Security Police Academy Memories - Part II
In which Teófilo continues to reminisce about training in classrooms, gun ranges, and practice fields.
Yet Another Confidence Course
As SPs we had to maneuver our own obstacle course. It was different from the one I’d faced before during BMTS. I don’t recall much of it except that it involved a lot of wall climbing and descending. The one I remember most is the “spider” climb and descent. I had to climb a free standing wooden wall painted in dark colors. When I got to the top of the wall, I had to hang from its edge using my left hand and left foot. I would then resemble a spider hugging the wall, with my right hand grabbing my M16 and my left foot free, of course. I would then let go of the edge with my right foot which would force my body into a semi-circular movement upon the wall. Once vertical I would let go my left hand from the edge in one fell swoop and land on my feet. The purpose of such maneuver is to learn how to climb and descend from medium-high walls and avoid jumping into the void and breaking your feet.
I remember doing it effortlessly — I’d lost a lot of fat weight during training, and I was the lightest I’d ever been in my adult life. I was amazed I’d done it. That’s why they also call it “confidence course.” A few weeks before I’d been an insecure nerd in college and now I was climbing over walls and jumping over obstacles with a weapon in hand. I felt good.
Since the Richard Gere movie An Officer and a Gentleman was of recent memory, we coined training nicknames for each other, or at least, started to. The trainers hated it and forbade us to do it. It was fun while we did it. I had to wait until my Navy time to get mine. (Chevy, if you were wondering. Only people of a certain age would understand why).
Combat Land Manuever Training
Since weapons training granted us credibility in weapons handling and safety, the instructors taught us the basics of maneuvering in small, 4-people squads. We each had assigned a weapon as I’d explained before. Borrowing from Army infantry tactics, instructors taught us to form and maneuver into “wedges” like the one below:
Figure 1 above depicts a “strong left” wedge formation. The Team Leader (TL) carried one of the single M16s. To his right, the “weak side,” moved another SP with another single M16. To the TL’s left and behind moved the SP with the M203 grenade launcher (GR) mounted on the M16. Behind the grenadier moved the SP tasked with firing the M60 machine gun. It is called a “strong left” wedge because most of the formation’s firepower is “to the left” of the wedge. Its mirror image would be a “strong right” wedge. Three wedges formed a platoon and the platoon commander — who could be non-commissioned officer, a commissioned officer, or an experienced junior enlistee, would command the platoon’s movements using hand signals. The platoon commander would also arrange the strong side of each wedge according to the expected contact direction.
Thus, we maneuvered under the incandescent, merciless Texas summer sun, walking, crawling, low-crawling, and bounding our wedges in overwatches, always in the lookout for imaginary enemies. Always at the ready we walked, moved on combat pace with weapons read or lowered, jogged with weapons lowered, or sprinted through the field like soldiers on D-Day.
I developed a tan but tolerated the heat well, thanks to my Puerto Rican upbringing. By that I mean I never fainted, while others did. It still sucked, but that was the price of duty.
“Clearing” Buildings and Rooms
We also learned how to inspect buildings, room by room, and “clear” them from possible suspects or aggressors. We also learned how to enter rooms while under fire from within the room — hugging the ground, aiming the weapon at the source of fire, and saying three Hail Mary’s if you can. (Nowadays you would throw a “flash bang” grenade when the offender is a civilian and in peacetime operations. The flash and the noise of the grenade will disorient the adversary and give us time to apprehend him with minimal physical force — that is the minimal force necessary to subdue the aggressor without inflicting deadly force, that is. Or, in wartime situations, you would throw a hand granade into the room. That would take care of the hostile fire. Then you thanked God it wasn’t you).
We learned to cover all the exits on each building and provide security awareness using two-way radios, under exacting communications discipline, i.e. using call-names, cover terms, saying “over” when finishing a statement and awaiting a reply, and “out” when finishing a communication. We were diamonds in the raw but not one of us were pieces of charcoal, as I remember it. We just needed some polishing.
Individual Apprehension Training
This is the bread-and-butter of every policeman: the time might come one would have to arrest a suspect — the term “person of interest” wasn’t in vogue back then. Thus we had to learn how to order the suspect with authoritative voice commands:
Halt!
Don’t move!
