Cesar's Wars: The Rise of America's Special Forces

By Jeremy Shonick

CESARS WARS is based on the true story of Roberto Csar Montiel, a Special Forces soldier and CIA operative who made American history for 35 years: The portable atomic bomb. The creation of Special Forces. The Bay of Pigs. The School of the Americas. Korea. Vietnam. Operation Phoenix. Operation Condor. The Contras. Non-official Cover. Interrogations. Torture. Through it all, his family paid the price. There were other women. PTSD. Alcoholism and abuse. In the end, the violence always comes full circle. Youre like a Mafia wife, his oldest son tells his mother. The more dad kills, the more you pray.
CESARS WARS is also the tale of a first generation American family that struggles to endure the sacrifices and understand the sins committed in the name of God, country, democracy and empire. From the rebuilding of post-war Europe and Japan, through the turbulent 1960s, and the covert South American operations of the 1980s and beyond, this is a story of a family and a nation in crisis.
CESARS WARS: The Rise of Americas Special Forces is the first book in a four-part series. The story is told mainly from the first-person, no-nonsense point of view of Roberto, a complex and principled patriot. But he does not always have the last word. The voice of his wife, Faith, who struggles through wars and personal tragedy to hold the family together, and his oldest son, Roberto Csar Jr., who questions everything that his father stands for, are also presented. Based on over two hundred hours of taped interviews, their stories vividly illuminate the cloaked, forward guard operations that marked the Cold War, as well as the endless interpersonal repercussions between husband and wife, father and son, and brother and brother that are the personal cost of war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491845318

Jeremy Shonick

Jeremy Shonick grew up in New York and Los Angeles. A former high school history teacher, he spent four years researching the events that form the background to this story. He currently works as a Teacher/Supervisor of Student Teachers in History at UC Santa Cruz. He lives with his wife in Santa Cruz, California. They have three grown children.

Book preview

PART ONE

AIRBORNE

1

ROBERTO CESAR MONTIEL

I spent thirty-five years fighting for America. When I came home to retire, I did not recognize it. We’ve gone soft and lazy. Our esprit de corps has vanished like a coward in a fight.

I wouldn’t bother telling you a damn thing about myself if not for that. We’re ignorant as to how the world works, how power works. We need to change course and educate ourselves. Maybe what follows will help. We’ll see.

Don’t be deceived. These are no deathbed confessions, no last-minute, Oh my God, now I see the light! good liberal sentiments. I hate melodrama. Besides, it’s you who need to wake up to exactly what has taken hold of this once-great country, not me.

The military was my first home. I did my eight weeks of basic training at Fort Ord, Monterey California, and loved every minute of it. I met people from all parts of the country, from all walks of life. Going to college is not the same thing. As a rule, those who are in college have got money or means or smarts. In basic training I met illiterates and geniuses, all thrown in together. And that’s the beauty of it.

The initial training of the Navy and Marines is called boot camp. The Army and the Air Force call this basic training. Of course the Marines claim that theirs is the toughest, but when you go into airborne, ranger, and commando training, that’s tougher. The men who endured these training periods had bragging rights.

I picked the Air Force. In those days it was called the Army Air Forces. I also picked airborne. I figured, Well, I’ll have something to do with the sky.

Going through basic training we often asked each other, Where are you going?

I’m going to artillery.

I’m going to armor.

When I said airborne the response was Wow! and No shit!

After the tenth exchange of this sort, I began to feel that this was something special, but I was too proud to ask. It took me three weeks to realize that I’d be jumping out of planes.

What in the hell did I get into and how am I ever going to get out of this? I thought. I tossed and turned for a solid week. In the end, I was simply too proud to back out of it.

From Fort Ord I was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, for Jump School. My bus arrived at the Airborne Training Center at eleven at night. I was the only soldier on board: my own private shuttle service. As we slowed down, the bus driver turned to me and said, See those lights up there?

Yeah. The lights that he was pointing at looked to me like they were ten miles high.

I guess you’ll be jumping out of those things pretty soon.

Yeah, I guess so, I said, but I thought, What the hell is this?

