officers, because they need to get their dogs home. When traveling, if they go out to eat, it’s usually with other canine handlers. Takeout is a popular option among handlers on the road. They often bring it back to their hotel rooms and relax with their canine partners.
“It’s a totally different animal when you get a canine,” says former Secret Service dog handler Daryl G., now an EDT training assistant. “When I first came on, the trainer said, ‘You got a kid now. You don’t have any kids? You got one now.’ Because it’s 24/7.”
It’s hard to get into too much trouble chilling in a hotel room with your dog. Daryl’s dog, Boky, was fond of pulling toilet paper off the roll when Daryl wasn’t looking. And when the dog was young, he tore the sheets off the hotel bed a couple of times when Daryl was washing up. Daryl found him gnawing on the corner of the mattress. No visible damage, just some dog slobber. He washed it off and remade the bed.
Kind of a pain, but hardly the stuff of Washington Post headlines.
—
Trust and confidence are mainstays of the Secret Service canine world. Dogs have to trust their handlers. Handlers have to trust their dogs.
It’s this way across the board in the world of law-enforcement K-9s and military dogs. But in the Secret Service, the life of the president of the United States may depend on this all-important bond between dog and handler.
Some dogs arrive from their European kennels hungry for a best friend.
“They haven’t always had the best experience in life so far,” says ERT handler Luke K. “They want to be part of somebody’s pack. A lot of these dogs, as soon as you get them, they’re ready to be your partner.”<
br />
His dog, Nitro, was not one of these dogs. He didn’t want to listen to anyone. He did things his own way or no way at all. Regimented training cut through some of this. But it was the time Luke put in with him away from the job that really forged the dog’s trust.
“I talked to him all the time. I still do. Even though he doesn’t understand what I’m saying, he knows my voice, the inflections,” Luke says.
It took a year for Nitro to finally let his handler roll him over on his back for a tummy rub. Luke had finally won his dog’s trust.
Handlers work to do whatever it takes to maintain the trust and confidence their dogs have in them. It’s one thing to earn their trust. It’s another thing to keep it.
After Rex’s long overnight duty for the pope’s visit to the capital, he didn’t go right to sleep when he got home. Tired as he was, it was time for his usual game.
“Get your toy, Rex!” Jon said with an enthusiasm that came naturally despite his fatigue.
Rex has many toys. But there’s one toy, the toy, he must have every day after work. It’s a hard nylon bone with big knuckles on the end. It helps him unwind, like a canine version of a martini and a pair of slippers. Jon, who is a newlywed and has no children yet, calls Rex’s bone his “Binky.”
Rex immediately located the knucklebone and dropped it at Jon’s feet. Jon threw it for him a couple of times and Rex settled in for a good chew.
The tradition was once in jeopardy, when Jon threw the bone while they were outside and lost it in the bushes. Handler and dog looked everywhere and couldn’t find it. Rex eventually gave up and stared at Jon with an expression that went beyond disappointment. It was more like crestfallen shock.
“I came back empty-handed and it took the wind out of him. It made me sad. I know it’s pathetic to say, but I literally got sad,” Jon recalls. “I’d really let him down.”
The pet supply store was still open, so Jon drove over and managed to find the same toy. Only he’d forgotten that it comes with green rubbery material that covers the straight middle part of the bone. Rex had worked his way through that covering over time and would certainly know a fraud.
Jon couldn’t face disappointing his dog. Rex had trusted him, and he had thrown his happiness away. The green rubber had to go. Besides, he didn’t want to have to watch over Rex as he chewed through it, trying to pick up every single shred so Rex wouldn’t eat them, as he had tried to last time.
When he got home, he brought out a razor to slice through the rubber. It barely made a dent. This was some hard rubber. It took more than twenty minutes, but at last Jon had fashioned it to look just like the one he lost.
He brought it to Rex and hoped his dog would be OK with Binky version 2.0. Rex looked at the bone, looked at Jon, grabbed the bone, and wagged his tail. And all was once again right in his world.
—
“If you think about it, these dogs never lead you to anything good,” says lead instructor Brian M. “You have to be able to trust your dog. So we train and we train and we train.”
The Secret Service’s federally accredited dog training is rigorous, with year-round validation testing of skills. Being a handler in the Secret Service canine program is like being a student who ends up with that teacher who gives hard tests and throws in pop quizzes.
The difference is that the Secret Service’s tests can happen day or night, and the test venue can be in rain or snow or blistering heat.
For ERT handlers, tactical abilities, speed, and strength are always being challenged. Handlers have to meet intensive physical demands on a monthly basis. Dogs are evaluated in much the same way.
Detection dogs need to be able to work safely and efficiently in realistic environments, often surrounded by masses of people. The greater Washington, D.C., area is where they do most of their training.
The Service works with dozens of venues so handlers and dogs can be exposed to as many different environments as possible before they’ll face them in the real world. No one wants the first time a dog sniffs for explosives in a football stadium to be the first time a dog has experienced a football stadium. It’s equally important for the handlers to know how to navigate different complex scenarios.
