Barrio Incident, Latin America Style

This chapter was written soon after this event took place in 1989. Stoney and TB wanted my help (Fitz) as the opening narrator of this chapter and Howie’s input also because he was right there in the total bizarre thick of the action with David and my Cousin, T.

Ok, so just to keep my dear good buddy’s multiple names he’s accumulated over the years straight with anyone who’s reading this, David was nicknamed Stoney by TB but his real-life name from birth was Steve or Steven Lee, but for some reason I can’t even remember why anymore, I just began using Steve’s usual cover name when he was always out with TB and the boys, and that being David. Moving along, TB and David wanted to put this story together soon after because it was very fresh in their minds and wanted tight accurate information describing all the events. And I have to add that a few years even after this added entry, some descriptions were toned down because of the swearing and heavy brutality that D wanted taken out. Trust me, my dear friend is no kind of saint, ok, but nor any kind of prude either, no, he’s just being D.

As the story progresses, I (Fitz) turn back the narration of the real inside action over to our good big buddy Howie, who like I mentioned was right there alongside David (Stoney) and my beloved best friend and BAD ASS best and closest Cousin I could ever have, TB.

Without getting into the jest of the whole matter, TB needed, or I should really just say wanted David to assist him, or again more to the point, be down in Mexico on a special mission watching his back. This all happened sometime after the middle of September of 1989 and the location was many hundreds of miles southwest of the Texas Brownsville border, deep inside Mexico, in some out of the way barely one could call a Barrio. The operation included TB and four handpicked ex-Rangers now working for him, plus Howie, Jacob & Cowboy, who were always by his side ever since they all met in Viet Nam. Their task was to be a part of an overall rotating professional well-trained military grouping, watching a very wealthy connected Mexican women who had taken her kids away from her very heavily politically also connected Texas husband. The operation besides tracking her was to wait for the diplomatic channels between the two governments to properly and legally be put in place, so that this assembled large force of men could eventually do the task of safely bringing the two children back to their aforementioned father.

Now this needed footnote has to be dropped in here, and that is after David and T left Acapulco, it was hard over the years for D to say ‘No, I can’t really get away to help you’ to my cousin’s request for his back up, and truth be told, TB was highly superstitious and believed David was always his good luck and good fortune for him.

Now as far as this new operation down in the belly of Mexico, well this was a complicated mess and an entanglement that David repeatedly kept telling my stubborn cousin to stay out of. D wanted TB to stay focused and stick to the developing private for hire specialized mini-militia force business that he had been doing a great job of operating and growing over the past nine years. But the catch was, the key guy that TB worked with in the pentagon basement where his unofficial official contracts for his air freight work many years earlier came from, requested or more like told him he wants his other extreme private mini-militia services that my cousin more or less bragged about, to get involved in this operation.

My cousin loved the action and besides that, the money was going to be plentiful, and that was something TB always loved knowing was going to be there at the beginning and the end of whatever he got his team involved in. So yeah, no question about the money or the action, because he loved it all and he didn’t shy away from admitting that.

Just like his past Acapulco Gold weed business and present for-hire militia activities, this mission was more than likely going to have some major life-threatening adrenaline rushes going down, but that’s what Cousin T, plus Howie, Jacob and Cowboy loved and they didn’t care how much came at them.

Now back earlier on in David’s real wild days in Mexico and maybe for a dozen years after, these kinds of situations excited and pumped-up D just the same as the boys, but deep down he knew this wasn’t his bag in any way compared to Cousin T and our good friends.

And that was cool with everyone, but it was David’s knack over the years to help my Cousin carefully in all phases plan out his missions, to reduce and even more importantly, avoid any kinds of dangerous possible out of the blue miss-steps that could come during an operation. But being truthful, this Mexican deal was just a few years past that sweet spot of David’s prime, but yet he wanted to be there as usual to have TB’s back, keeping him as safe along with the continuing good luck my big bad ass Cousin truly felt D did for his life. Their lives were connected solidly once they first met in Acapulco in March of 1973, and after that, TB, David and the boys roamed and worked flawlessly on Cousin T’s pentagon off the books specialized non-contract/contracts he was getting skilled at negotiating. My wild and fearless Cousin had air-freight runs of all kinds going down plus eventually his dream goal was achieved when he slowly created a customized small militia force that worked occasionally in the United States but primarily down far into many of the Central Latin American countries.