From the moment that I woke up the next morning, I moved so fast that I didn’t have time to think. I was on the go all the time. Everything was on the double. There was no such thing as walking. Double, double, double time. From the barracks to the mess hall to the yard, everything was on the double. And at that pace, before I knew it, I was moving mindlessly, like a robot, which is exactly what The-Powers-That-Be wanted.

All of the drills were repeated so often that I could do them in my sleep. When my commanding officer said, Hit ready! zip, I knew what to do. When he said Stand up! I faced the side of the aircraft. At Hook up! I hooked up, not this way, not that way, but the right way. At Check your equipment! I checked my equipment and I checked the equipment of the guy in front of me. I tapped him when it looked good. At Sound off for equipment check! we started with the highest number.

Thirty!

OK.

Twenty nine!

OK.

Twenty eight!

OK, down to number one at the door.

At Stand in door and close up! I waited for the bell with the green light.

And then it’s Out you go!

On that first jump, I was simply responding to orders. I was a robot, waiting in line with twenty-nine other robots.

Nobody quit on the first jump, but by the third jump there were quitters. By then we had enough time to contemplate the insanity of pushing a man out of a plane. One guy froze at the door. He wasn’t around after lunch. Any time you hesitated or questioned or bucked the system, you were gone.

Officers and enlisted men went through Jump School together. We were treated the same. One time a captain who was hanging next to me as we were suspended in our harnesses practicing slips, began kicking his feet like a little kid in a swing. We had been warned not to do that. The instructor, who was a corporal, said, Captain, drop down and give me twenty-five push ups.

The captain looked at him. You realize that I’m an officer? That I outrank you?

Sir, give me fifty push ups! Now! And if you have any objections report to the clerical paper shack, sign a quit stub and leave. Do you understand me sir?

Sir, yes sir! the captain replied.

The captain dropped down. He couldn’t do fifty but he pushed until he dropped and that was good enough. That was the way it went, right down the line. We suffered no abuse, but there was no playing around.

The physical training was good for me. I played football in high school. I prided myself in being in top shape, but that was nothing compared to Jump School.

Every morning we ran nine miles on a blacktop road around the airfield with only a two-minute walking break halfway through. We ran in formation, wearing boots, fatigues, a button top collar and a steel helmet. Our sleeves were buttoned at the cuffs. Our fatigue jacket was buttoned all the way to the top.

Chin strap, jump boots, nine miles, in formation, keeping in step. All through June and July and that meant hot. A jeep with a trailer followed behind us. If you wanted to wash out all you had to do was get in and sign your quit stub. You were finished. So you kept on: Double, double, double time. You kept on doing your part until, after awhile, it was all of you. It was the only life you knew.

If you passed out on the run or on any other exercise, an instructor stayed behind with you. When you recuperated you did twenty-five push ups and tried to catch up with the rest. The thinking was, He did it as far as he could. He deserves a second chance. If you were not passed out the rule was Get up and go or you’re out!

As we went through the training The-Powers-That-Be referred to us as soldier. Come here soldier! Drop down soldier! After we made our first jump it was, OK trooper, get over here now.

Once we made that first jump we were airborne, a part of the elite. We jumped out of planes. We jumped out of gliders. We were commandos. We practiced river crossings and infiltration exercises, solitary night entries into beach landings. We learned to penetrate behind enemy lines. Although a lot of this training would later become specialized, in the Airborne of my time it was all condensed into one neat package.

At night, we packed our chutes in preparation for the next day’s work. After the first couple of nights we really started slapping those chutes together, right up until the moment that our commanding officers announced, Now hear this! The chutes you pack tonight are the ones you are going to jump. From now on. We worked very slowly, very carefully after that.

We came to know and to trust our equipment. We memorized the tensile strength of the grommets, the tensile strength of the three sections of the canopy, and of each static line. Understand your equipment and its proper use. When in doubt, pull your reserve. That is the standard that we lived by.

Jumping out of an airplane was only a first step, a means of transportation. Once we were on the ground we became shock troops that hit hard and moved fast as opposed to conventional infantry that relied upon heavy equipment—artillery, tanks and armor—to support them. We were light. We made good use of the element of surprise. Our job was to tear ass, to raise hell and hold until the conventional forces caught up, at which point we pulled out and were ready to hit again.

