Wallace: “Sergeant Briscoe, what was so special about this mission? What made it different than normal?”
Briscoe: “It was all messed up. That idiot general wanted to make Brownie points with the Hondos, so he had them drop us out of World War II C-47s. None of us had ever even seen a plane that old, let alone trained in one. And he didn’t want to hear it when he was told it wasn’t safe. We were going or he’d have us all up on charges.”
Wallace: “Couldn’t you refuse?”
Gonzalez: “Hey, the guy was a general and I was a private. You obey orders or go to Leavenworth. It’s pretty straight forward. We got on the plane and made the jump.”
Wallace: “What were your ranks and what did you do during the jump?”
Briscoe: “At the time I was a Sergeant First Class, and I was the senior non-com on the plane.”
Gonzalez: “I was a PFC, Private First Class. I spoke Spanish, so after we landed, the Captain assigned me as one of the scouts.”
Thompson: “I was a Spec 4, the radio operator. I just followed the Captain around and ran the radio.”
Wallace: “So you were there when General Hawkins ordered Captain Buckman to turn himself in to the Nicaraguan authorities?”
Thompson: “We never received any such orders. We were ordered to march north to the border, and not get caught doing so.”
Wallace: “General Hawkins says he ordered you to surrender yourselves and Captain Buckman refused those orders and then threatened you if you disobeyed him.”
Thompson: [Snorting and shaking his head] “General Hawkins is lying, then. That radio never left my possession and I was always with the Captain when he was talking to anybody. What he is saying is simply not possible. It didn’t happen.”
Briscoe: “Captain Buckman never threatened anybody, unless maybe he told that worthless lieutenant to get his act together.”
Gonzalez: “The Captain couldn’t threaten us. If we didn’t like what he wanted to do, we could have just walked away!” [Laughing from all three of them]
Wallace: “What do you mean?”
Gonzalez: “He really busted up his leg on the landing. He should have been on a stretcher, too, but he didn’t want to slow us down. He refused any morphine, too, said to give it to the guys who needed it more. He just had us wrap his leg as best we could and we rigged him up a crutch.”
Wallace: “What do you mean about Lieutenant Fairfax? Why do you say he was worthless?”
Briscoe: [Glanced at others and then shrugged] “It’s just… listen… not everybody is cut out for a combat outfit. Lieutenant Fairfax was simply clueless. He was just a lousy officer. Now, I don’t know what he did after he left the Army. Maybe he became an insurance adjuster, and maybe he became the world’s best insurance adjuster, but as a combat officer he was a disaster.”
Gonzalez: “He’d have gotten us all killed or captured, that’s for sure. Captain Buckman, the one thing he kept telling us over and over was that we were all going home, together, no matter what. Then he made it happen.”
Briscoe: “I remember one funny moment when we were going through this one valley and he led us all in the Paratrooper’s Psalm.”
Wallace: “The Paratrooper’s Psalm? What…?”
Gonzalez: [Laughing] “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil…”
Briscoe and Thompson: [Together with Gonzalez, laughing] “… because I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley!” [Laughing]
Thompson: “It’s just too bad he wasn’t infantry.” [Laughing and ‘HOO-AH’s from the others]
Wallace: “Meaning?”
Briscoe: “We were all Infantry. Captain Buckman was Artillery. He wasn’t one of our regular officers. He was actually along as an observer.”
Wallace: “So when he took command he actually did mutiny.”
Briscoe: “Not at all. Artillery is a line command, just like Infantry, and captains outrank second lieutenants. No way would we have gone along with a mutiny. He simply outranked Lieutenant Fairfax. It was as simple as that.”
Wallace led the group through some of the details of our getting home. The group session ended when Wallace brought up what happened when the Hueys brought us back to base.
Wallace: “You were present when Captain Buckman was arrested?”
Briscoe: “Thompson and I were. Gonzalez had a broken ankle and some bad cuts at that point and was off to the infirmary. I have to say, I’ve never seen the like of it, either before or after. They handcuffed him right there on the flight line.”
Thompson: “It was just plain wrong. You don’t treat soldiers that way. He got us out of that [bleeped] hole and they arrest him in front of his men? That’s wrong!”
Briscoe: “Captain Buckman, he was a class act, though, I have to tell you. Some of the guys were really pissed at this, and they wanted to cut him loose, you know. Captain Buckman, handcuffs and all, he marches over to us and orders us to stand at attention and then he reads us the riot act, telling us we were soldiers and to act like it. Then they grab him and drag him away.”
Thompson: “That must have been the resisting arrest charge. [Snorted disgust]”
After the break, there was a final segment, on the political ramifications of the Buckman Crisis. At this point, Wallace pulled out some of edited excerpts from my interview.
Wallace: “Congressman, according to you, this is all an orchestrated leak of classified material by the White House. That seems a pretty extraordinary claim. What proof do you have?”
Me: “Proof? None at all. I just find it incredibly suspicious. Bill Clinton has known this about me since 1992, and yet it only comes out when I am the Vice Presidential pick for George Bush? It’s not like he can claim that this is new information just brought to light. He’s personally known about this for almost eight years.”
Wallace: “What do you mean that he’s known about it? Known about it how?”
Me: “In 1992 Bill Clinton nominated General Hawkins as his choice for Deputy Secretary of State under Warren Christopher. Once I learned about this I decided that Hawkins had done enough damage to the country, and wasn’t going to get another shot. At that time, and that would have been in December of ’92, I went to Newt Gingrich and told him I was going to fight the nomination. Rather than go public, Newt brought in a number of Democratic Senators who would be involved in the confirmation process. I laid out what I just told you, and then they checked it out. Afterwards I talked to both Newt and David Boren, who was the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at the time, and they both told me they had confirmed my story. General Hawkins’ name was removed from consideration.”
Wallace: “So why wait until now to leak the information, if that is what really happened? Why not sooner?”
Me: “I’ve thought about that more than a little. The only thing I can think is that until now he didn’t need to. In 1992 I was just one more minor Republican Congressman in a Congress dominated by the Democrats. Since then, however, I have become a sharp thorn in his side. I was part of the Gang of Eight that put the Republicans back in power, I helped write the Contract with America, I have held his feet to the fire about the deficit and spending, and I’m the guy who rammed the censure down his throat. I do not get invited to the White House for milk and cookies. Bill Clinton plays high stakes poker. The timing is perfect to release it now. He sinks me, and destroys George Bush’s run for the Presidency, leaving it to be won by his handpicked successor. He gets to run the government for another four years.”