Like I said, this operations orders came from a source deep in the under pinning’s of our government, and that’s all I’ve been told to write about that. Now for this special Op, most of the set-up and advance work, meaning target identification, total logistics and surveillance points were covered and zoned in on, so for this particular operation everything was in full swing, and after the boys flew in and were brought up to speed and then took up their positions and first rotation they were assigned, they officially became part of a large team in different areas of this little Mexican Barrio.

Ever since David returned from Acapulco and started working closely with Cousin T, there was a known fact by all the close caring and working buddies that David was good for a maximum of ninety-six hours of time away. To the point about that, he didn’t like putting himself away and out of an earshot from calling or seeing and helping his parents, so nothing would appear on their radar of wondering or worrying, ‘where is their son?’.

In a nutshell he was a good son, a devoted one, but a pure wild child and unpredictable to them at times, so David’s dad had to do a lot of covering for him because his mom was a real worrier type, big time if you gather what I mean. But there was another ninety-six-hour factor of time involved, truth be told, and that was due to his hearts ability to handle all the massive adrenaline & energy being created & then drained completely out of him.

Some of the missions over the years were just incredibly stressful and almost pure nonstop adrenaline over the top filled events. This is what TB was regularly drawing our friend into and I can say that David privately admitted to me that sometimes the action was close to being way over his head, and he knew that because he had a big part in planning the missions out. . And so as D would generally say about now, Nuff Said.

Now I’m going to hand-over and share this chapters writing with Howie, who was an eye-witness to the entire Barrio Incident. Ok, so sit tight now, for the fast actions coming.

David, Jacob and myself (Howie) were watching with powerful binoculars TB and Cowboy way down below in this quiet Barrio so-called downtown area. We all had these really cool two-way ear pieces that Fitz created a few years earlier but were now even supposed to be even smaller and clearer sounding, and they were connecting us to our boys, but ten minutes into our friends below movements we began having some sort of technical failure happening and we really needed to make audio contact at that very instant. The deal was, we had to warn TB and Cowboy that six bad hombres were trailing them, and they looked like they were about to do a serious strike on our unsuspecting brothers down there.

In an instant David whispered to me and Jacob that he could see in his binoc’s that three dudes were personally trailing TB, and their actions were slowly closing in and becoming more cunning with each of their steps. David went from his keen and cool Stealth mode to screaming out our pre-planned need for speed danger signal to the four Ex-Rangers on our team. The dudes were strategically spaced out every three feet from us, and so they heard clearly D’s voice without any hesitation whatsoever, my little buddy yelling out with command to all, ‘LET’S GO’.

We were all about doing whatever was needed to get down there to protect our two close friends and this same kind of deal happened between David and TB many years earlier in the mountains of Acapulco, so now again, Stealth was in full auto-pilot quick protective reaction mode. We all dropped our binoculars right where we were ground-belly situated, and then without pause, we all took off aiming to reach our buddies as quick as possible.

Honestly though, David can’t run worth a lick and this was a known fact and nothing in any way by it held against him. But he led the charge off our command post and then the six of us took off in a full out sprint to bear down and reach our boys, and all the while, David was doing his best to keep up with us, and mentally readying himself just like we all were for the upcoming action.

We all closed in on a lot of ground quickly, and now I was zeroing in on this one dude to take him down and hoping TB would pick up on the other two punks trailing close behind.

I hit the guy so hard with my left shoulder into his right-side rib cage, I could feel and hear bones cracking, which we all trained over the years to actually do. As soon as my zeroed-in human target went down, the big guy heard, saw and then immediately his combat sixth-sense danger radars went into their wide-open engaging modes.

TB was instantly now in the fight using his Leopard cat like reflexes along with his powerful deadly huge bear like incredible animal fighting strength we all knew that he amazingly possessed. And I’m not even doing justice to describe our brother from another mother. He hit one of the other guys so powerfully in the jaw, I could hear it shatter and the dude cried out in obvious terrible pain, and as soon as that happened the third guy took out a knife and now TB literally made a loud animal like noise, then took out his razer sharpened Bowie, over matching what the other fool was holding.

The three dudes trailing Cowboy were now getting it on with Jacob and our other four Ranger trained operators with us, and that action was intense.

Ours was too, because now a fourth attacker we didn’t catch onto came out of thin air and cracked me with some heavy object on the back of my head, and I went down really dazed, and then thankfully out of nowhere David comes shoulder crashing into him and they both went flying. D’s body did a mid-air spinout, and he landed really awkwardly which caused a really messed up twisting around of his right leg as he went down in a thud I clearly heard. Then the dude David crashed into went after our little buddy who was basically defenseless lying on the ground.