Airborne training brought us into the twilight zone: commandos, rangers, airborne, specialized Marine units. We were the cream of the crop. The rest were conventional, average. We got the tougher missions. We prided ourselves in that.

Although we were organized the same way as the conventional units: squads, platoons, companies and battalions, we differed in skill and tactics, philosophy and equipment, down to the very food we carried. Whereas regular infantry carried three meals a day in their rations, airborne carried two or only one to have a lighter load and to provide more room for ammunition. Our philosophy was, If you run out of food you can survive, but if you run out of ammo you’re in a world of shit.

Our training was designed to build character. We were pushed and we learned to push ourselves. Excellence was the rule, not the exception.

Eighty of us graduated out of a starting group of two hundred. At the graduation ceremony we each received two wings: jump wings and glider wings. The-Powers-That-Be handed them out in between filling our heads with lots of good bullshit: You’re the best in the world. You’re tough and you’re rough. No one can stop you. You’re fit and you’re ready. One trooper is worth ten legs. At the end of the affair, we were pumped up, and ready for battle.

Phoenix City, Alabama, was a notorious place, a frontier town run by a country style hick-mafia that controlled all of the houses of prostitution and the gambling houses. The sheriff was getting his cut along with the mayor, the city councilmen and the business elite.

The night of graduation, we went down there in one big group of thirty. We hit the red zone, and immediately made contact with the hillbillies, the stump jumpers, big brutes. Because I was short I was the decoy. I went into the bar first and bragged around a little bit.

I thought there were supposed to be some real men in this town, but all I see are drunks and women.

The biggest stump jumper I ever saw stood up and made his way over to me. The top of my head was level with his Adam’s apple.

And who the fuck are you, you fucking midget?

Are you trying to tell me that you’re something other than a whore or a fool?

Let’s step outside, pint-size. He signaled to his friends at the back of the bar.

Now you’re talking.

In the street, twenty-nine guys were waiting. Knives, chains, pipes, and broken bottles all had their place in the battles that followed throughout the night. We suffered casualties, but all of us lived to tell the tale. We returned to base like conquering heroes.

2

Before I shipped off to Japan with the Eleventh Airborne Division, I spent two weeks with my parents in San Francisco. My father and I were silent around each other, as always, but this no longer bothered me. I had a real family now. I was among people who understood me, who were willing to work as hard and to sacrifice as much as I was.

The night before I left to go overseas, my dad sat me down in the living room for one last socialist rant. After clearing the dinner table and washing the dishes, my mother and my older sister, Daisy, made themselves scarce. They knew what was coming. The old man had hardly spoken a word to me since my return, but now it was time for the great Marxist/Leninist lecture. I could see him building up to it. First he lit his pipe. Then he sat down in his favorite recliner and reread the editorial he had written for the upcoming edition of his one and only claim to fame, his bilingual magazine, Union Centro-Americana. Then he cleared his throat and motioned for me to take a seat across from him on the couch.

I hardly paid attention to his words. I had listened to his Bolshevik nonsense for so long, I knew the script by heart. I nodded along while he covered all of his favorite themes: the death throes of capitalism, the glory of the new Soviet man, the need to unify all of Central America to fight against the evil of Yankee imperialism, and the inevitability of the revolution. Finally, he got to the point.

I do not approve of what you are doing. What will you do if your country goes to war against the Russians?

What are you talking about?

If your country goes to war against Russia I forbid you from fighting!

This is my goddamn country!

I forbid you!

Are you out of your mind?

Haven’t you learned anything all of these years?

Like what?

Like where your true loyalty should be!

You’re out of your mind!

I forbid you!

Jesus Christ! I’m eighteen years old. I’ll decide who my friends and who my enemies are.

My father leaned back into his recliner. He closed his eyes and rested his chin against his chest. He shook his head in disbelief at my political backwardness. I watched him gather himself for one final push. When our eyes met, the all knowing, superior look had returned to his tired face. His voice was reasoned, paternal.

You’ll see. When the time comes, you’ll understand. I forbid you.

3

The S.S. Greely was my ship. We were herded in there like cattle. We slept five layers up on hammocks. Once you were in your hammock you could not turn around. We had two Marine divisions, the Eleventh Airborne Division, the 1st Cav, the 24th, the 25th, the 7th, the 9th, and a host of other divisions all on that ship.

