ECP Chronicles: Vol. 1
By: Felix Caballero
Tags: Aviano, Airmen, Suicide, Air Force, Italy

A1C Caballero holding an M4 Carbine with M203 attachment circa 2004 (machine gun with a grenade launcher)

It was early but it was late if that makes sense? Booming Italian-Techno House music was blasting from the speakers in some random nightclub in northern Italy. As I looked at my watch, I immediately “sobered up” and quickly surveyed the nightclub that I was having an out-of-body experience in. We had to go, it was 0245, and rounding up the crew was never a simple task! I methodically gathered my men that I had rode in with, and in one fell swoop, we were in late 1990s BMW and headed back towards Aviano Air Force Base. We had to be armed-up and ready to go at Guardmount by 0530 and it was currently 0315. Normally, a vehicle full of drunk Airmen coming back from the club would be catnip for the Security Forces members working the main Entry Control Point (ECP) at the base, but we were their relief and they wanted to get off post and go get fucked up as well. We arrived at the dorms at 0345, each staggering drunkenly to our rooms and emerging showered, clean-shaven, and in uniform, ready to walk over to the armory and grab our standard issued tools for our shift. The clock hit 0445 and we “gaggled” across the modern Air Force barracks towards the Security Forces armory for the beginning of shift change. The techno music was still pumping in my brain and my body slowly metabolized the alcohol from two hours prior.

When you enter the Security Forces armory your world changes. All games come to an end and you have to put on that “Game-Face”. You have to enter the mindset of carrying a weapon and possibly having to use it. This is a job like any other and to do your job, you need tools like a carpenter or a web developer. My tools could be as mundane as a radio or as extreme as carrying a grenade launcher with night vision goggles. Today I was working at a Gate or ECP, so I would be armed with a semi-automatic rifle (M-4 Carbine) with 210 rounds (bullets) of NATO 5.56 ammunition, and an M9 Beretta (9mm handgun) standard load 15 round magazine with an additional 15 round magazine as a backup. It was 0505 and I was third in line to draw my weapon from the armorer. Three hours before this moment, I was in a nightclub in northern Italy, drinking whatever was in front of me and dancing as if it were my last night to dance. While I stood in line to check-out my tools, negative vibes controlled my thoughts and commandeered mind: “Do I smell like Vodka Redbull? Will the LT know that we are all completely fucked up? If so, will I get handcuffed and detained?”

From 2003–2009, I served honorable as a Security Forces Member (3PO71) in the United States Air Force at Aviano Air Base, Italy. Side note, there are probably a few folks out in the world who may disagree with the statement “served honorable” that I used to describe my time in service. They may not be wrong but guess what my DD-214 says? I served as what civilians would refer to as a “Military Policeman”, which is a hybrid of traditional law enforcement (Cop), infantry soldier, and heavily armed mall security guard. Weird, I know. Now the reasons behind my choosing this career path when I enlisted in the Air Force are pretty silly when I look back at it. As an Army brat, I thought the USAF was soft and I wanted a job with a gun, so I chose to be Security Forces after my ASVAB scores were telling me to be a Radiology Technician. Now you may be asking yourself, “How were you a military policeman in a foreign country?” Great question, most Americans do not know this, but a percentage of the tax-dollars you provide go to maintaining US Military installations, observational sites, or whatever your Lil’ conspiracy-theory-heart desires to believe all over the world (about 25 cents of everybody’s taxable dollar goes to the Department of Defense). There are many laws and agreements that cover these types of situations in countries where the United States military has a presence and I believe that even individual states have certain standards in place when it comes to policing military personnel in their jurisdiction.

Being Military 5–0 in a foreign country is a tangled web of norms, rules, and agreements with whichever host country you are in. The most standard of these agreements is the SOFA or Status of Forces Agreement. A SOFA, not to be confused with a comfortable place to rest, is an agreement between a host country and a foreign nation stationing military forces in that country. SOFAs are often included, along with other types of military agreements, as part of a comprehensive security arrangement. A SOFA does not constitute a security arrangement; it establishes the rights and privileges of foreign personnel present in a host country in support of the larger security mission. Pretty straightforward and clear, right? Not really, because what the SOFA does not cover is where other laws and agreements come into place, which can add confusion to certain situations (like an Airman getting arrested by local police for assault). If you would like to learn about the SOFA agreement the US has with Italy you can go ahead and Google that shit on your own.

