Convoy

The life and times of an Army Criminal Investigator working with the US Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) way back in the late 1970s at Fort Ord, California as remembered by ME, Retired Special Agent (SA) Chief Warrant Officer Three (CWO3) Robert (Bob) Busby.

These memories are the way I remember them, if anyone reading MY good old days has a different version, please write down the way you heard about or remember those days of yore in the late 1970s at Ft Ord, CA.

In the early days of my Army career in the CID my second CID assignment was with the Ft Ord District CID near Monterey and Carmel, CA. I had been in the CID just over a year, had my accreditation, and was a Specialist Six (SP6) enlisted SA.

At the time the CID at Ord covered most of CA for military felony criminal investigations. Investigating crime at Ord and the areas around Ord was wild enough, toss in crime at Ft Hunter Liggett and Ft Irwin which were the largest concentrations of Army folks away from Ord, and we had investigation fun just about every day of the year.

One day the Chief Warrant Officer 4 Operations Officer Jack Bennett advised me I was going to Irwin for a month to be the one SA covering any felony crime and would be replaced by another SA at the end of that time. My first day at Irwin I was presented with five assaults and one robbery from the week prior and had real fun just getting the crimes logged in, case files set up, and trying to find the crime scenes and the suspects, victims, and witnesses, which were all spread across this land of sand conducting war games. 

Called in my status report to the operations officer at Ord who said he would send another agent to assist since crime seemed to be jumping at Irwin. At that time there was an armored division from Texas involved in war games and they were not happy with the sand and the heat and were taking that unhappiness out on those around them.

Several days later a senior SA (CWO2 David Clark) arrived at Irwin to take the lead in the investigations. That meant we split the crimes and worked them separately unless they were very serious and then we worked together on them. I reported to CW2 Clark since he was more experienced and an officer.

There are many stories to be told about the cases Dave and I worked at Irwin but several seem more important. Then CW2 Clark, now Ret CW3 Clark is reading this so he will chime in with his versions of his stories of our time at Irwin in the late 1970s.

The wild stuff coming to my mind was finding Ft Irwin, finding a place to sleep and work, two soldiers impersonating a Lt at the Officers Club, cook assaulting a soldier with a soup ladle, military unit reporting a tank as a war loss, robberies of soldier on soldier, stopped by California Highway Patrol (CHP) on way back to Ord from Irwin. Have covered most of these stories in CID Short Stories and Your Story on my FB page, but will now talk about the ride home from Irwin after our month of investigations were completed.

Memory does not remind me how we headed home with three vehicles and six SAs but do remember we were in a convoy of three CID four door sedans with two SAs in each vehicle when we left Irwin.

We had been at Irwin for a month so on the trip back we had lots of case reports, evidence, radio equipment, guns, ammo, metal silver investigation kits that filled the back seat of each vehicle. The trunks were full of our suit cases. 

Dave being the senior SA was driving the lead vehicle and I being the next senior SA was driving the trail third vehicle. We kept in communication with our dash mounted Motorola car radios, we also had whip antennas. We were taking a back road through the mountains, no one was on the road but us or so we thought.

Dave decided we needed to get back to ORD as soon as possible so he was driving at light speed and the rest of us were following. After about three hours of light speed Dave came on the radio and indicated we just jetted by a CHP vehicle and to let him handle the conversation with the local CHP.

Sure enough a CHP vehicle appeared behind us with his lights and siren and as he drove by us he was pointing to the side of the road, then pulled up to Dave and motioned Dave over, we all pulled in behind Dave while the CHP pulled in front of Dave. The CHP officer got out of his car and walked to Dave and talked for several minutes. The CHP officer then started to walk back to the other two vehicles looking into the vehicles as he walked.

Dave came on the radio and said “Quick, cover up the guns and ammo”, but of course the CHP officer was already at my window. He ask who we were and where we were going so fast, told him, he then ask about the weapons and ammo and I mentioned we were on the way back to Ord after a month of solving crime. He smiled and said the guy driving the lead vehicle told him to give me a hard time…Frowns.

The CHP officer said to drive the speed limit, he walked back to his car and sped off at his own light speed. I got out to talk to Dave about the incident; Dave waited till I almost got to his car and then sped off. Got in my car and followed the convoy back to Ord.

There is more to these stories but will have to get rid of my current brain fog in order to elaborate on them more.

These are the stories of my time in the Army CID from 1976 to 1991.