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The Pentagon Panama Plan
A place in turmoil—Panama
_In nineteen eighty-eight—
Was where the strongman Noriega
_Was busy tempting fate.
The Pentagon felt like a dreamworld
_Where fantasies were made.
Years later the 9/11 plane struck
_That office where I’d stayed.
Lieutenant Colonels stationed there
_Were often called “gophers.”
We’d go for coffee, go for errands,
_Go find top brass chauffeurs.
As Staff Assistant for intel
_And for security,
I worked with Army Generals—
_My job gave parity.
That’s where I first heard of the plans
_To take out the cabal
Of the strongman who thought he owned
_The Panama Canal.
And so it happened I was tasked
_To fly to Panama;
A place that I had only heard of,
_Regarded with great awe.
We flew to Puerto Rico first
_To catch an Army flight
Provided by their General
_And flew out in the night.
But on the way I had to pee,
_So found the special tube.
This jet had zero privacy,
_So I felt like a boob.
The Assistant Secretary there—
_Improbably a she—
Seemed to have an interest
_In the fact I had to pee.
The tube was in the back but was
_A place that all could see.
I yelled, “I pee on Nicaragua!”
_To hide my shame in glee.
She managed Commissaries
_And Exchanges where soldiers shopped.
Assigned her army officer,
_I managed every stop.
We left the Marriott for lunch—
_A tropical locale.
We made a daytime visit to
_The Panama Canal.
We walked across a bridge and that
_Was when I said, “Eureka.
I also can tell others that
_I’ve been to Costa Rica.
The U.S. Army of the South
_Had a general,
His house was ours for dinner, which
_Made plans and stomachs full.
We then were briefed on their intel
_And their security.
My self-made purpose was to tell
_Where weaknesses might be.
I asked for and received the plans
_To help civilians flee
In case the Panama strongman
_Went on a killing spree.
The plan was wishful at its best,
_If they were under threat.
The land returned—a PR stunt—
_Was theirs, not our, asset.
In early hours before departure,
_The fire alarm went ringing
The Assistant knocked on my room door
_I heard a ding-a-ling-ing
She yelled, “How do we exit here
_We’re on the third floor stuck.”
I knew the hotel floor plans well,
_So we were both in luck.
The elevator was too risky;
_We’d burn in fiery hell.
I took her down the hallway swiftly
_To an exiting stairwell.
Outside we looked out at the top
_Of the Marriot Hotel.
It looked as if an acrobat
_Was starting to rappel.
He shimmied down a firehose;
_The crowd began to gasp.
Like a monkey swings through trees,
_He deftly kept his grasp.
We realized that our army pilot
_Descended the hotel wall
By using just a firehose—
_Man did he have balls!
He was assigned to the tenth floor
_And trapped there in his bed.
So he rappelled down, not to wake
_In lands where live the dead.
I gave the Army Deputy
_My twenty-page report.
I think he liked what I had said:
_He made me his escort.
Back to the Army’s Southern Command
_For a fact-finding trip.
The head confirmed what I had written
_And thanked me for my tip.
Thus, my report became the plan—
_The Panama Incursion:
Extracting U.S. Army dependents
_And then U.S. dispersion.
I can’t divulge the secrets here
_But here’s one that I’ll drop:
My classmate, cunning Colonel Peters,
_Commanded the psyop.
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Poet’s Note
I was selected to be the first Army Staff Assistant for Intelligence and Security and had the same power as generals though I had a couple of channels in the Chain of Command to whom I reported. Deputy Secretary William “Bill” Clark was the son of Mark Clark whose troops took Bavaria and was two levels above the Assistant Secretary under whose administration I was placed. I had been serving as the manager for all 2 million U.S. Army military and civilian security clearances when I was “discovered” and then appointed to the new position in 1987.
The Puerto Rican general commanded their national military reserves and had a personal jet plane. We were having problems with a socialist government in Nicaragua at the time that included some Cuban forces training their military. A plane flying from Puerto Rico to Panama and back would avoid suspicion or incident.
The Assistant Secretary of the Army primarily was in charge of all Commissaries and Military Exchanges worldwide. I have no idea why she decided to go to Panama, but I was taken along for access and planning. I then decided in my new role that I would include visits to the Commanding General of the U.S. Army of the South (Southern Command) whom I knew and request intelligence briefings. After one of the briefings, I was alerted to anomalies in the present planning for protection of civilians in an emergency. This was called the Noncombatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) plan, in other words dependents. The anomalies included many of the meeting locations under the plan had been returned to Noriega’s Panamanian Defense Forces, such as housing areas. Under my plan that reported other weaknesses, all dependents would be extracted in phases to avoid suspicion prior to any military operation.
In 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered “Operation Just Cause,” closely following the plan for removal of dependents and other sensitive actions I had laid out such as psychological operations (psyops) contributing to the arrest and removal of Noriega.