One thing I love about any job I have ever had is when clear, concise, and unambiguous instructions about my position are provided. Luckily for me, the military is all about these types of mostly unambiguous guidelines. As a Security Forces Member, we had three general orders, as they are called, that I was tasked with (BTW, I had to recite this verbatim if asked by any higher-ranking enlisted member or officer):

USAF Security Forces General Orders: I will take charge of my post and protect personnel and property for which I am responsible, until properly relieved. I will report all violations of orders that I am entrusted to enforce and contact my superior in any case not covered by instructions. I will sound the alarm in any case of disorder or emergency.

These are pretty basic and easy instructions to adhere to, but also, as Security Forces Members, we were tasked to respond to situations that, to be completely frank and honest, we had inadequate training on (ie; mental health crises). When I finished Basic Training and moved across Lackland AFB to go to the “Schoolhouse”, (or “Jailhouse” as the other Air Force trainees would call it) I would be learning training and learning how to be an SF member. The training that I completed over 3 months during the summer of 2003 taught me invaluable lessons that I still carry with me to this day like how to respond to an unconscious person, how to field strip an M-9 pistol, and what the value of an MRE pound cake can fetch in a deployed environment. However, the glaring hole in the training that I received would manifest itself whenever I responded to an emergency call that was truly more of a mental health crisis.

Every scenario that I was trained in during my time at the SF Schoolhouse usually ended in me trying to retain my weapon, subdue a hostile individual, or neutralize a target with force. All are important skills to have in the military, but what if I had to respond to a suicide attempt? Or a sexual assault? Or what if I was tasked with “to watch over a fellow Airman who attempted to take their own life? I do not want you, the reader, to have the idea that these topics were never touched on during my initial and continuous training from 2003–2009, but it was never the main focus.

So let’s go back to that day shift in the early 2000s when I had my first encounter with a real-world, no-bullshit mental health emergency. Like I mentioned in the beginning, we had been clubbing all night and the threat of apprehension for being intoxicated while carrying weapons was real, but at the same time, when you are given so much power, you start to develop an untouchable attitude. After I “armed-up” (received my weapons) and made it through the initial gauntlet of overzealous NCOs and snitch-ass Airmen, I made my way to the smoke-pit behind the guard mount room, and we began to do what we always do; gossip about what had happened on the shift we were relieving. The usual Saturday night shenanigans that you think would happen around a military base almost always came to fruition. Bar fights, DUIs off-base, running from the local Italian cops, and other types of tomfoolery were always topics of convos because we were tasked with responding to incidents that we were, at times, involved in ourselves. I always loved the smoke-pit conversations because it gave me a chance to run scenarios in my mind and imagine how I would react. Today would be a slow day because I would be standing at an ECP, making sure that everyone who tried to gain entry into the base was authorized (ie; checking IDs for 8 hours). This was a black and white job that pretty much a trained monkey could do- and trust me we would have deep philosophical conversations about our place in the world and society while vegetating in a Gate Shack for 8–12 hours at a time.

Guard mount, or “Roll-Call”, as traditional civilian law-enforcement call it, is where you are informed of all prior events that happened on the base that has to do with Security or Law Enforcement. This is where attendance or “roll” is taken and you are given your assignment or “post” for that particular shift. The Flight Chief, the highest-ranking enlisted person, is in charge of assigning your shift and relaying all important information/intelligence for the day. If we want to be gung-ho about it we can call it “your tour of duty”. Fancy, I know. We were coming on shift on a Sunday morning, so a Saturday night recap of events was always a good fucking time. “Last night we had a slap-fight between two drunk F-16 mechanics in Area F, we had a noise complaint here, we had an alarm on building XYZ, etc.” When Guardmount was complete the Flight Chief dismissed us and we made our way to “post”. We loaded into whichever mode of transportation we had to take to relieve our fellow Airmen who were currently adhering to General Order #1. Since I was at Gate 2 that morning, I loaded into a van with six other SF members and we rode to relieve the night shift crew.

