Ft. Gordon, GA

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Received an e-mail from an old Army buddy from my Fort Gordon, GA days. He reminded me of my days with the Military Police.

Way back in the 1970’s at Ft. Gordon, GA, I enforced military law for the U.S. Army as a Military Police (MP) patrol supervisor.

My job at Ft. Gordon as an MP supervisor was interesting and I enjoyed my job. As a patrol supervisor I supervised approximately 15 MP’s on various shifts. These MP’s were on facility entrance and exit gates, MP desk operations center duty, and of course some were on police vehicle patrol of the facility. My job as an MP supervisor was going along just fine, I enjoyed the job, and that should have told me something was about to happen! Sure enough, life changed dramatically when I was selected (chosen, picked, stolen) to be a semi-undercover Military Police Investigator (MPI).

Once I recovered from the news that I was no longer in charge of an MP shift and was going to be just a member of a team again I was ok or sort of ok. That Monday morning I walked in the MPI office, then located just across the street from the MP station, to a beehive of activity. The ten person MPI section was co-located with the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) which handled the felony crimes while MPI handled the minor crimes along with crimes the CID did not want to be bothered with.

Before I could say hello, I was told to shut up and sit down and pay attention to a briefing that was about to take place. We did not spend a lot of time acclimating folks to the job in those days, you were expected to know the job, do the job, and get the job done when you arrived for duty. Soldiers did not worry in those days about hurting each other’s feelings nor did they spend very much time making sure folks were trained on every aspect of the job.

The CID decided there were too many robberies taking place at Ft. Gordon and were about to start surveillance on the areas where the robberies were taking place. The MP’s were getting about five reports a night of soldiers being robbed at gun and knifepoint on paydays. Well you guessed it, I reported for duty on payday.

The briefing by CID was very good yet I could not believe some idiot was actually going to walk around Ft. Gordon trying to get robbed. The plan made sense, one person would wander the areas of post where the robberies had taken place, pretending to be drunk, while several surveillance teams would be poised to rush in and arrest the robbers when they appeared to rob the MP/MPI/CID decoy.

As the briefing was coming to an end and team assignments were being made, I could not help but notice that I had not been assigned to one of the surveillance teams. Oh well, I thought the new guy (Me) just got to sit in on the briefing and would not get involved this week. You can imagine my shock when I heard my name as I was being introduced as the new member of the team and that I had volunteered to be the bait/decoy!

This was not too much of a shock since I was about 6’ tall and weighed in at 200 lbs. My size usually got me picked to hit the door first or be the bait. I thought the powers that be (PTB) would have wanted a smaller person for the bad guys to rob.

As the night got later I had the feeling I was right and the PTB were nuts, the bad guys were not going to pick on a large guy to rob. I wandered around the clubs, bars, and parking lots for hours without being approached by anyone. About 4 AM I was approached by three young men who obviously had been drinking since they wanted a light for a cigarette that they did not have. As I was telling them they needed a cigarette in order for me to give them a light, one of them pulled a knife and demanded my money.

All three young men who were now would be robbers, who were close enough for me to touch, looked wildly at me and were becoming very impatient with me. I waited calmly for what seemed like a lifetime for the surveillance teams to rush in. None of the surveillance teams were visible. Neither the robbers nor I could hear any noise except for their heavy breathing, they were not good at this robbery business.

Some how I managed, to calmly and loudly, say for the benefit of the surveillance teams, "You really do not want my hard earned money". The young man with the knife, not wanting to be out done, loudly said, "If you do not give me your money and watch, right now, I'll cut ya". I was wired for sound, out in an open area, there was a full moon, and the surveillance teams had night vision devices and binoculars, but they still had not arrived!

Where were my surveillance teams? I was not too worried about the surveillance teams being a little late because I was armed with a Smith & Wesson snub nose 38 pistol. I had on a windbreaker and had both my hands in the pockets of the windbreaker. The robbers did not know I had a 38 pointed at them from the right pocket of the windbreaker the entire time they were talking to me.

Now as the moments turned into what seemed like eternity, all of us at the robbery party were getting a little edgy. I am as patient as the next person but late is late and the guy with the knife was about to step forward and remove some of my skin. I have always felt that shooting an armed criminal is not a bad thing, but I did not want to destroy my windbreaker either.

As the young man closest to me seemed like he was about to lunge in my direction with his knife, I pulled my gun; side stepped the knife, knocked the knife and the robber to the ground. Then I uttered those horrible words I used to laugh at when I heard MPI use them. Reach for the sky MPI.

Those words must be magical, even though they sound funny, since they did the job. The two robbers still standing reached for the sky/moon while the other robber was face down on the ground with my knee in his back. I do not know if they knew what MPI meant or if they saw my MP badge which was attached to my belt, or if they were hoping I was the police and not another criminal who was going to rob or shoot them.

It was nice to hear movement, see the approaching lights, and hear the surveillance teams starting to arrive to assist me. Everyone was very happy I did not get stabbed or robbed and that I did not shoot anyone. No one ever seemed to have a good reason as to why the wire radio-recording device did not work, or why no one saw the three guys with knives trying to rob me until I had one of them on the ground.

My life as an MPI got started with real excitement at Ft. Gordon, GA in the mid 1970’s..

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