Blown for Good - Marc Morgan Headley [69]
Quarter Masters were added to berthing. This was a staff member deputized as a security guard who would walk around the apartment complexes at night and make sure no one blew. To the general crew and local Hemet citizens, the quarter masters were passed off as extra neighborhood watch personnel. As more and more staff blew from berthing this seemed to be the solution. All male crew members would hold watch one night per week at any one of the various apartment complexes that were being used in Hemet. Of course the natural progression of this included having the quarter masters themselves blow while on watch! Then there had to be two staff at each location so they could watch each other! Then the quarter masters would sleep in during the day after being up all night and one of them would blow during the day whilst the other was sleeping. Eventually, there would be two shifts of QMs at every apartment complex during the entire night and all day!
In my opinion the Intruder Drills were the only ones that were any fun.
There were four memorable drills that occurred while I was on the base. Then one time, there was a Blow Drill and Power Outage Drill on the same day at the same exact time!
Intruder Drill #1
It was the middle of the day. A guy had committed a crime in Hemet and was chased by Hemet Police squad cars to a location south of the property and across the river. He got out of his car, ran across the levee and jumped the perimeter fence of the property. Not only did he get very badly sliced up by the ultra barrier as he scaled the perimeter fence, but he set off the ground microphones and fence shakers. The booth had already heard the police traffic on the radio scanner and now they had the alarms going off, signaling the intruder drill. Kenny Seybold (former security chief and current Exercise In Charge) was mowing a lawn down on the sports fields when he saw the intruder running across one of the lawns. He offered to help the guy evade his captors and jogged with him towards the main gate. Once they got within a few feet of the security booth, Kenny tackled the guy to the ground and held him until the cops came around to gather him up. This was the only intruder drill that the Security guards would remember as a “win.”
Intruder Drill #2
We were on the night shift in Tapes. It was Tony Cifarelli, Agnese Bertolina Johnson and I. It was just like any other night and we had been back from our meal for about an hour or so and I needed to use the facilities. It must have been around 2:00 a.m. The bathrooms are no more than 20 feet from where Tapes was.
I was sitting on the toilet when Tony came in. I could tell it was him because he always checked to see if someone was in the head when he entered. “Marc?” he said, knowing I had just left to go to the bathroom one minute earlier. “Yeah,” I answered back. He was taking a leak. I could hear him humming as he did so. I am one of those people who needs some privacy in order to do my business. Tony coming in and humming had chased it back up and I was not about to be able to go.
All of a sudden Agnese came busting in the door and screamed at the top of her lungs that there was an intruder drill and we needed to get back into the Tapes area right away! Crap! Without even standing up, I pulled up my underwear so quickly that they literally ripped right off my legs into my hands.
I pulled up my pants and zipped up as I ran back towards Tapes. Tony was right in front of me. We ran into Tapes and got under the desk. Agnese had already drawn the blinds, closed the doors and was under the desk when we got back in there. The phone rang! I answered. It was the security booth. “You and Tony need to come to the main booth right now!” Danny Dunagin blurted out.
“Tony, we have to go to the main booth right now!” I yelled as I headed for the door. I was at the main booth within a minute.