It was so crowded we had to take turns going up on deck. The-Powers-That-Be had us broken down into work crews. Some worked in the galley, some did police work, and some were given hammers and sent off to pound on the deck, chipping paint.

It took us twenty days to cross. In the middle of the Pacific we ran into a typhoon. When the signal came to Button up! there was a groan from the experienced men. We closed all hatches. Nobody was allowed up on topside. Before I knew it, the ship began lurching like a hat in a hurricane. Along with one thousand five hundred other men, I was stuck down in the hole with no air to breathe but bad air. To make matters worse, I was in the bow: my hold was up in the very front.

Every time that ship came out of the water and slapped back down the bow rang out with stressed metal sounds, rrrgggrrrgggrrrggg, until I began to wonder how it could hold for another second. The vomit of the men made the bad air worse. Coupled with that ungodly sound, the ship was a haunted house.

At the galley we stood to eat. The counters were chest high and laid out side to side. We learned to hold on to our tray when it was rough or else risk eating off our buddy’s. Rrrgggrrrgggrrrggg! We ate cold sandwiches throughout that typhoon. The cooks didn’t light up the furnaces.

Watching the action down below, I learned a great lesson. During the worst of the storm there was no time for individuality. The good of the group came first. And last. You did what you were told. The organization went by decks, holes, and compartments. When our numbers were called we ate, slept or relieved ourselves, according to number.

Our discipline was our strength. The bad days passed.

Even before I stepped off the boat in Yokohama, I knew that I was in another world. The very smell of the place took some getting used to. The Japanese used human excrement as fertilizer. That old honey bucket smell carried a long way.

The people were as shy as the smell was strong. Walking down the street I saw groups of people up ahead, but by the time I got there, there was not a soul around. Once I passed and looked back the people were out on the street again. I felt like I had entered a land of ghosts.

From Yokohama, I took a train up to Sendai in Northern Honshu. I arrived at my unit and was issued bedding and other essentials. I didn’t need to be issued a weapon because I carried my M1 rifle with me. I unpacked by the numbers, as I’d been taught. I took pride in setting everything up just right, down to the creases in my shirts and pants. I freshened up and then it was chow time. I met my fellow troopers and stepped right in line. I was home.

4

In 1947 the war against fascism was over, but the task of building a lasting democracy in Europe and Asia, a bulwark against the growing communist threat, had just begun. And that job fell squarely on America’s broad shoulders.

As an occupation army we had a security responsibility. Airborne was the advance force. Day or night, we jumped into areas to make sure that the Japanese were not stockpiling weapons, or organizing to resist. We secured each area before the military government teams arrived by land. These teams were designed to restore civil authority in liberated areas. They were comprised of professors, judges, and civil servants. Their job was to bring the indigenous civilian community up to speed in administering themselves, a bootstrap course in democracy.

Once we made our initial contact, we tried to return at least once every two months to make our presence known. The Japanese knew we could be anywhere. Anytime. They called us Rakkasan. Literally translated: falling down umbrella men. We were samurai to their way of thinking: twenty of us, two squads, dropping in, day or night. The countryside could be hilly or mountainous or covered in rice paddies. It made no difference to us.

The Japanese were cooperative to a fault. Invariably, upon our arrival, the senior village chief would come forward, bowing as he approached. Behind him in a line came the rest of the reception committee. I never saw so much bowing in all of my life.

Our attitude was, First secure and search, then bow. We split up into teams and went from house to house. Open that! Dig that up! Our word was law. We looked for weapons, samurai swords, explosives, anything that could be used to start a resistance movement, but we never found anything. Nothing whatsoever.

It was eerie. The people opened up to us completely. They accepted their status. There were no hidden glances, no muttered threats. We gave them no cause to complain. We did not loot, we did not rape, we did not brutalize. A torn up piece of bedding, a broken dish or two was the extent of our damage.

While we searched the village, the chief and his people stood quietly, in plain view, with bowed heads, waiting for our OK. Then the bowing began again. Afterwards, we were ushered into a house that was designated as a place for us to stay.

