Pubdate: Wed, 26 July 2000
Source: Spectator(NC)
Website: www.spectatoronline.com
Address: PO Box 12887, Raleigh,NC 27605
Contact:  2000 CL Spectator,LLC
Page: 12
Author: Peter Eichenberger

WHEN BLACK HELICOPTERS MEET GREEN THUMBS

Following The Path Cut By MANTA

My Viking soul had been telling me for weeks that something was about to go 
down - the feeling was getting stronger and stronger.

"It will come tonight," I told my photographer friend, Michael Traister. 
That very night, the TV announced "it" and the next day North Carolina 
launched a fleet of helicopters. I had called the start of " Operation 
Bladerunner," the state's air and ground marijuana eradication program, 
almost to the hour.

Suddenly there were choppers dropping in on friends living in the country, 
choppers doing night sweeps over Raleigh - choppers everywhere. After a few 
days of this, I picked up the phone. I had to find out.

In The Air

Suddenly, I found myself 300 feet above surging, billowing trees aboard a 
big, spooky black helicopter - a UH-60 Sikorsky "Blackhawk." I was the 
guest of Lt. Brad Knight of the N.C. National Guard and director of MANTA 
(see sidebar), some of his colleagues, a Sgt. Jester of Yancey County and 
associated law enforcement. The UH-60 is just one of 26 fixed and rotary 
wing aircraft sweeping the state from the mountains to the sea ferreting 
out pot patches.

Of the six agencies involved in Bladerunner - DEA, FBI, N.C. Highway 
Patrol, local authority, National Guard and Civil Air Patrol - National 
Guard does most of the grunt work, humping law enforcement to where hunches 
lead them or where informants have tipped them off. This sortie consists of 
a spotter chopper, a four-seater Bell OH-58 "Kiowa," the Blackhawk and a 
ground unit comprised of elements of National Guard, Crime Control, Public 
Safety and local enforcement.

On the federal side, Bladerunner is top-loaded through the Department of 
Defense, National Guard and DEA under the auspices of General Barry 
McCaffrey - President Clinton's drug czar. On the state level, Governor 
Hunt and the State Bureau of Investigation call the shots.

In small, brick building at the small airport serving Elkin, we had our 
mission briefing. The talk was given by this wily, old bird by the name of 
Richardson who's been doing this for years. He instructs us not to 
photograph the tail numbers of the birds or the faces of the pilots to 
ensure their anonymity - and their physical safety. The briefing is 
succinct and to the point: what happens if we are fired upon (it often 
happens and there is no armor), what to do in the event of a crash or a 
field emergency, how to exit the craft without getting one's head chopped 
off ("you won't feel a thing, but I'll have a mountain of paper work," 
Richardson says, grinning ruefully and shaking his head).

Lt. Knight and I had met each other outside before the briefing. We 
hot-boxed a couple of cigarettes and he gave me a general rundown on the 
structure of MANTA. After the briefing, Knight took me aside to emphasize 
that most of MANTA's operating budget goes to D.A.R.E. programs and to pay 
for in-school officers. MANTA and McCaffrey's position on marijuana's place 
in the pantheon of the drug world is that it is a both a precursor drug and 
illegal - hence missions like Bladerunner.

Outside, we are given an aircraft briefing for the Blackhawk. The pilots 
(there are always two pilots - again, a ground-fire issue) go over the 
particulars of the craft. The big side doors slide open and are locked 
back. We board and strap ourselves into the four-point harnesses. The crew 
dons flak helmets and begins flipping a battery of switches.

There is the whine of electric starters, the staccato buzz of the igniters. 
Then the woof of Jet 90 cooking off and the two GE turboshaft engines spool 
up amid the thin, high shriek of sheared air. The 50- foot, four-bladed 
rotor begins to spin - a slow, gentle spin - faster and faster until it is 
a heavy, thudding blur, the noise between an express subway, being stuck in 
a vacuum cleaner and someone beating on your chest. Make no mistake, even 
with foam earplugs and the sound-deadening headset, this Blackhawk is one 
crazy loud mofo.

At full morning-shattering song, the craft, shuddering and rocking, taxis 
gracelessly out to an intermediate tarmac on the big wheels. The crushing 
racket goes from general shriek to a concussive whopping sound, and then... 
the wheel stops turning and the world suddenly gets small.

