Free Within Arm's Length: A Secret Service Agent's Definitive Inside Account of Protecting the President by Dan Emmett Page B

commencement speech, but I do not recall anything more, as our class, much like FLETC, had enjoyed a vigorous graduation party the night before. With the presenting of diplomas, it was time to bid farewell to my friends and think about heading back to Charlotte, where I would begin my career in earnest.

 
    CHAPTER 6
    Back to Charlotte
    On Halloween night, 1983, I returned from Washington, DC, to my apartment in Charlotte, North Carolina, having completed all required training to be a full-fledged agent. I was both exhausted and thrilled. During the six-hour drive home, I reflected on all that had happened in the six short months since I had been offered the job of Secret Service agent. In spite of the fact that training had been highly enjoyable, I was looking forward to some time alone to reflect a bit and sleep, which I did for most of the weekend. I was also looking forward to whatever assignments might come my way, even check investigations.
    The following Monday, I reported to the office ready to go to work. One of the first things that happened upon my return was that my friend Mike and I, along with another agent, Ron, all of us rookies, were sent to Atlanta, Georgia, to work at an event for President Reagan. Atlanta was always a good town to visit, and with this being our first protective assignment since graduation, we were very enthusiastic. Even though we knew it would only be standing post at some obscure location in the general vicinity of President Reagan, it was still protection.
    We arrived in Atlanta and checked into our hotel, where all out-of-district agents were staying, and immediately began to run into old friends from SATC. The first official activity was to attend the agent briefing. This is a gathering, usually in a hotel ballroom or conference room, at which the advance team from the presidential detail briefs all agents assigned to help with the visit. Each member of the advance team is introduced, and the itinerary of POTUS (the president of the United States) is read. Each agent is given general instructions regarding the event, including where and when to report the next day.
    After the agent briefing, which lasted about an hour, most of the new agents on this trip proceeded to the hotel bar, where we began to mentally prepare for our next day’s assignments and compare stories about our respective field offices. Mr. Coates, the SAIC of Atlanta, was there, and I said hello to him, careful not to thank him for hiring me. I fondly remembered the verbal beating I had received a year earlier for my thank-you note. He asked me how the job was going, and I told him that it was going very well. It was also on this trip to Atlanta that I saw what would change my immediate career goal from getting to PPD as soon as possible to another assignment instead.
    My assignment for the visit was standing post at the motorcade arrival and departure area to ensure that no one placed an explosive charge. While there, I saw five very fit-looking agents sitting in a Mercury station wagon with M16 rifles and semiautomatic pistols. This was a Secret Service Counter Assault Team (CAT).
    CAT is one of the special, or tactical, teams of the Secret Service, and it is comprised of agents whose mission it is to respond with speed, surprise, and violence of action against organized attacks against the president. I had heard about CAT but knew little about the program, as it was fairly new and was practically classified at the time.
    I walked over to the Mercury for a better look and started a conversation with the agent in the rear of the station wagon. He was also a former marine, and after I talked to him for a few minutes, I was so impressed I decided that CAT was where I wanted to go next in my career after my assignment in Charlotte ended. The CAT agent handed me a piece of paper that was like an application, of sorts, for the program, and told me to fill it out when I got back to Charlotte and send it back to