in Thailand will buy someone about $20,000 worth of the drug’s street value here in the U.S. Yet don’t get caught; the law calls for execution by firing squad for smuggling drugs.
Needless to say, I did not have to spend any money for awhile on my own habit. I had the extremely addictive, very powerful, pure China White heroin. A person can overdose and die by sniffing just a match head size too much. Suddenly, I was deep into the drug culture and still a Naval security police officer. This put me in a difficult situation a number of times, to say the least. One time we arrested another Navy man for the sale and possession of heroin. The “evidence” was sitting on the desk in the security office, and I took some of it for my own use when no one was looking. Later the security officer, a lieutenant, questioned me about it. I told him I had taken some to try. He said to just keep it quiet and that no one else had better find out.
Guam had a lot of drug traffic geographically because of its vicinity. Located close to the Philippines and China, Guam is a convenient stopover for smugglers using boats. One time as part of my police training, I was instructed to attend a seminar that was put on by a new federal organization (at that time) called the D.E.A. (Drug Enforcement Agency). I went to the seminar with officers from our base and all the other law enforcement agencies on the island. The D.E.A. was bringing us all up-to-date on some of the work they were doing, and letting us know they had officers on the island, in case we ever encountered one of them in an undercover situation. I was nervous because I was frequently at one or two of the dealers’ houses. I hoped that one of their undercover agents would not remember me if they saw me around a dealer’s house. Things were getting crazy. I had a daily habit going now; if I did not have a fix my body started to go into withdrawals. For me, it was like getting the flu ten times over, and just continued to get worse. After a few hours I couldn’t even walk. I would curl up and shiver, then sweat, then shiver, feeling as if my bones were exposed. The addict will do anything it takes to get more of the drug because withdrawal from heroin is so terrible.
MY FIRST YEAR OF MARRIAGE
My marriage was not doing what I had expected. My wife was on a completely different schedule than me. Her job was top secret; she could not talk about it to me or anyone else for that matter. That left us with only our time together to talk about which wasn’t much. I once asked her if she would like to go to church with me on a Sunday. She laughed and said, “No way, I am not going to mix religion with our marriage!”
I was wondering what I had done marrying this young lady. She was attractive and we enjoyed ourselves when we had time for each other. But soon she started going her own way, and I started going mine. After we had been married for about six months, she came to me and asked if she could go to Hawaii for a vacation. I told her we would have to wait until I could get my leave before we could have a week over there. She said, “No, not with you, just me by myself.” It felt like someone had pulled a chair right out from beneath me. I could not believe she wanted to go on vacation without me, her husband, during the first year of our marriage.
I was so shocked, so devastated and so not wanting her to know she was tearing my heart out. The inside of me carried this terrible pain. My heart hurt and felt empty, but I made the outside of me smile and replied, “Yeah, sure, go ahead. Don’t wait for me. You just go and enjoy yourself.” She did exactly that. She didn’t even call me once and was a day late coming back. Her supervisor called me and asked when she was coming back to work, and all I could answer was I had not heard from her and “She was supposed to be home yesterday.”
Finally, she came home acting all giddy and began to tell me about a guy she had met on the beach. This guy had shared some cocaine and partied with her. I began to realize I had made a mistake in marrying her. Of course, on the other hand, I was using heroin, so who was I to say anything about a little drug use?
DRUG RUNNING
When I asked my wife if she had stayed at his house or what, she would not give me an answer. That was hard to deal with; I took it to mean she had probably been unfaithful while in Hawaii. Now I was feeling like, O.K., you want to experience some raw feelings, some jealousy, a third party in this relationship? I can do something like that myself. So I got together with my Air Force connection who set me up for a run to Thailand. He gave me $500 spending money, several hundreds to pay for a few ounces of pure China White heroin (street value easily in the tens of thousands), and airline tickets to get there and back. He also told me where to go to get the best, most beautiful Thai women while in Bangkok. All I had to do was to bring him back some heroin.
I did so much heroin on my trip it was a miracle I survived and was not busted. I had a week-long party in a hotel room. I continuously stayed high on heroin and only went outside to get something to eat once a day. I shared the heroin with a few young Thai women, and then smuggled some in for my connection in Guam who paid for everything and some personal stash for me too.
A BUNCH OF RED BALLOONS
The flight back to Guam made me sad as I reminisced about our wedding only a few months earlier. We thought we had a completely wonderful life ahead of us. Now we had both done things we should never have done, and I was left with a deep, sad and lonely feeling. I was so disappointed in myself, in my wife and in what I was becoming.
The heroin connection had come to my hotel room in Bangkok with the drugs and several little red balloons. He prepared them for me to ingest before going to the airport. I figured (and was told) that in a day or two after I was back at home in Guam, they would pass in the bathroom. I would take precautions before going to the bathroom to make sure I did not lose any of the balloons. I was nervous the whole time the balloons were inside me knowing that if one of them broke, it would cause a massive overdose and I would be dead in seconds.
After I was home, I felt it was time to go to the bathroom and take care of things. My wife was at work for a few more hours. Perfect, I thought. I had time to do what I had to. Then I could clean up the mess and separate the balloons of heroin before my wife got off work. I bunched them up together on the floor so I could count them and make sure they all were there. They were. Good, I thought. Suddenly, I heard a noise downstairs. I had not even closed the bathroom door and in walked my wife. She wasn’t expected to be home for hours! She looked at me angrily and said, “What in the hell are you doing?”
I was busted! I was looking up at her shocked that she came home early and saw me like this. I said, “What are you doing here?” She snapped, “I live here, remember?” I was sent home early today, because we are going to work late one night this week. What is that?” she asked in bewilderment pointing at the tightly wrapped little balloons. “That’s not…tell me that’s not heroin.” I had to say, “Ah, yes, it is, but don’t worry, I am going to get rid of it tonight.” She turned around and mumbled something like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe this. I’m not going down this road.”
I was so high on the drug that I did not feel the magnitude of what had just happened. I went about my business and took the drugs over to the guy’s house like I had promised. When you are this addicted, the drug always wins because it becomes the number one priority in your life over all else. Obviously at this point, my marriage was going under fast. I went about my business and she went about hers.
ASSAULT AND ATTEMPTED MURDER
My position as a security policeman was also just about to take a blow. While trying to track down someone who was committing crimes on the base, my division officer, the security officer for the base, had told me that if I ever encountered a situation that was threatening my life, I had orders to shoot to kill. That made me a little bit more nervous than I already was. I did not want to kill anyone, but at the same time, I realized that I could potentially encounter a criminal, a spy or some military violence at any time.
Shortly after those orders were given, I was driving a Navy truck to a checkpoint; I had to go two miles off base then back onto Navy property. I had a passenger that day whom I was taking with me to “the place.” He had some pie and snacks he was eating as I drove. We passed a man working on the side of the road; he