There’s one thing you don’t do, and that is pull a knife on a true stone-cold down and dirty experienced knife fighter, that being our friend TB. I was asked, no really told not to get into details here other than to say the knife fight ended savagely brutally quick, and then after, our boss, T saw his dear friend David getting repeatedly pummeled really badly. This attacker got three rapid-fire solid steel toe kicks to his left lower leg, foot and ankle area and one or two hard kicks to his right knee, and one solid blow to the side of his head. Our buddy D was getting beat down pretty damn bad, but still had the moves to do his best to dodge defensively as much as possible.

I was actually a bit woozy and still down on the ground, but T was now zoned in on the guy attacking David. He came around the guy’s blind backside, and grabbed this dude up with both his hands around his neck and then his powerful fingers squeezed deeply into his Adams apple area, and then picked him way up and off the ground, released one hand from around his entire back neck area and then aggressively body slammed him face first down into the asphalt street. The force of the slam was meant to be insanely life threatening, just pure brutality, and that’s the best way I can use words to describe what I saw and heard. The dude was badly bleeding now out of the entire front of his face, and completely out cold, but TB wasn’t done with his anger until David yelled at him, ‘STOP!’

I’m just going to say that at that moment in time, D saved that man’s life, , believe me.

After TB heard and listened to his forever guardian friend’s command, he next heard David painfully say he can’t get up and walk and he needs help, and T responded instantly by grabbing our friend and putting him over his shoulder like he weighed a feather. After that move by my long-time comrade in arms, he came over to me and gave me a needed helping hand too, and then we along with all the rest of our team started making our way out of the area. The boys during our action had a pretty bad ass fight going on themselves, but Cowboy and Jacob know how to take care of business, and our Four well-trained Rangers jumped in and helped our boy’s kick ass, so that was that.

Again, we were in a Latin Mexican Barrio in the middle of the day and didn’t have any weapons or heavy man power back-up at that particular time of the operation. Well actually we had some serious knives on us, especially TB, but still, we didn’t know what was coming next so we had only one objective now, which was get to our jeeps and get out of there as quick and safe as possible. Within an hour after some heads-up zig zagging and yet strategical driving by T taking the lead wheel, we finally felt save in an area with other American operators hired like us. These dudes were highly trained and skilled, and once we safely arrived, we felt welcomed and comforted being in a well-armed encampment. TB and David explained to us going in that we were actually also working with the local trusted Federales, so more or less we all felt half way safe in our surroundings, well maybe not half way, but, , whatever, I’m sure you catch my drift.

This gig wasn’t supposed to be anything too dangerous or end up having any serious complications, but whoever dreamed up that crock of BS, should have been later fired, and that’s going light on the situation as per the way TB felt after.

Now we’re going to switch back to Fitz to wind it up. We talked it over and agreed this is how the next flow of the action should be explained away. So here again is my good friend.

Hello, and thank you for your interest in our story. First and foremost, I wish I could have been there with them but I just vicariously live through all my friend’s because being totally honest, I don’t have the balls, I don’t have the talent, and without any doubt, don’t have the nerve but I sincerely wish that I did. We all have our different strengths that we should apply ourselves to do in life as David would often say to all of us, and he’s right but I admit I wish I had more physical skills but humbly obvious to all, my fortunate God given talents lay elsewhere. Now though I’m going to try and do another task as the writer finishing the events of what happened that afternoon in that far away Mexican Barrio.

To finish the story, Cousin T and D, along with Howie, Jacob and Cowboy totally filled me in on about what happened after they got to the safe house after that scary street brawl.

Okay, so first of all it was my fault how everything technically went wrong with the communication systems, and none of the problems should have ever happened because David always had house rules about testing out all old and especially new equipment before any mission is ever set to begin. But my good friend David defended me and took the blame because he said he wasn’t on his normal mental game of checking and then double rechecking all the equipment, because he admitted his mind wasn’t totally into this operation.

You see during that period of time, just two weeks earlier, David began going through a tough period of life because his caring childhood high-school young lady gal pal friend had broken his heart and spirit, after she said their close-knit kinship was over. She accused him of cheating on her, but he told all of us he never did such a thing, and he wouldn’t lie or duck away from the truth with any of us. He was really confused by her accusation and David now was willing to do anything to escape from his deep mental pain from her sudden shocking accusation, so when TB asked him to be his wingman for that Op down in Mexico, he was all in like a bat out of Hell.

