I do indeed enjoy what I do, so I have something to live for. I have a wife and four dogs that love me beyond measure. I focus on government and police misconduct, and while I don't have the reputation or Barry Cohne or Todd Foster, or John Travena, or even Florin Roebig, I have garnered some success in my field. Since cases like these last years, it is necessarily a long term investment. But having been a former police officer and public safety agent for 10 years, an undercover officer for a year, a Green Beret for 22 years (mostly in the Reserves, but fulfilling the same requirements and operational assignments just as any A-Team must do, such as fully armed, night-tactical jumps from C-130s or C-141s in the dark--and preferably in the rain--with real world targets), and a few other missions that have such a long duration of classification, that I will die or forget them before they are unsealed.
What's my real point? I have done most everything I ever wanted to do: pilot, motorcycle jockey (for more than 50 years), mountain climbing and rappelling, scuba diving beyond safe limits (but always observing the safety parameters of the U.S. Navy Diving Manual (which assumes a 5% mortality rate for its diver---suffice to say that 250 feet down and inside a cave is rather typical, and the same % loss rate is assumed in any Army Airborne mass tactical night jump into a hazardous, usually mountainous drop zone), learned the guitar, traveled the world on Uncle Sam's dime, and the only places I chose not to visit either had too many pirates and religious fundamentalists that I decided to assume that the U.S. policy of not negotiating with pirates and terrorists is a real one, and I prefer that my head not be detached from my body. My wife and dogs would not want to see the video of that.The above is ironic because I enlisted as what was then known as a MOS 12B4S. I left after 22 years as an 18Z (SF Operations & Intelligence NCO, E-8). I just could not absorb the loss of professional pay when I was out of the office. But I did ensure that I would have the twenty years of service to qualify me for a small pension, unlimited access to the commissary, free medical and BX privileges. Oh, I must admit I lived for the live fire exercises and unlimited demolitions projects.
I confess that I always have at least one civil rights case in federal court, and I find representing the powerless and low man on the totem pole to be an incredible rush, especially when I am able to marshal my knowledge of Government-in-the-Sunshine and the Public Records Act to obtain otherwise undiscoverable or tactically disadvantageous records and recorded events, that can often make a case to the unwitting surprise to the government target and its individually responsible agents, employees and officials. All that sovereign immunity can me made to go right out the window, with me chuckling as it splats on the pavement below.
Just thought I would take a little more time than I typically do, to explain that while my income is down, my time is more devoted to the super case in which I can still make a difference. Little cases don't attract me unless the little person has been really dumped on with actual animus, malice and in reckless disregard or with the actual intention to abridge a definite Constitutional or Statutory mandated civil right. Then, I will gear up. Night jumps are optional.