Once we were settled in, the villagers lined up at the door with gifts. They brought us food and sake. They waited on us hand and foot. In the evening, they brought the girls. I felt like a king. True, I had not experienced actual combat. I had not been tested under fire, but I was certain that I would measure up. Other than that, what more could I ask for? I had good food to eat, booze to drink and women who aimed to please. I was eighteen years old.

Less than two years since the end of WWII, Japanese soldiers were still coming back from the Philippines, the South Sea Islands, Manchuria, and China. In every village, we met warriors who had just recently returned and were in the process of reuniting with their families. Even these men were very inviting, very respectful. They always told us that they had fought in Manchuria, never against us in the Pacific. Of course, they told the Russians the exact opposite. These newly returned soldiers were not supposed to have uniforms or military gear of any type. In dealing with them, we expected some resistance, but not once did I have to raise my voice, or repeat a command.

When we were not out on patrol, the base was our life. We received one pass a week to go into town during daylight hours if we passed all of our inspections, but that was next to impossible. And even if we did manage to make it into town, fraternizing with the Japanese was off limits. To be caught standing still talking to a female constituted a violation punishable by time in the brig. Jesus F. Christ. Is it any wonder that, back at base, with little to do and no women in sight, things got a little rough?

We were warriors, goddamnit. If the passive and compliant Japanese gave us no cause, we solved this problem among ourselves. Every night after dinner we went down to the bowling alley or the skating rink, then to the clubhouse where we got drunk and fought.

Sometimes we went outside and pulled up trees. We slung them around as if we were back in the Middle Ages. We fought one-on-one or in groups of two, three, all the way up to platoon strength on each side. To prevent fatalities we had a no metal rule. Fists, sticks, leather, rope and socks that we filled with rocks and dirt and wielded like nun chucks were our weapons of choice. We set traps for each other. We lay in ambush. We had a hell of a time.

The next morning we patched ourselves up and dissected the action.

Hey, that was a good fight last night!

Yeah, but you sandbagged me right at the door.

That wasn’t me, that was Calvetti.

It’s payback time tonight.

Oh yeah.

Listen. Some young men have a need to fight. I was one of them. I’m not proud of that fact, but I’m not ashamed of it either. Today, if two young men go at it in a schoolyard, the psychologist gets called in, their parents are called in, security gets called in, and everyone sits around the table while the principal and various teachers wring their hands and talk about peace and cooperation and all of that good liberal bullshit. Jesus fucking Christ! Give each kid a pair of boxing gloves, make sure they are clean of any weapons and let them go at it for a few rounds. Allow that anger to vent in a controlled way. You’d be surprised by how many of those young men end up good friends afterwards.

5

Besides going out on patrol, the only other break from the monotony of the base was provided by my father’s beloved Russians, whose military outpost was a short drive away. These Russians comprised the very last remnants of their army. Within a year of my arrival they vacated their posts. They retreated to the four northernmost islands that, to this day, they have not returned to Japan. I was sorry to see them leave. We had good times together. We offered them beer and drank with them in their outpost. Little by little we learned how to communicate.

One night, one of our guys asked, If our country goes to war with yours, will you shoot me or will I shoot you?

The question was not completely theoretical. At that time, Mao was making gains in China. Eastern Europe was a powder keg. In Japan, the extent of the Russian presence was unresolved.

Whoever’s fastest, one of the Russians pantomimed.

Goddamn right

Hell, let’s drink to that!

Yeah!

These men were Mongolian. The Chinese tend to have softer features. Our drinking buddies had muscles in every segment of their hard, wind chiseled faces. They were seasoned soldiers. They had fought in Manchuria against the Japanese. The fighting wasn’t that awful up there because the Japanese were beaten people by then, but it was bad enough. They respected us because we were Airborne and literate and they were neither. We looked at them as real tough nails, sheer brute force. They were rustic people, right out of the country, nothing like the European Russians. They talked about hunting wolves and caribou and big wild goats. They had their own kind of dance, not a Cossack dance, but close to it. They squatted on their hams and kicked their feet up in the air.

Simple, they pantomimed. You try it.

Nah!

Another round! they’d say. It was the first English expression that we taught them. I never saw men drink as much and walk away, and I consider myself an