Holy smoke. This is like a little day trip to the unconscious - like every 
flying dream I've ever had. My precedents regarding the rules of motion - 
all those years on big motorcycles and in airplanes - are null and void and 
I'm in kinaesthetia incognita - having an out-of-body experience.

Bladerunner is a search-and-destroy operation. There is no attempt to 
arrest people on the ground; that's left for another day via the local 
authorities and the SBI. On the federal side, there is one DEA agent 
allocated to marijuana. The agent and his computer wonk are building a 
database of the business structure of the operatives in North Carolina - 
and even then DEA doesn't mess with less than a hundred pounds. This is 
strictly a find-pull.

The strategy is much like a game of hopscotch. The nimble, fast 58, piloted 
by Richardson, flies ahead spotting. When there is a hit, the 60 takes 
position over the site, providing air cover for the personnel on the ground 
that hack their way through the forest. The robust Blackhawk has the 
ability to hover indefinitely. When the area is secured and the plants 
destroyed, the 60 moves on behind the 58 and so forth.

I'll admit, most of the details reside in the background for a time. This 
ride is absolutely hallucinatory - the stark, brilliant clarity of the 
young day, the bracing air, the movements of the machine defying my past 
experiences - rising at 5 feet per second, stopping, twirling around at a 
fixed altitude, side winds blowing the 6-ton craft aside for a gut-dropping 
instant, then off in a swirl of petroleum fume.

Godlike. The immense power and menace of this device is from my vantage 
jaw-dropping but from the ground I would imagine terrifying. We bank lazily 
over Yadkinville - over the neat, modest homes, faded trailers, tire shops 
and store fronts. Citizens emerge from their homes and gawk. I spot a sweet 
old granny holding a toddler. She tries to convince the child to wave. He 
finally does, but still looks worried.

Forget thermal imaging. They do all that (and they are working on a 
satellite), but not on this mission. No hocus-pocus; this is strictly 
daylight observation, I am the only one on board with even a pair of 
binoculars. The only concession to the study of the dream-like landscape 
for these intent men is the occasional removal of their black-wrap shades.

We fly on, circling broken field and forest and an amazing number of junk 
cars. Creatures panic at the arrival of the Blackhawk. Deer struggle 
through high grass, looking like fleas crawling through the fur on a dog's 
back. Cattle stand, front legs stiff and cocked out, dumbly assessing this 
new horror - eyes bugged out before they bolt stiffly for the woods. Goats 
swirl in on themselves, jumping and running toward the protective center of 
the herd. Horses flee at full gallop, their manes and tails like flowing 
corn silk in the morning sun.

Like tornadoes, these helicopters seem to be attracted to trailers. 
Hovering over a group of mobile homes, the occupants emerge from their sad 
little dwellings, stand on their stoops, blinking and stunned by our 
appearance. One guy talks on a cell phone, shaking his head. Past the edge 
of town, we slow and spin over forest, the deputies pointing, directing the 
movement of the thunderous machine.

Professional spotters say with a little practice the patches aren't hard to 
find. They tell me that the telltale signs are proximity to water, paths 
through the woods, clearings in forest canopies and signs of cultivation.

We have a hit. The Blackhawk lowers to the earth and soon a raging wind 
buffets the forest canopy, kicking up a blizzard of leaves that dance 
through the understory. The powerful rotor wash bends trees, snapping a few 
fairly large limbs. Warm, spicy aromas of bruised plants ride the cold 
wind. From a small cleared area in the forest surrounded by a circle of 
black fencing, I see men in camo and black shirts. One gives a thumbs up. 
The deputies move about swinging machetes.

After several minutes, the bird swings around and with that distinctive 
popping, we're gone - pushed back in the seats by acceleration. With the 
only reference the now distant ground racing past, we're suddenly going a 
hundred or so by my reckoning and we're on to the next pull.

At the briefing, Knight had explained as how helicopter ops, besides 
assisting in marijuana eradication, served to get counter drug operations 
before the public eye.

When the Voice Of God came over the hill, heralded by men in camo bolting 
from grinding four-wheel-drive vehicles, the two Hispanic dudes who flung 
their fishing poles to the ground and fled got the message loud and clear.

The next seizure was a tip from someone who had observed the flights and 
called the sheriff. One of the MANTA guys explains that sometimes tips come 
from hunters and locals, sometimes from growers who don't like competition.

The take for these two missions was a hundred or so plants. The value is 
assessed by MANTA at $2,400 per plant. One of the deputies commented that 
the trip had paid for itself. The Blackhawk costs $300 to operate, the 58 
somewhat less.