Spread your legs, spread your arms spread your fingers!
Slowly drop to the ground, on your knees! (If the suspect was particularly uncooperative, you’ll order him to lay completely on the ground, arms, legs, and fingers spread).
At that point a fellow SP who had been standing overwatch would come in and cuff him following a standard procedure. We would then read them their Miranda Rights if the person was a civilian, or from the Unified Code of Military Justice’s (UCMJ) Article 31, if the offender was a member of the US military. The SP Academy provided us pocket cards with both versions of “advisement of rights” for our convenience. When a wall was available, we used the wall to immobilize the suspect before cuffing them.
The instructors also taught us to do superficial body searches. These searches might have been superficial, but they were quite harsh and invasive. “Superficial” here means that the suspect got to keep his clothes on, but the SP was expected to press the suspect’s every body part, privates included, in search for hidden weapons or contraband. Trust me, but seasoned criminals can hide weapons anywhere in their bodies. Yes, in their bodies. Obviously, males practiced on male students, and females practiced on female students.
Crowd Control Training
This is the only training module I was uncomfortable with. We wore standard battle helmets on — the “classic” helmet used on every war from World War II to Vietnam that you see on the movies. They gave us batons and showed us how to swing them against riotous citizens threatening some vital defense resource. It was very superficial training iteration. I never faced such a situation in real life but in real life, every service person in an USAF installation would have been eligible to participate in riot control. That would not have been pretty to see.
First Aid Training
Instructors trained us to stop bleeding, mend fractures, and treat various wounds. The idea was to keep the patient stable until real paramedics arrived. We were told we should “encourage” wounded personnel while providing first aid and awaiting trained personnel. Therefore, we would say “encouraging” things to foster hope. This is another skill I never had to use in my career.
Party Every Weekend
Oh, yes, we partied almost every weekend we spent at the SP Academy, but these were parties of a different kind. These were “G.I. Parties.” Their object was to do extensive janitorial work in other dorms and prepare them for imminent habitation. We would spend from half to three quarters of every Saturday “partying” like this. At the end of the day we were allowed to be on our own, but not to venture outside of Lackland, if you weren’t too tired. Only Sundays were our real “days off” to do laundry, buy necessities, go to church, and chill out.
I would use my downtime to jog on my own or go shopping at the exchange. I even opened an account at Lackland’s credit union and wrote my first ever personal check in one of those forays.
On occasion I would visit the nearest “rec room,” places where you can go watch free movies, listen to music, buy fast food, even dance. Once I observed a couple of airmen dancing in their olive-green uniforms and boots. They really wanted to dance, it seemed. I made a note to myself to never do that.
I did listen to music and sometimes I clinked a quarter into a jukebox and listened to songs that reminded me of Mercie. I include a selection on the “Bonus Video” section below.
Where did I keep God in all this?
I kept God close, though I don’t recall I was “theologizing” in any way. I prayed a lot, mostly for success during training and for the removing of every obstacle to our church wedding, programmed for August 31st, 1985. The plan was for me to leave
San Antonio August 29th for Puerto Rico, get married, spend two weeks in R&R, and then report to Ellsworth AFB. I wanted nothing to go wrong.
I attended Mass at “Chapel 8” I think it was, now called Gateway Chapel. There I visited often our Eucharistic Lord with my constant pleas for success and a prompt marriage to my awaiting bride, who wrote to me every day with her dreams and plans. I answered all her letters and sent her cards and flowers and most of my money to help pay for wedding-related expenses.
One Saturday the chaplaincy organized a retreat at the Alto Frío Baptist encampment near Leakey. It was a good day trip by bus and several from our group attended, if only because we wanted to be away from Lackland. The Baptists had conditioned an area on the river shore for their baptisms which also served as a beach when not in use as a baptismal pool. We got in and we also did some canoeing on the river, a first for me. I also observed what appeared to me giant Texas black ants, so large they carved their own trails on the ground. To and from their ant hill. That was a marvel to me.
The chaplain gave us a very vainilla lesson in I don’t remember what, but I’m sure it included a mention of cultivating one’s character. Thank God at least that stuck. We returned in our bus singing We Are The World off tune, all in innocent fun.
We were approaching the final training weeks. Jesus marched close to me while my attention focused on getting the training done.