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LTC Roy E. Peterson, US Army Military Intelligence and Russian Foreign Area Officer (Retired) has published more than 6,200 poems in 88 of his 112 books. He has been an Army Attaché in Moscow, Commander of INF Portal Monitoring in Votkinsk, first US Foreign Commercial Officer in Vladivostok, Russia and Regional Manager in the Russian Far East for IBM. He holds a BA, Hardin-Simmons University (Political Science); MA, University of Arizona (Political Science); MA, University of Southern California (Int. Relations) and MBA University of Phoenix. He taught at the University of Arizona, Western New Mexico University, University of Maryland, Travel University and the University of Phoenix.
I want to thank Evan for sticking with me on this autobiographical/historical poem with his editorial comments, suggestions, recommended revisions, and questions, some of which I then transferred to the Poet’s Note below for further explanation. Poems of this nature require a realistic atmosphere so that the facts do not get jumbled or omitted.
LTC Peterson, the more I read of your military experiences, the more I think you were indispensable to the American Armed Forces.
Cleaning up the mess in Panama and getting rid of Noriega was a big job, and you seem to have had quite a lot to do with it! You talk of our “having problems with a socialist government in Nicaragua at the time” — well, that’s putting it mildly. That Sandinista government in Nicaragua was a far-left nightmare, and we had to secretly fund the Contras (the rightist-conservative armed resistance) to try to overthrow the damned thing. The rotten Democrats in Congress made all our efforts useless. It’s funny how Democrats seem always to be in favor of Communists.
I don’t know much about Bill Clark, but his father (General Mark Clark) had a mixed military reputation. I can’t say how he did in Bavaria, but it was his mistakes that caused the Anzio disaster, where our troops were left stuck on an open beachhead to be shelled by German heavy artillery for months. My father was on that beachhead. He always shuddered when the word “Anzio” was mentioned.
The business about urinating in a tube was funny, and I was told by Vietnam veterans that on big American bases in that country (apart from the regulation slit-trenches) there were no flush toilets of any kind. Therefore the military improvised by setting up long “piss tubes” all over the open areas of the base, so that soldiers could relieve themselves quickly and cleanly whenever necessary. These tubes were simply hollow, cylindrical wooden packing tubes, in which rockets had been shipped. They were six feet long, and they were buried in two-feet deep holes with earth and stones holding them at a forty-five degree angle. Any soldier who had to pee would just walk up to one of these tubes, open his pants, and aim his membrum virile at the hole. His urine would pass down the tube and go into the deep earth, and there would be no hygienic problems. There was no accommodation for females, since at these bases the personnel were exclusively male.
Dr. Salemi, I have finally begun to write about my military adventures. I have several more I am working on and may share. I remember you mentioning your father was in the Italian campaign and the difficulties he faced. You are so right about the “piss tubes.” The funny thing was this small plane had one in the open back just a few feet from passenger seating and no toilet. One would pee in the tube and flush it out into the open air, in my case as we were flying along the coast of Nicaragua. Thank you for your contributory comments.
I should add the few comfortable seats were not forward facing but on either side of the small plane and there was no privacy afforded.
Thank you for sharing this fascinating story, Roy. It’s truly a compelling slice of history which I’ve had the pleasure of reading about twice now, first as prose in your memoir “Velvet Hammer” and now in poetic form. You are truly an eye-witness to consequential events as they have unfolded and it’s a privilege to get to read about your experiences. I only vaguely remember Noriega as a Central American bully and drug trafficker. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it would seem with what is now occurring with Venezuelan drug runners that history keeps on repeating itself. An iron fist seems to be the only thing to keep them in check.
Brian, a special thank you for your kind comments and mentioning reading my book. I regard the Venezuelan situation as the same without any American dependents to worry about. Noreiga was exactly as you described and Nicolás Maduro Moros the current “President” of Venezuela, which I always put in quotation marks, seems to be similar and likely receiving huge payments from drug lords.
Mr. Peterson, Your role and planning in Panama were aplenty for a simple narration; setting them to poetry definitely turned up the interest. How easily we forget our previous foreign difficulties and threats, esp. the ones handled expeditiously with no gunfire. I look forward to your next experiences-in-poetic-form. Could you do us a favor and do a poem on the reforms at the Pentagon since Mr. Trump’s re-election?
Edward, I appreciate your interest in this poem. I have about a dozen more I am planning to write about my military experiences including capturing a Soviet missile. Reality poems to properly reflect the factual story take considerable work compared to writing an article. I do not have a feel for present Pentagon reforms, unfortunately.
Dear Roy, after reading this, I can’t help thinking that military history would gain a lot if it were all written in a poetic form. Well, at least where humor is appropriate. Thank you!
Michael, thank you for your kind comment and thought. Often it is the entertaining “rest of the story,” or as some would say the “atmosphere,” aside from the chronology and facts of the situation, that can enliven history for the reader.
Roy, atmosphere makes the verses of your histories as real and readable as they are. Something always goes wrong or wacky. I remember having to call receiving stations by Bell Telephone when it appeared a message, sent on Army teletype or data systems, had gone astray. By the way, I don’t recall Army of the South as a routing address. Would it be at Fort Sam Houston?