Miller time. We high-tailed it back to Elkin, the pilot messing with our 
minds by flying in a series of high arcs to give us a taste of zero G - 
hanging us loose in the harnesses for a few seconds at a time, the big 
machine purring along like your grandma's furnace.

Back on the deck at Elkin, the 58 hangs five feet in the air 100 feet from 
us, rotor churning. The pilot of the Blackhawk holds the 12,000- pound 
craft at a grand altitude of one foot, dead motionless. Then the beast 
relaxed and settled on the asphalt with the unheard sigh of sturdy 
expensive hydraulics.

On The Ground

"Abdul growing any this year?" one deputy asks another. We're waiting for a 
helicopter, this time at the airport outside Siler City.

"Told me he hadn't had time to plant."

"Who's Abdul?" I ask.

"Arab dude. Moroccan, I think. Most every year he grows some behind his 
house and most every year we bust him. Doesn't try to hide it and he's 
always cooperative. He sends us a card every year. He's always saying, 
'Invest with me.' He buys these rings and watches overseas and sells them 
at his little store. Nice guy. Blesses goats and sheep at the slaughterhouse."

This is the other side - the ground operation. This one has a distinctly 
multicultural feel: Chatham County Sheriff Randy Keck and his deputies, a 
couple of good old boys, a black dude and this tough little gal; the MANTA 
people, a young guy named Jason Pleasant, Torres (a big, happy Puerto Rican 
guy) and an SBI agent named Parrish.

Ground support means a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, but I'm assured that 
Chatham is fertile ground - old hippies, farm workers and a whole lot of 
forest.

We're outside now. The team is hustling their gear out of a variety of 
federal GSA sedans and a shiny state Crown Vic into a rag-tag assortment of 
private four-wheel-drive hunting trucks.

The sound now buried in my brain, my ears prick up. I hear the helicopter 
before I see it, a speck above the trees.

It's a lone HP four-seat Bell piloted by two fairly menacing N.C. State 
Troopers in black flight suits, packing Beretta 92s in some very elaborate 
gun leather. Outside, the ground team examines the chopper. I explain the 
cable cutters to one of the deputies. Power lines are a huge, invisible 
hazard, so the machines are equipped with cutters that work like large 
letter openers, hopefully severing power lines before they can do real damage.

After a short briefing, we gird ourselves for the ordeal, and we're off. It 
is hot and humid - temperature's in the 90s.

We drive in big circles for an hour or so, meeting back at the airport to 
confer and exchange personnel. The force settles on two sites and then it's 
back in the vehicles. We stop at a convenience store to wait for confirmation.

I'm feeling pretty crappy so I get a large Coke and a packet of Goody's 
powder. I've just poured the Goody's down the hatch when Parrish, the SBI 
dude, is at my side.

"So, what sort of publication do you write for, anyway?"

I explain who the story is for, the whole time with a trace of white 
Goody's powder clearly visible on my upper lip.

He must have known it was Goody's, because he doesn't mention it, and we're 
back in the vehicles. After a 15-minute drive, we're on a dirt road leading 
to cutover timberland; the property line plainly marked "No Trespassing." 
Our convoy powers right on through and we disembark, the team preparing - 
gathering radios, machetes and putting on camo vests.

We hustle down a weedy path at the boundary between the cutover and the 
forest, pushing through blackberry vines and poison ivy. At a certain 
point, directed by the spotter, we turn and forge full on into the jungle, 
crouching and at one point crawling, sweating and grunting though the dense 
thickets, the burly men hacking their way through the gloomy, sweltering 
understory.

Parrish had warned me about booby traps.

"That's why I'll be way in the back and you'll be in front," I told him. 
"I'm no hero, just a chicken-shit journalist."

Then we are upon a dark, cool creek, jumping on flat rocks, pausing to 
reconnoiter - quiet voices and the crackle of radios, the Bell thumping 
overhead, occasionally visible through the canopy 50 feet overhead. We move 
down the creek about 25 yards or so.

I smell it before I see it. The patch is immediately adjacent to the creek, 
a light green, sun-dappled clearing amid the much darker forest shades. We 
climb up the creek to a small, flat area surrounded by chicken wire. The 
officers commence chopping the foot-high plants, kicking down the wire and 
generally wreaking destruction.

