Chapter 4: The Property

I guess I should describe where I live to sort of make things more clear.

When I was on leave after my first tour, I took the money I had saved up and bought a parcel of land. It is in a remote area of Arkansas, on the border with Missouri. It borders on a very large lake that has almost one thousand miles of shoreline. My property is on the north side of the lake, but I am still in Arkansas.

I am about seven miles from the Missouri line. They can't run electric lines across the lake, or mail. So all of my services come from Missouri.

The land I bought covers an entire peninsula, or point as they say down here, on the lake. It is a little over 600 acres, but land was cheap at that time. I only paid $14,500 for the plot.

During my 30-day leave, I explored every inch of the land. I found a cave on the property and the way I had it figured, it came out somewhere underwater. I didn't have the time or equipment to check that out during that leave, but marked the map and put it in a safety deposit box.

On my next leave, after my next tour of duty in 'Nam, I took some survey equipment and some diving gear with me. I surveyed my measurements from my notations on the plot map and rented a boat. On my third dive, I found the entrance 50 feet underwater. On subsequent dives, I cleared out debris in front of the entrance. Then I took my gear into the cave and followed it until I came to water. This was a bit scarier. I waded in and, with the help of a long rope and a very intense lantern, I started out to find the underwater entrance. There was just one place where I had to move some stones. It was about 50 feet from where I had submerged inside the cave. So I hooked the rope around one of the secondary rocks that were blocking access to the lake and swam back.

I went out to my vehicle and got a come along and attached the cable to a tree outside the entrance. I didn't want to be in the cave while I was winching so I just hoped the rope was strong enough. I cranked on the come along, and after about 8 cranks, the rope went slack. I waited to see if there was any secondary slides or noises, but after a half an hour with no sign of anything, I took my diving gear and returned to the cave.

I waded back in and followed the rope. The big rock had moved and two others had followed it, leaving a clear opening to the lake. I swam through and came up into beautiful daylight. I dove back and swam back into the cave and made my way out.

The rest of the days were spent plotting out where the cave was from the ground side. My best estimates were the top of the cave was about 20 feet below one particular area. That place was almost perfect to build my dream house. I had plans for that cave.

On my way from the area, I stopped at my two neighbors houses to introduce myself. Like most people in this area, they were friendly, but standoffish. I made it clear that I wasn't the type of person that would be a bother and that mostly I just wanted to be a good neighbor. One that you could count on if you needed help but not somebody that was nosey or came around a lot. I told them I planned to build a house there, but after I was done in 'Nam.

They asked if I was going to clear the land and farm. I told them no, I just wanted to relax and fish and hunt. The older couple hinted they might be selling their place in about 10 years since they were getting up in age and didn't want to be working so hard. I made a mental note of that of that and filed it away for future reference.

I said my farewells and headed back to 'Nam.

After my next tour, I convinced Earl to come with me. We were both pretty burnt out and needed some time away from everything. We flew into Springfield and drove down. I stopped at the neighbors and told them I was back for a month and was just letting them know.

I showed Earl my property, including the cave and he helped me layout what I had planned for a house. We did a bunch of fishing and basically nothing else.

I told him I wanted to have an escape from the house directly into the cave. He thought that was a great idea, but it would take a lot of digging. When you are doing that type of digging, you have people spreading tales. It would be a much better kept secret if I didn't use locals for the construction. That set me to thinking even more. He also told me it would not be a good idea to tap into the dome of the cave, but to make a side shaft so as not to compromise the integrity of the cave's structure.

During our last tour, I spent almost every free minute planning my house and how to build it without divulging its secrets. Slowly, this thing was taking shape.

After my last tour, Earl's too, I had 60 days before I had to report Benning to be an instructor. Earl was to report to Coronado to train Seals.

We made a trip back to the property and did more planning. Some preliminary digging brought us to the conclusion we were going to need to do a lot of blasting. Earl's comment to my disgust was, "hey, you're on top of a mountain, what did you expect, bottom ground?"

I spent 3 years as a T.I. and then requested reassignment. By '74 I was working covert actions and not around the U. S. much. It was '82 before I got back to visit my property. I stopped to say hello to the neighbors and the one couple asked me if I would be interested in buying their land. They quoted me a price and I checked my bank account and they had the papers drawn up before I left. I now had an additional 200 acres. Since it was mostly farmland and pasture, something in really short supply in this area, I was able to lease it out with no problem. I arranged to have the money paid to a bank account since it was difficult to locate me most of the time.

I did more surveying during my visit and basically laid out the place where I thought the house would go. I had asked the neighbors about building and what permits I would need. They just laughed and told me that I was not residing in a "civilized" county. Building permits had not been something the county had enacted yet and they hoped they never would. Just a way for the people to get more tax money. They told me this was still a place where people could live their lives without any government interference, but I had to watch out for the Corps of Engineers who owned everything around the lake up to flood level of the damn. They told me if I checked around the water line, about 30 feet up from there I would find their markers. As long as I didn't mess with their property, there would be no problems. I wondered how the cave would be affected but did not mention it to anyone. That was my secret.

During my time in 'Nam, I had arranged with a friend to accept shipments of "things" I would ship back. Whatever I shipped, I would make arrangements with a transport pilot on his way back to get it delivered to the nearest base and my friend would pick it up. I was able to ship back a lot of contraband, including weapons, gold and anything else I could to enhance my wealth. I had, setting in a storage facility outside of St. Louis, a dozen M-16's, 6 AK-47's, a.50, 2 30's, 4 M-60's, various other weapons and 152-10lb ingots of pure gold.

During my covert action years, it was more difficult to ship things back, but I did manage to acquire some items. During my time in Afghanistan, I could have shipped back kilos of pure heroin, but I did not have the facilities to get rid of it once I got it back. It was tempting though.

Earl and I were teamed up again in South America in '85. We were both making plans for our retirement. He had the same arrangement with a friend of his for shipments, so we were both going to be sitting pretty. Not rich, but comfortable.

We both discussed what we were going to do after we got out. I was basically going to build my house and do a lot of fishing. I might find some consulting work, but mostly I had had enough of work.

He was going to do consulting work on insurance and government regulations, something he had taken college courses in the service for, but did not have any idea where he was going to settle. I told him he should consider my area of the country. It was mostly free of the government and had airports so you could get to anywhere in a short time. Both of us were licensed pilots and enjoyed flying. I had plans for making a landing strip somewhere on my property. Maybe part of the new place I had bought, since it was already cleared.

Our mission only lasted 9 months. Officially we were "advisors" but that was in name only. When bullets start to fly, you damn sure better be ready to respond. But then congress decided to cut the funding to where we were and we were brought home.