Travel to Exotic Places, Meet Interesting People & Kill Them

Entrance to EOC, Ft. Bragg, 1978, Photo by D. Konop

The charge of quarters woke me at Oh-Dark-Thirty on 19 November 1978.  I was told the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) had been activated and I might not return for a couple days.  I walked the block and a half from the barracks to XVIII Airborne Corps Headquarters and climbed three flights of stairs to a six inch thick vault door just to the right of the third floor landing.

Pressing the cipher lock  -  rocker switches numbered 1 to 5 and hidden behind a grey steel panel,  I pushed the EOC vault door open and walked along a dark narrow hall with darkened offices for 50 feet or so before it  turned sharply to the right and into a bright florescent lit room filled with steel desks and lined with maps, clocks, classified, secret and top secret cover sheets.

Cover Sheet

The duty officer, a major and a highly decorated helicopter pilot, told me US civilians had been attacked and killed by the Guyana Army. I sat at my desk as an operations assistant and was told I was one of the first to arrive while others were driving in from their homes on and off post.  The major handed me a telex with a Secret cover sheet stapled to it and told me he had a secure call to make.

I lit a Marlboro, tossed the match in an army issue glass ashtray and turned the cover page over. Following  the distribution of military and government offices, two paragraphs described how a US Congressman was shot and killed at the Port Kaituma airstrip along with hundreds of US civilians.  I remember thinking, "Why would the Guyanese Army do that?"

Port Kaituma Airstrip, photo credit: FBI

The EOC filled with men and talk of kicking Guyana ass and taking names.  The Airborne motto, "Travel to Exotic Places - Meet Interesting People - And Kill Them" was finally going to happen.  I was told by the ops sergeant that as infantrymen our lives as Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers (REMF) would soon be over and  we'd be re-assigned to a line infantry unit in the 82nd Airborne.

My stomach dropped just below my knees as I imagined coal black Guyanese commandos with machetes chopping my unprepared REMF ass into tiny bite size pieces and then fighting over my Rolex and boots.  At 20, I was a huge smart ass but I worked that morning without saying a word and wondered if I shouldn't leave my watch behind.

Time, December 4, 1978

It took almost four hours before a telex told the true story.  A US Congressman and five civilians, mostly media, had been killed at the airstrip.  The Guyanese, our enemy seconds earlier, were helping us and had reported 200 - 300 dead at a camp  of American farmers.  In another couple hours we learned it was mass suicide - Some 900 dead.  A G-3 officer wrote in red wax pencil over a Sortie board, "Operation Bag-A-Bod."  A call for volunteers went up to to assist 1st COSCOM with the body removal.  I called my father and told him I was thinking of going.  He told me not to and went into vivid detail as to why.

I learned a lot 34 years ago today.  I learned not to believe everything you hear or read.  I learned a an officer had his heels locked and his ass chewed over a Sortie board. I later learned he retired a major and I think I know why.  Mostly, I learned time changes everything.