TOP SECRET SECURITY
As a top secret courier many years
ago, at 0600 I had two marines with machine guns escort me and my packet
from an air base office close to Tokyo to a twin engine plane to carry the
documents to Sasebo, close to a four hour flight.
Two marines were to meet me at the base in Sasebo and escort me to an
aircraft carrier. I was issued a 45 automatic,
shell in the chamber, and an extra magazine. There were two other navy
passengers.
About twenty minutes after we took
off, engine failure forced us down between two rice paddies. We had no means of contact with the base
where we started, or other military. One
of the other men helped me get to a train station where I bought a ticket to
Sasebo, 700 miles distant. The steam
locomotive took us rapidly to Nagoya and Osaka.
With a gun on my belt, prohibited by
Japanese law, and a courier packet, I was very visible. My life was less
valuable than the packet and I was to defend the document at all costs, if need
be. At Hiroshima, I had over an hour on
the platform to change trains to Shimonoseki, which is at the straits between
Honshu and Kyushu. Another long wait was
passed in that station before the next leg and people were looking at me with
curiosity. I felt very vulnerable with
only 17 bullets, and knew little about Japan, except we recently beat them in a
war.
Arriving in Sasebo late at night kept
me uncomfortable, still with little know how to get to the base.
A taxi driver took me to the gate and let me
out at about 2330. Shore Patrol guards did
not like a 45 on my hip, which I refused to surrender until an appropriate
officer signed off for the packet. The
guards would not let me through the gate. The carrier that was my destination
had gone to Korea. After midnight, the
base executive officer came to the gate and relieved me of the packet, but not
the gun. It took another hour to find a
guard who would relieve me of the 45 and finally I found a bed and slept.
Top secret is important to me. Some people now in Washington apparently have no
feeling for it at all, other than the danger they may be in for not properly
protecting intelligence.
When you need help with confidential real estate information, I invite you to confer with me.
Henry D. Rogers, CCIM, ALC
904-421-8537 direct
904-614-4828 cell
hrogers@cbcbenchmark.com
Coldwell Banker Commercial Benchmark
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