The most meaningful job I’ve ever done

After doing four years active duty in the United States Navy and six years in the Louisiana Air National Guard, I will officially be out of the military in November. Of course the higher-ups in my unit are trying to convince me to stay in and do another ten years(they make ten years sound like ten minutes), but the military thing just ain’t me. If the job you’re doing doesn’t give you the satisfaction you’re looking for, why squander your life away doing it, right?
I’ve had quite enough of the drill weekends, the deployments, the prospect of getting “the call”, the hand salutes, the chow halls, the MREs, the polishing of boots for inspections, the latrines, the barracks, the base, the hurrying up followed by the wait, the formations, the stuffy uniforms, the stuffy officers and the whole stuffy lifestyle. I believe my life was meant to be more than a frigging tour of duty.
Don’t get me wrong, I have had some wonderful experiences. I’ve been around the world and back, twice. I’ve made a gang of lifelong friends and, together, we’ve had some fun times. For me, this past summer was the ultimate.
After a bloody June weekend that left five teenagers and another man murdered in the streets of New Orleans, Gov. Kathleen Blanco called up the National Guard to supplement the police force and help patrol the crime ravaged city. The mission became known as “Operation Crescent Guard,” and the activated guard members became apart of Task Force Gator.
Me and a few of my Air Guard buddies volunteered to be apart of the mission for a month to make a little summer change. We were assigned to the 3rd District where we worked the night shift with members of the Army National Guard and the New Orleans police force. The Army and the Air Force, I learned, are two completely different animals. Air Force cats are a more moderate bunch.
The grunts we worked with from the Army, on the other hand, were some gung-ho, Skoal-tobacco chewing, action hungry He-men who punctuated every sentence with the word “Hooah.”
It was an “interesting” experience working alongside them (that’s putting it nicely). Together, we patrolled the flood raped city streets of New Orleans’ 3rd District in doorless Humvees, keeping a watchful eye out for thieves, burglars and crackheads.
If you haven’t visited post-Katrina New Orleans, you should definitely make a trip down there to view the damage firsthand. Things are far from back to normal in that city and it must remain in our consciousness.
Every night on patrol was like a tour through Zombie Land. Riding through the abandoned neighborhoods with gutted-out houses and neck-high grass as giant, cat-size rats scurried through the streets was a sobering experience, to put it mildly. And conducting facility checks in the dilapidated churches, businesses and ransacked schools was an all night cemetery walk.
Of course, there were moments of action. There was the time we were led on a high speed chase down Gentilly Boulevard with NOPD in pursuit of some guys who had carjacked a Chevy Blazer. The chase ended on the corner of Elysian Fields where we all jumped out with our guns drawn and surrounded the vehicle. That was in-freaking-tense.
Then, there was the time an eight and a half foot alligator crawled its way onto a busy intersection, halting traffic. Several guard members, police officers, SWAT team members, and an alligator hunter responded to the scene to subdue that sucker(I wish I had brought my camera).
Late one night, while we were conducting a residence check of a neighborhood known as “Indian Village”(the streets are named after famous Native Americans), a known drug area where some of the residents had licked a few shots at police cars as they patrolled the area, we noticed a guy riding a bike up the block with a big bulge in his pants. Nervously, we pulled him over to search him and run his information through the system. We had every reason to believe he was armed because of the suspicious way he tried to avoid us as we rolled onto the block. When we frisked him, we discovered that the bulge in his pants was-dig this- a long, glow-in-the-dark dildo. We laughed about that all night.
Some nights, we got to ride in the police car with NOPD and patrol the district with them. One thing I learned from that is that cops really do fiend for doughnuts. One night while I was riding with an officer, we picked up a guy who had some warrants. When we cuffed him and put him in the backseat, he faked a heartattack that would’ve made Fred G. Sanford proud. He performed all the way to Central Lock-up. It was hilarious.
When we arrived at Central Lock-up, the first thing I noticed was the holding cell. It was a white supremacist’s wet dream; there were brothers on top of brothers on top of brothers on top of brothers. As we were leaving, more handcuffed brothers were being escorted in.
In the squad car, I got a chance to listen to police radio. The most popular suspect was a young black male with dreadlocks wearing a white t-shirt. Sound familiar?
Some nights, there were some serious situations. One night while my partner and me were patrolling the Hollygrove area, we pulled over a seventeen-year-old sister who was out prostituting. While we were running her information through the system, she told us she would do anything for us if we didn’t arrest her. Anything.
Then there was the night I was riding with a female NOPD officer and a “signal 94” came over the radio that we had to respond to.
“What’s a signal 94?” I asked the female officer.
“That means ‘shots fired’,” she replied.
“Oh,” I said with pseudo-calmness as she cut the flashing blue lights on; Oh (s-word), I thought, panic-stricken as she mashed on the gas pedal, racing through several red lights and stop signs en route to the crime scene. When we got there, the street was crawling with NOPD and guardsmen, all with guns drawn and flashlights pointed looking for the shooters. With my gun and flashlight in hand, I ran behind a dark house with tall grass stepping over fat trash bags and garbage cans looking for an armed “mo fo” lurking in the shadows. All of a sudden, the worst thing that could happen in that situation happened; my flashlight went dead. Talk about feeling sick.
The saddest thing that happened was a murder that occurred one night on our shift. A young brother had been shot numerous times and pushed from a car. The sight of the body haunted my partner for several weeks after the incident.
What made the mission worth it was the interaction with the citizens and the appreciation they expressed for our presence in the city. People would walk up to us and thank us. Brothers standing on the corner would salute us when we pulled up to stoplights.
Children would wave to us in passing cars. Some restaurants wouldn’t even let us pay for our food because they were so grateful. The hope we gave to the city made the mission worth it.
I’ve been a jet airplane director in the Navy. I’ve provided meals, lodging and recreation facilities to pilots and aircrew in the desert during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Being apart of Task Force Gator, however, was the most meaningful work that I’ve done in uniform.