David and TB for years were still operating and planning T’s missions out of the Michigan War Room barn my Cousin built in Wixom, and it was especially at that time a place where David and his beloved dog Benji hung out because he said the vibe and ambiance of the entire custom set up, helped take his mind off of his now ex-lady friend and her young sweet daughter that he cared a lot about also. He told me that the tightly built high ceiling planning room along with the giant green surrounding hanging felt curtains and especially the beautiful Sequoia Tree custom built table, helped take his mind away from overthinking her rejection, and ease his pain. Cousin T did his best to help David thru the ordeal by keeping his mind occupied with the upcoming mission and some other heavy ones too, and when not working on those Ops, TB was blasting away D’s favorite Motown music, and his too, especially Aretha Franklin and the Four Tops. But they loved Motown!

When the new mission was first told to me, my Cousin said he was totally stoked that David was going to be having his back down in Mexico, but I said to him that that wasn’t the wisest move for our friend to be making because he wasn’t his normal focused self.

Yeah-no, David was at times edgy and grizzly actually with his behavior and it was obvious to all of us, but who could blame him. And because of that I had to say something to my cousin and David, so eventually I got up the nerve to separately tell them that the timing wasn’t right for D, but their minds were made up though, mission on, so that was that!

But I have to also say, I told my cousin that I thought this operation could be a little too dangerous for David and he should just stick to aiding him with going over all the logistical and tactical operations that were his absolute main strengths. I made the point to T that our dear close friend hadn’t been training and up to the physical task like all TB’s steadily growing army of professional warriors were in, plus I said again but this time with my strongest conviction, that D’s mind wasn’t in the game because of this break-up that he was suddenly shocked with. TB heard my thoughts but like his usual self, he was a stubborn sort of guy and always wanted David to be by his side because he always made sure my Cousin was doubly safe at all times. But again, I harken back to D making the point himself after the Barrio incident, that he was so off his game he didn’t push like always to check and double check all the gear and especially the communication systems.

David was a warrior but nothing of the likes of Cousin T, Howie, Jacob and Cowboy. This was an easy-going accepted no-brainer fact by all, but these five friends were solid in everything they did together and whenever all the boys were working in the field, the comradery was super great. But there was no question though that T and D had a special kind of telepathic energy going on and the boys saw it first hand, and told me it was like nothing they’d ever seen, and they always appreciated and loved catching it in action.

Once they were all in the well-guarded safe compound, a medic on site did some patch work on all the guys, and did his best to ease the heavy swelling and pain David was having in his left foots ankle bone, but the real physical issue was his right heavily swollen knee. D was lucky by being agile enough at the time when the guy was kicking away at his head, but he still got dinged up pretty good there too. But Cousin T told me about the real serious physical issue, and that was David’s right lower leg and knee. The two-steel boot hard kicks he was receiving to his knee area stretched and twisted out his tendons and ligaments and the normal positions they maintain in the human body were now totally out of line, and David needed T’s help in snapping his lower leg back into place.

This was nothing new for David to deal with ever since years earlier his right leg and knee were totally twisted out of alignment and on occasions after that original messed up leg ordeal, his lower right leg would pop out of place behind the kneecap, and he’d have to go thru a process to painfully snap it back into its rightful position. But the Barrio action left him busted up like he originally was years earlier, and this new injury would take more than a half a year to bring his leg back to more or less some normalcy and strength. He wasn’t a stranger of having to use crutches and canes, so TB told me our friend just sucked it up and dealt with the pain and the whole fresh messy situation.

Please remember I wasn’t there with the boys as I affectionately always thought of them as, but all of them helped me with vital key insightful details of all that went down right from the get-go to now what I am telling you after they all got back to the safe-house.

As the boys huddled together to pass the time and try and make sense of all that happened just less than a few hours earlier, David started talking about a wild and bizarre Hypnotic pilot program DARPA was experimenting with. He was explaining to our guys and at least another half a dozen other dudes that came by to listen, it was all about taking a more or less healthy human subject and through some scary deep hypnosis experimental program, turning anyone under their hypnotic control into an automated like killer after commanded to do so. He was warning them to strongly alert others they came across or knew in the Ghost, Spook & Wet-back world they themselves rubbed shoulders with over the years, to stay away from any kind of volunteering to have any kind of medical tests done for free by any Federal agencies or any organizations offering medical examines.

The boys were shocked and so was I when I heard all about this government sponsored mind control Hypnosis stuff, but none of us doubted it one bit, no, not at all.

