‘Volunteers’ tread where the C.I.A. is not allowed
By Joseph B. Treaster
He was in his mid-40’s and he had a good job as a clinical psychologist, teaching and conducting a private practice. But he was getting antsy.
”I was tired of seeing patients and tired of teaching,” he said the other day.
So, telling his wife he was going on a vacation with the boys, he flew to Mexico, he said, and took part in a raid on the home of a drug dealer who had welshed on a deal. He said he got a commission on a $250,000 debt he collected – plus a dose of shrapnel from a grenade.
A few months later, he said, he was leading patrols and staging ambushes in Nicaragua, and early this year he was in the jungles of South America training young men to overthrow the Government of Suriname.
The man, who goes by the code name ”Dr. John,” is one of dozens of Americans who remember their military days so fondly that they try to recreate the experience. With few exceptions, they are fervent anti-Communists.
These days the easiest way to get back to basic combat is to go to Central America, where it is not difficult for American veterans to find a place with a rebel or government force in need of help.
”I made contact with some of the anti-Sandinista groups,” Dr. John said last week. ”And I ended up enlisting in the Eden Pastora forces. Everyone signs up for an indeterminate stay. They can leave when they want to.”
Attention focused on American civilians in military roles in Central America last week with the news that two men who had gone to Nicaragua to help an anti-Government organization were killed when their helicopter was shot down by Government troops. Nicaraguan officials said the men were participating in a raid on a Government military school.
The men, who had been helicopter pilots in Vietnam, had entered Nicaragua with a rebel guide and four other members of an organization called Civilian Military Assistance, which claims to have about 1,000 members, mostly in Middle Western and Southern states. One was a detective on leave from the Huntsville, Ala. police department; the other was a man from Memphis who had been living on disability payments from injuries suffered in Vietnam. Both were 36 years old.
Thomas V. Posey, a produce wholesaler from Decatur, Ala., and a former United States Marine who is a director of Civilian Military Assistance, said the organization had sent about 15 members to Nicaragua since January as military advisers or to take ”nonlethal” military equipment to the rebels.
Mr. Posey said the organization had been formed by friends who had gotten together over ”war stories” and ”gun talk” and decided to ”provide military assistance to the freedom fighters” in Nicaragua. The group reportedly has been under investigation for possible violations of the Neutrality Act, which forbids private citizens from launching foreign invasions from the United States.
Mr. Posey denied that his organization or the two dead men had anything to do with the Central Intelligence Agency, as the Managua Government has charged. Last week, some in Congress also sought explanations. Representative Ted Weiss of New York demanded that William J. Casey, the Director of Central Intelligence, give ”a full account” of any participation by his agency. The State Department conceded that officials at the American Embassy in El Salvador knew of the men’s presence and that an American military officer acted as a sort of unofficial go-between with the Salvadoran army.
Robert K. Brown, the editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine, said that since last fall, under a loose agreement with senior army officers in El Salvador, he has sent 10 teams of up to a dozen volunteers each to teach Salvadoran Army soldiers combat tactics and first aid. Both Mr. Brown’s magazine and Civilian Military Assistance have sent the Nicaraguan rebels used combat uniforms, boots, canteens and other battlefield gear, perhaps in violation of the law.
Dr. John said he earned between $2,000 and $6,000 a month for his work with the Nicaraguan rebels and the soldiers who hoped to overthrown the Government of Suriname. But for him, like most of the others, money was not at the heart of the matter. ”I didn’t take as much as they offered,” he said.
The members of Civilian Miitary Assistance and of Mr. Brown’s teams are said to be unpaid volunteers, with some of them paying their own airfare and room and board to feel, once again, the chilling sensation of life in the combat zone.
”All of these guys have got jobs,” Mr. Brown said from his office in Boulder, Colo. ”Essentially they’re taking vacation time.”
In the mid-1970’s, some found work in Rhodesia and in Angola, and there may be a few working in Libya today. But, says Mr. Brown, whose magazine carries classified ads from would-be mercenaries, there are few paying jobs for free-lance soldiers these days. He estimates there are no more than a couple of dozen Americans working as mercenaries all over the world.
”We get a lot of inquiries from people offering their services,” Mr. Brown said, ”and we simply have not accepted this. We have insisted the people we take down to Salvador are people we know personally. We have no way of checking backgrounds and we have to reject some probably well-intentioned, well-qualified individuals.”
A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 9, 1984, Section 4, Page 5 of the National edition with the headline: ‘VOLUNTEERS’ TREAD WHERE THE C.I.A. IS NOT ALLOWED.
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