Don’t do permanent, be a Reacher, not a Settler.
Take the first bus out.
“They say you need to ride the rails for a while to understand the traveling blues. They’re wrong. To understand the traveling blues, you need to be locked down somewhere. In a cell. Or in the Army. Someplace where you’re caged. Someplace where smokestack lightning looks like a faraway beacon of impossible freedom.”
CODES USED BY THE MILITARY POLICE
10–2 Ambulance urgently needed
10-3 Motor vehicle accident
10-4 Wrecker requested
10-7 Pick up prisoner
10-8 Subject in custody
10-9 Send police van
10-10 Escort/transport
10-13 Repeat last message
10-14 Your location?
10-15 Go to …
10-16 Contact by secure landline
10-17 Return to base
10-18 Assignment completed/mission accomplished
10-19 Contact by phone or radio
10-22 Fire
10-23 Disturbance
10-24 Suspicious person
10-25 Stolen/abandoned vehicle
10-26 Serious accident
10-28 Loud and clear
10-29 Weak signal
10-30 Need assistance
10-31 Request investigator
10-32 Request MP duty officer
10-33 Stand by
10-34 Cancel last message
10-35 Meal
10-36 Please forward my messages
10-62 Fellow officer in trouble, requests urgent assistance
Or use the secret Alphabet Code, as in:
“We’d rate him SAS, sir.” (Stupid Asshole Sometimes)
Hurry up and wait.
“Hurry up and wait was the real MP motto. Not Assist, Protect, Defend.”
Never volunteer for anything. Soldier’s basic rule.
Confusion and unpredictability are what you should expect.
If in doubt, be flippant.
When the Navy says three hours, it means three hours. One hundred and eighty minutes, not a second more, not a second less.
The soldierly way to kill people is to shoot or stab or hit or strangle. They don’t do subtle.
Confront your enemies.
“Back in the day.”
“Delta is full of guys who can stay awake for a week and walk a hundred miles and shoot the balls off a tsetse fly, but it’s relatively empty of guys who can do all that and then tell you the difference between a Shiite and a trip to the latrine.”
Almost any place is serviceable; there is always somewhere worse to compare it with.
First you check, then you double-check.
Eat every time you can, sleep every time you can.
>>TWO WAYS TO GET PROMOTED
Let them think you’re just a little dumber than they are.
Raise a glass to “bloody wars and dread diseases.”
If in doubt, go formal.
Preconceptions get in the way.
“With manpower like the Army has, you can find a needle in a haystack. You can find both halves of the broken needle. You can find the tiny chip of chrome that flaked off the break.”
In the Army you learn how to sleep anywhere, anytime.
Initiative in the ranks usually ends in tears. Especially when live ammunition is involved.
The military and civilians will always remain a mystery to each other.
“I guess I don’t understand the military.”
“Well, don’t feel bad about it. We don’t understand you, either.”
“He was pretty sure he didn’t want to live in a house. The desire just passed him by. The necessary involvement intimidated him. It was a physical weight, exactly like the suitcase in his hand.”
Don’t own a house. You could be traced by paying property tax, insurance, electricity, heating, water … even by the electoral roll.
If you never rent an apartment, or even a room, they’ll never be able to trace you by your last known address.
“You’re the only person I know who wants to be homeless.”
Don’t own a car. You have to pay insurance, oil changes, inspection, tax, gasoline. You’ll be identified by your car’s registration number. Hitch a ride, or hop on a Greyhound bus.
“He knew people with houses. He had talked to them, with the same kind of detached interest he would talk to a person who kept snakes as pets or entered ballroom dancing competitions.”
Don’t use a phone. Especially not a smartphone. And especially not one with GPS to give away your location.
Don’t use a credit card; use cash.
Use aliases for checking in to motels.
“Now they broke my toothbrush, I don’t own anything.”
HOGAN’S ALLEY
WHAT
Where new FBI and DEA agents train to deal with mobsters, terrorists, and gunfights in a realistic simulated urban setting.
Built with the help of Hollywood set designers, it has a post office, the All-Med Pharmacy, a hotel, the Hogan Bank, a laundromat, a barber’s shop, the Dogwood Inn, several town houses, and the Biograph Theater.
WHERE
Occupies ten acres at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia
HOW
In simulated hand-to-hand combat, shoot-outs, bank robberies, kidnapping, assaults, and carjackings, the trainee agents learn arrest procedures, street survival techniques, and control holds.
“We don’t teach them to fight fair, and we don’t start a fight.”
“I can lie with the best of them … sadly.”
LEARN TO READ THEIR BODY LANGUAGE
Q: Is he adjusting a cuff or watchstrap with his arm across his body?
A: He feels nervous and may have something to hide.
Q: Is he unconsciously covering his genitals?
A: He feels insecure in your company.
Q: Is she sitting with her legs crossed, dangling a shoe that is pointing at you?