The names of the venues the Secret Service uses can’t be published, but among the places that welcome the canine teams, apart from football stadiums, are convention centers, airports, train stations, baseball parks, arenas, rental car parking lots, and shopping malls.
Exposure to the world outside RTC starts early in training.
One blazing summer afternoon, a class of Friendly Dogs is enjoying the cool atmosphere inside a large shopping mall. The dogs and handlers are about halfway through their seventeen-week training. Since Friendly Dogs will be working among the throngs in front of the White House for a living, it’s important they hone their skills in crowded settings.
A sign at both ends of the practice area lets mall-goers know that these are dogs in training. Most shoppers go about their business, but some stop to watch.
“What’s she doing?” a young girl asks her mother as a shiny black Lab walks around with his handler and sits every so often.
“Aw, she’s so pretty. She must be tired of shopping, honey. See how she’s sitting?”
“I’m tired of shopping, too,” the girl announces, sounding all too happy to have solidarity with the dog.
But this Lab, a male named Lappy, is anything but tired. He’s gaming the system. He has been rewarded for sitting after tracking an explosives scent that a Secret Service “plant” is carrying, and for alerting to a backpack or briefcase containing a scent he’s been trained on. So Lappy figures that if he sits a whole bunch, he’s apt to get his reward more frequently.
Trainers call it cheating. They’re used to it. It’s a phase most detection dogs go through. Lappy is the new kid in the class, so he has some catching up to do.
His handler’s previous dog, Jack, had to be returned to Vohne Liche Kennels because he was scared of slick surfaces. It’s a surprisingly common problem. To some dogs, especially those not exposed to it early in life, walking on tiles or shiny hardwood or marble is said to feel like walking on moving ice, or a wobbly treadmill. They dig in, or retreat.
Pet-dog owners with time and patience can help their dogs overcome this fear. The Secret Service usually tests for this issue before buying a dog, but sometimes the problem doesn’t show up until the dog is in a different setting. Instructors will try to help the dog, but time is of the essence.
Even though Friendly Dogs don’t work on slick surfaces at this point, there’s a strong possibility their roles will expand. Jack’s issue wasn’t something that turned around quickly, so he made the long trip back to Indiana, and Lappy replaced him.
Cheating is a much more fixable issue, although some handlers have to be on the lookout for it throughout a dog’s career. If Lappy’s handler needs any encouragement, he just has to ask Jon.
“If Rex wasn’t cheating, he wasn’t trying,” he’d tell him. “And trust me, he tried to cheat all the time. You’ve just got to stay on it. They come around.”
—
Secret Service dog handlers want to be worthy of trust and confidence in the eyes of the president. They want the president and other protectees to know they’ve got their sixes, and to never doubt it for a moment.
They don’t often see the president up close. But when presidents spend time at their vacation residences, chances for crossing paths increase. Activities like horseback riding, hiking, hunting, fishing, and walking in nature all take a president outside, where the Service’s ERT dogs and handlers post.
In the past, dual-purpose dogs were the ones with this duty. Former handler Freddie McMillon and his dog, Marko, used to work at George H. W. Bush’s estate in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Bush (generally referred to as “Bush 41” in the Secret Service) hosted
many VIPs at his stunning seafront compound. British prime minister John Major, Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin were among his guests over the years.
McMillon says sometimes the president didn’t want to talk with these world leaders inside. For whatever reason—McMillon suspected the president wanted more privacy—there were times that Bush and a VIP guest walked away from the main house and ended up in the area he and Marko were watching.
Whenever that happened, McMillon would turn his back to them to watch out for anyone approaching. He’d also turn off his ears to their discussions the best he could.
“The president trusts you enough to be out there talking about important world matters in front of you,” he says. “You have to live up to that trust and just keep doing your job.”
He and Marko were also regular fixtures at Ronald Reagan’s Rancho del Cielo. The canine teams were the front lines of defense on the large California property.
“If the bad guys got through us, that means we were all dead out there in the field,” he says. “We’d give our lives to make sure nothing happened to the president.”
Like Bush, Reagan hosted world leaders at his vacation residence, known as “the Western White House.” While they never walked out to McMillon’s distant post, as Bush’s guests later would, McMillon sometimes enjoyed a little interaction with Reagan when the president went horseback riding.
“On occasion he’d stop and he’d talk to me. Just nice talk, asking how I’m doing, how’s my dog, how’s the family and kids, stuff like that,” he says.
“The agents didn’t like it but what could they do? I couldn’t ignore the president. I’m from Brooklyn and if you talk to me, I talk to you!”
McMillon enjoyed knowing that the president was aware of Marko. “He knew we were out there looking out for him and Nancy. Marko wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to them.”
One day the president came out to greet his Secret Service canine protectors and take photos with them, as he had done with the group of Secret Service dog handlers that included Ferrara and Bart.
Secret Service Dogs Page 8