All the guys told me David was in a very talkative mood that entire time after the street brawl, and they all attributed that for him trying to keep his mind off the obvious pain he was in. He covered a lot of subjects besides the Hypnosis assassins’ program, and one being about Comet Kahoutek and how TB and him just went wild with their imaginations after witnessing for week after week in Acapulco in late 1973 that amazing slow and steady Comet growing brighter and brighter in the sky. They together shared with our team and many new faces that were there on the mission, ideas and interesting facts that since then they’ve learned about regarding Meteors and Asteroids, especially the so-called big Asteroid that sixty plus million years ago or so wiped out the entire Dinosaur age.

David was a serious guy about Mother Nature and he brought up in his low-key manner but yet strong with his typical conviction, that the ‘Oceans are the Womb of the Planet’, and as soon as that thought of his was said, he had all the guys sitting up and paying attention. They all were planet and animal lovers, especially Cowboy with his protective thing for Elephants and the gentle floating Manatees, and they talked amongst each other about how mankind is poisoning the Earth and Oceans. They heard David talking about his believes that Earthquakes and Volcanos and Monster Storms are going to pay back mankind one day, and he questioned them to think about will governments and maybe Billions of people around the world be in any kind of way prepared for such startling and amazing Mother Nature Absolute powerful events.

And more to David’s deep natural thinking straight up ways, was his thoughts about all world leaders with Nuclear Bombs better keep their thinking caps on and practice the wise idea of ‘Cooler Heads Must Prevail’, in times when war time serious saber rattling begins with two combatants with NUKES in their weaponry arsenal.

David’s other relatable short and to the point preaching sermon was that no one will ever win a nuclear war if it ever comes to that, and I was told that all the warriors listening were totally in agreement, definitely knowing he was right!

Time generally heals all wounds, mental and physical, including broken hearts and all, but that day’s actions and technical missteps of not doing our routine checks and double checks, proved to be a valuable lesson that never was allowed to happen again.

D was off his game so much that he admitted he didn’t catch in the binoculars the body language of those attackers that lagged way behind, and ended up springing up out of nowhere. He had his years of experiences of mentally and video profile studying thousands of people’s actions of different countries and cultures, right down to their arm movement and hand gestures, plus walk and posture positions, but again, during a rap up meeting in the War Room with TB and the boys, he talked about how he missed all the signals of the people on that Barrio Street.

David as a young kid had a natural knack with a camera in his hands and over decades of time, he developed this thing TB called ‘Forensic Human Analytical Studies’, and together Cousin T & D used this Forensic Human Study Technique to analyze his future warriors that he would be assembling for his unique mini strike force militia teams.

David half joked in that after Operations meeting about how he wished that TB and myself could figure out a way to set up a Satellite link like DARPA & the NSA had possession of, so that we could literally have our own eyes in the sky & zero in and digitally encrypt and watch in real time the entire footprint of that Barrio area that all the action took place in. And just like so many of D’s technical dreams and human healing health ideas he’s had ever since I’ve known him, well this was another vision and wish that came true less than a five years later, thanks to T’s generous money flowing to me and then my fortunate good luck with my skills in my computer science engineering lab.

During their meeting, TB wondered out loud if all the guys were made and photographed when they came walking off the Jet at the little Mexican private airport. He questioned the tightness of the security on the Mexican Federales side who were there to assist in the operation. He spoke truthfully and humbly about how he knows his size stands out, but still, he made the point that the guys weren’t on that street for more than ten minutes when the attacks went down.

It was decided after the lead Op mission boss who securely called into the command post in the USA and explained what happened with the brawl, that the extraction of the children should be expedited within 48 hours, and the fact was, it safely went down with all the men and a dozen more quickly flown in for extra muscle to back it up.

On that special Jet that arrived within hours of the call put in, the extra men were on board plus the request was made on the original secure call for adjustable length crutches to be brought along for David and an odd request of sorts, but legit, was bring dozens of bags of ice for the walking wounded. Ice was a very precious commodity in that hot and humid deep and out of the way Mexican Barrio, and besides having very little of it, it also melted faster than its planned use for both David’s legs and Howie throbbing head wound. The request was taken seriously, and over a dozen ten-pound deep frozen ice bags were brought in.

And so we’ll wrap up and leave now that faraway Latin American Barrio on as much of a positive note as possible, with the old standby adage, of ‘All’s Well that ends Well’.

Well, we all collectively can at least think that way so as to ease the mental and physical pain of that long ago time period of life.

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