I did not expect to encounter a man with a half-empty bottle of rum, a large knife, and blood running down his chest when I assumed my duties at Gate 2, but shortly after we settled into what would normally be a boring and quiet Sunday at the ECP the call came over the radio. “Golf 2, Golf 2, this is Enforcer. Over.” Golf 2 was the “call-sign” for Gate 2. Think about “Maverick” in Top Gun, except not as cool. I don’t remember who responded to the call, but I do remember the order given after we acknowledged it. “Golf 2, be advised Police 1 is en route to your location. We have a report of a suicide attempt in Building X Room X. Do you copy.” Someone said, “Roger-That,” and the next 3–5 minutes were a blur. I had training in situations like these, but they always ended up with the person wanting to die or as we were trained to call it: suicide by cop. I had sat through hours of PowerPoints and computer-based training about responding to suicides and we did scenario training but they usually ended with the person getting shot. Also, the main focus of my training in the early 2000s was preparing for asymmetrical warfare waged by Al-Qaeda and protecting nuclear weapons at all costs. Responding to a 19-year-old kid wanting to kill himself was something I was not ready for. Fortunately, Police 1 (the Law Enforcement supervisor) was en route, and normally this person would be a Senior NCO or close to it (think E-6 to E-7), and they would have experience responding to these types of calls.

Police 1 arrives at Golf 2 and he looks at me and says, “Caballero! Come with me!” Now, in any normal occupation, one would ask, Why? Or how come? But this is the military and you go where you are told. We were about to make our way up to Room X in Building X, and all I can remember about that short walk from the gate was Police 1 fumbling with the master keys to all the rooms in Area 2. I don’t remember being scared; I had more of a matter of fact attitude about the situation, which in retrospect is not the type of demeanor you would want when encountering a suicidal Airman. The only information we had was that there was a kid in his dorm room and he wanted to kill himself. We were in the firefighter dorm right next to the gate and climbed one flight of stairs to get to the second level. The room was the third door on the right after the stairs. We got closer to the door and Police 1 looked over to me and said, “I am opening the door and you go in first Cabby ”. “Roger that,” I responded.

Seeing a shirtless man sitting with a large knife as blood ran down his chest was a super sobering thing to see early on a Sunday morning, but there I was as Police 1 opened the door to Room X in Building X. As soon as I stepped into the room and saw the pain in this person’s eyes, I stepped back out and shut the door. “He has a big fucking knife and he is bleeding from his chest. Also, he is holding a half-empty bottle of Captain Morgan,” I said as we quickly regrouped outside the door. We had no clue this suicide attempt would involve a large sharp weapon and as Police 1 began to give instructions on what would happen next all I can remember was that we unholstered our weapons. We made our way back into the room and this time our guns would be drawn and pointed at a fellow American Airmen.

I thought to myself, “Is this about to be a suicide by cop? Am I going to have to shoot this man?”

“GET ON THE GROUND AND PUT THE WEAPON ON THE FLOOR NOW!!!!” Police 1 bellowed as we made our way into the dorm room for the second time. The young Airman looked at us with weary eyes and dropped the knife and the bottle of rum. He slowly made his way from the chair where he was sitting to his knees with his hands and arms open. As he made his way down, I saw something that I will never forget; the beginning of two letters he had tried to carve into his chest. That was where all the blood was from. I don’t remember this Airman’s name, but I will always remember what he kept saying while we put cuffs on him, “She doesn’t want me.” This dude tried to carve some woman’s name in his chest after drinking with her all night and professing his love. He had been rejected. The only way he knew how to react was to hurt himself.

22-year-old A1C Caballero lacked the emotional maturity and was not equipped with mental health training to deal with this situation. After we had a handle on the situation and the suicidal Airman was in custody, I filled out my statement about the incident and was given a “pat on the back” by my Lieutenant. We never revisited the incident. I never had a follow-up meeting with a mental health professional about what I had experienced, nor a conversation about us possibly killing a man. We did talk shit about how crazy the dude was and how we would never let a woman make us do something like that. We were an empathetic bunch. I checked IDs for the rest of the shift, talked shit to the folks making their Sunday morning walks of shame, and waited for the posting van to show up around 1400. Sunday night was approaching quickly and there was a party at a club in Conegliano, and supposedly, there were going to be Brazilian go-go dancers. I had to rest up for that.

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