There is no gloating or celebration - this is business. The plants are 
collected, tied with cord and taken to be "dried and incinerated." As the 
deputy holds the seizure, the only thing I can think of is a fishing trophy 
photo. Parrish stands off, his Glock in hand, vigilant.

Keck leads the way to the next site, waving to most everyone he sees. This 
one is more of the same: a dirt road marked with a sign for a security 
service, which we just about run over. Pleasant has had to bail, so 
Traister and I are forced, humorously, to press his Sentra (complete with a 
Verbena sticker on the back window) into a counter drug operation, the 
little Nissan surprisingly jolly about following in the swirling dust left 
by the herky four-wheel-drive trucks bouncing along the rutted lane.

This is a genuinely eerie setting - an odd, well-made concrete house with 
two wings like the ends of a dumbbell. It's a hippie house of sorts that 
seems to have been abandoned a few years ago - as if the inhabitants just 
walked away. Pushed up in chest-high weeds is a nearly identical Sentra 
with '97 tags and a Nine Inch Nails sticker on the back glass. The female 
deputy and I walk over to examine an abandoned flower garden overrun with 
weeds; baked dry by neglect and the suffocating heat.

At the end of the driveway, we find the patch: 10 feet by 10 feet, boxed 
with 2x6s, blue tarp laid inside the box, hundreds of pounds of potting 
soil filling the void. Twenty-seven, one-foot high plants fall to the 
blade, the box kicked apart, the blue tarp hacked to ribbons.

I feel bad. I know the stuff's illegal, but it was someone's little 
project. It lay now in ruins, the classic "Oh, fuck!" when whoever, kids it 
looked like, returned. The deputies don't leave a business card as they 
sometimes used to, so this one will remain a mystery to the growers.

And accompanying that twinge of regret is a curious feeling. If I was to be 
on a marijuana eradication mission with all these large, armed people in 
heavy field clothing and magnificent thundering equipment, I wanted to see 
me some pot, man - I mean I wanted vast waving fields of green instead of 
this wilted, hacked up bunch of what could have been $3 worth of basil from 
Wellspring.

One would have to be nuts to try and grow pot outside when they fly... 
unless you're really careful.

SIDEBAR: The General's Plan:

Operations such as Bladerunner are but one small part of MANTA's mission. 
MANTA (Mid-Atlantic Narcotics Training Academy) is just a tiny part of a 
big, new plan to combat drugs (called CounterDrug) on a global level 
emanating from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, headed up by 
General Barry McCaffrey, U.S. Army (ret.).

ONDCP and McCaffrey's plan consist of utilizing the personnel and assets of 
the U.S. Department of Defense to interfere with drug production and 
transit using an intelligence-based strategy to affect both the supply and 
demand side of the business. DOD operations outside the border of the 
United States (like the current and growing one in Colombia) fall to 
military personnel classified as Title 10.

Title 10 military personnel are forbidden to engage in actions against the 
citizenry by a law known a Posse Comitatus. In order to engage DOD in 
domestic actions, ONDCP must rely on National Guard, members of which are 
classified as Title 32 and not subject to Posse Comitatus.

With a total CounterDrug budget of around a billion dollars, DOD is poised 
to attempt to affect a 50-percent decrease in drug use in the U.S. in order 
to reduce the 10,000 narcotic deaths per year (ONDCPs figures). On the 
domestic side, the National Guard operates five regional training 
academies, of which MANTA is but one.

MANTA is a multi-jurisdictional organization that provides intelligence, 
tactical support, logistics and - most importantly - uniform, free training 
to any law enforcement agency that wishes to take classes. Classes include 
subjects such as clandestine labs, K-9, marijuana spotting, drug 
interdiction, SWAT and so forth.

The intent is to provide a consistent, uniform level of training in order 
to make operations involving different agencies proceed without errors 
arising from different law enforcement cultures - so when they go to the 
ball, everyone is dancing to the same tune, so to speak.

As stated earlier, the larger DOD plan is intelligence driven. It is based 
on utilizing the stunning array of DOD ground-based and aerial surveillance 
systems (AWACS, etc.) to gather and disseminate CounterDrug intelligence to 
appropriate agencies and nations. There is a similar application of the 
phenomenal computing power of DOD, coupled with DEA, to continually analyze 
the architecture of the various businesses around the world, as well as the 
U.S.

For more information on ONDCP and McCaffrey's plan, go to the general's own 
white paper which he presented to the Economic Strategy Institute. - - - 
Peter Eichenberger
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart