High Alert

By Gregg Stoner

This book is broken down into two basic parts. Part one is how the Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol makes a difference in people’s lives due to their daily duties as volunteers with the San Diego Police Department. The everyday duties of RSVP’s are described in detail by providing interesting stories about each of the categories of jobs. Gregg and his wife Melody set no limits for their time spent going over-and-above volunteer requirements.
Part two is about the special equipped license plate reader car that was used exclusively by the author in finding stolen cars, stolen license plates, and cars wanted for felony crimes. Gregg and Melody spent every available moment of their patrol time seeking stolen cars, and in the process became the most successful of all the RSVP volunteers at finding stolen cars setting a record for stolen car recoveries that will probably never be beat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663214720

Gregg Stoner

Gregg Stoner is a veteran Marine Corps drill instructor that served in the Vietnam War Era. He spent 32 years in the mortgage industry before retiring. Gregg next became a Retired Senior Volunteer Program officer with his wife Melody. They spent the next five years breaking records in all measurable categories for volunteers.

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High

Alert

Gregg Stoner

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High Alert

Copyright © 2021 Gregg Stoner.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-1471-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-1470-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-1472-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020924603

iUniverse rev. date: 01/28/2021

Dedication

T his book is dedicated to my wife Melody, my partner in marriage since 1968, and my RSVP partner from the onset. Without Melody’s help the extent of the great things that occurred would not have happened.

About The Author

I n January1968 Gregg Stoner married his high school sweetheart Melody, and during that same week the American spy ship USS Pueblo was captured by the North Koreans and that resulted in putting the United States almost on the brink of returning to war with North Korea. In addition, that week also included the Vietnamese Tet Offensive, an event of the Vietnam War that began a horrible escalation of deadly battles. As if that weren’t enough, upon return home from their brief honeymoon Gregg was greeted with a notice to appear for a draft physical, a prelude to being drafted into the army.

Following the draft physical it was obvious that the army was going to draft him so Gregg decided to dodge the draft by joining the United States Marine Corps instead, signing up for a two-year enlistment. Just before Gregg arrived in boot camp Martin Luther King was assassinated, and an already upset America went into turmoil. Shortly after arriving in boot camp Robert Kennedy, a candidate for president, was also assassinated. America was being turned upside down.

Most of Gregg’s boot camp platoon received orders for Vietnam, but Gregg was sent to Parris Island, South Carolina, and was assigned as the chief clerk of the Drill Instructor School there. Gregg became motivated to also become a drill instructor so he reenlisted early for three-years of commitment and was then was sent back to his hometown San Diego where he attended Drill Instructor School. Upon completion of the school Gregg was assigned to Charlie Company, First Recruit Training Battalion, the same company and battalion that he had been a recruit just nineteen months earlier, and he also replaced his own drill instructor that had been relieved.

During Gregg’s two-enlistment Marine Corps career he was immersed in daily lessons in leadership, command presence, commitment, and demand for perfection. That knowledge became invaluable tools that Gregg would use in every endeavor for the rest of his working and post-retirement careers.

Following his discharge Gregg went into sales, initially in auto sales, and then into the mortgage industry for the next thirty-two years. During that time he ascended to upper management positions in the companies he worked for. He attributes his success to the lessons he learned in the Marines.

The banking collapse in 2008 crushed the mortgage industry, and almost all mortgage jobs were eliminated during the fiasco. Gregg was forced into retirement, something that left him restless from boredom. Needing something to do he became a board member of the West Coast Drill Instructor Association and was immediately voted in as an officer, Secretary of the Board. He became a life member of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Command Museum Foundation, and soon started to volunteer as a docent in the Command Museum. He was asked to join the museum board of directors, and upon joining was voted in as the Secretary of the Board. Soon Gregg became the Lead Docent in charge of the docent program that provided new Marines with tours of the Command Museum.

With plenty of time still on his hands Gregg decided to write a book about his experiences as a drill instructor. "The Yellow Footprints To Hell and Back" became his first published book. As soon as that book was in print a close friend, a retired Marine Corps sergeant major, Sergeant Major Bill ‘Ooorah’ Paxton, asked Gregg to write his biography, so the book "Ooorah!" became his second published book. Motivated with writing, Gregg simultaneously wrote and published a third book, "Echoes From The Halls," a book that provided Marine veterans an opportunity to have a their own chapter in the book to tell their own Marine stories, often something they had never spoken about to their families. Gregg soon became a local celebrity in the San Diego Marine Corps community, and that resulted in a Marine Corps icon sergeant major, Sergeant Major ‘Iron’ Mike Mervosh, to approach Gregg and ask if he would write his biography as well. "Hardcore Iron Mike" became Gregg’s fourth published works.

Gregg had always wanted to be a police officer, but height and age restrictions kept him from achieving that goal. However, the San Diego Police Department had a special volunteer program for retired seniors: the Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol, known in short as RSVPs. Both Gregg and Melody decided to join the program with the idea of patrolling in their own neighborhood as their main goal. Within an extremely short period of time Gregg and Melody were deemed two of the most experienced RSVPs in the Eastern Police Division and they began a rapid advance to leadership positions.

From their very first day on the job Gregg and Melody had been exposed to searching for stolen cars in the car equipped with license plate reader equipment. The sheer thrill of the hunt and subsequent locating of stolen cars was irresistible. Gregg and Melody began a stringent campaign of seeking stolen cars, and at the same time not only doing their required assignments, but also every additional opportunity to assist police with traffic control, or other matters. Volunteering for more duties made Melody and Gregg stand heads and heels above the other RSVPs in terms of their dedication and willingness to stay out on duty until all assignments were done without limits to their work hours or geographic areas for providing assistance.

RSVPs are assigned a radio call sign based on their daily geographic area of patrolling, but due to their constant vigilance and assistance, Gregg and Melody were assigned their own unique number, RSV-326. Dispatchers soon learned they were always available to go to a needed assignment, no matter what time of day, or location of the event, and that resulted in often being called specifically for assignments across town in other division areas.

Early on Gregg began writing patrol reviews of every patrol he went on, realizing that the stories of daily activities might make a good theme for a book at some time in the future. Those patrol reviews were invaluable in the writing of this book, as they captured the details of extraordinary experiences that make great stories.

In addition to the RSVP program, Gregg also was hired by the San Diego Police Department as a Special Events Traffic Controller (SETC). In that job he is assigned traffic control duty at many special events in San Diego such as baseball games, football games, Comic Con, marathons, etc. His favorite event is participating in DUI checkpoint events in which SETCs direct cars into the checkpoint or bypass lanes. DUI checkpoints can be one of the most dangerous events Gregg can participate in, as some of the drivers coming straight at him are under the influence of alcohol or drugs and sometimes do not slow down or respond in a timely manner.

Introduction

T he Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol program was originated to have retired seniors handle some of the mundane duties that police officers had to do such as visiting senior citizens that were homebound to ensure they were okay. That program was titled ‘You Are Not Alone", or simply ‘YANA’ for short. Duties began to expand as the RSVP program grew and other safe duties were added to the program.

RSVPs are not sworn officers, and are not police officers. They carry no weapons and have extremely limited powers such as writing disabled parking citations, red-zone parking citations, and also citing expired license tags. The cars they drive were once official police cruisers that had been retired from normal police service, stripped of the police equipment, and then painted all white to distinguish the cars as non-police cars like the black and white cruisers. There are no red or blue light bars, as they come only with amber overhead lights for safety purposes.

The RSVPs are issued a uniform consisting of dark blue trousers, a light blue shirt and official badge, and a cap with a SDPD logo attached. Despite the limited duties and responsibilities, all RSVPs had to undergo a background check that was almost the same scrutiny that sworn officers must go through. Any nefarious issues in their history could be cause for failing the background examination. RSVPs had to be squeaky-clean or it was a no-go.

Requirements of the program were that RSVPs had to commit to do three patrols per month plus attend a two-hour training class once per month. Patrols are normally from 0800 – 1500 hours, but that varies from division to division. The patrols always require two RSVPs for safety reasons. In the RSVP academy the recruits go through they are indoctrinated over and over that they are never to be confrontational. They are also told to avoid police activities that were taking place, as it was possible they could become a hindrance to the sworn officers, or even endangering themselves. The result was that most RSVPs did just that—they rarely ponied up to assist on even mundane activities such as minor traffic control.

This book was written in two parts: In Part-1 the normal duties of RSVPs are explained in detail, as well as anecdotal stories that we experienced in conducting those duties. The stories sometimes portray a certain disdain I held for some RSVPs for their lack of participation, as it must be understood that I was a drill instructor in the Marine Corps, and as the saying goes, Once a Marine, always a Marine. My Marine background instilled an ethic that required me to run toward trouble, not away from it. The result of that was that Melody and I went far and beyond what the normal activities were of the other RSVPs. We stayed out longer, and participated in as many extra duties as our day would allow. Part-2 is all about our exploits in finding stolen cars, stolen license plates, and finding cars that were ‘felony want’ cars that had been involved in felony crimes. At times our searches placed us in some extreme situations. The chapters review what a typical daily stolen car hunt entailed, from the sheer boredom of repetitive drives up and down streets in both directions, all in the hopes of getting the HIGH ALERT: the alarm that sounds when we have located a stolen car.

Preface

N ot long after I joined the Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol (RSVP) I realized that what we did on our daily patrols might be the basis of a book. A couple of months after graduating from the academy I began to write a summary of each patrol that I made, and often the reports would be five to seven pages in length. Each report was submitted to my RSVP administrator Bob Mazeika.

A few months after my wife Melody and I joined we were allowed to patrol together. That option opened up a wide opportunity to increase what we did on the patrols. We were no longer held back by other RSVPs that did not want to do added duties such as traffic control, missing person searches, and more importantly, patrolling in a car with a license plate reader (LPR) that would allow locating stolen cars, stolen license plates, and even cars that were determined to be felony want cars that had been involved in nefarious felony activities.

Over time we increased the area of our patrol coverage to include other San Diego Police Department (SDPD) division areas that would place us in some really bad parts of town. We also did not watch the clock and would often do double patrols that went into the late night.

The success we had with the LPR drove us to strive harder and harder to find more and more stolen vehicles. We became the duty experts with the LPR. Our travels throughout the SDPD divisions earned us a solid reputation with officers and the division captains. The dispatchers followed our exploits and often would send us kudos over the car communication system known as MCT. Our eagerness to go to accidents or other calls for assistance made us a target for the dispatchers to call our call sign ‘RSV-326’ often.

I realized early on that our exploits were worthy of memorializing in a book about the RSVP program and our contributions to it. When it came time to sit down and start on the book my patrol reports allowed an accurate means of bringing to light some of the many very interesting events we were involved in. It should be noted that we spent enormous amounts of time making extraordinary boring patrol runs that would be quickly be shattered by an unbelievable burst of adrenalin when we came across a stolen car. If the car was also occupied the whole situation elevated and many officers were immediately summoned to the ultimate chase. It was wildly exciting!

Contents

Dedication

About The Author

Introduction

Preface

PART ONE: Seniors Who Make A Difference In People’s Lives

Chapter 1    Wanting To Be A Cop

Chapter 2    Becoming an RSVP

Chapter 3    Our First Patrols

Chapter 4    Honing the Skills

Chapter 5    Tickets

Chapter 6    Lineup and Training Meetings

Chapter 7    Radio Calls

Chapter 8    YANAs and Vacation House Checks

Chapter 9    Traffic Control

Chapter 10    Critical Area Site Checks

Chapter 11    Department Assistance

Chapter 12    Working With The Garage Folks

Chapter 13    Missing Persons

Chapter 14    Calls to Service

Chapter 15    Spotting Crime

Chapter 16    Photos Part One

PART TWO

Chapter 17    Finding Stolen Cars

Chapter 18    Setting A Recovered Car Goal

Chapter 19    Beating the Record

Chapter 20    A New Record

Chapter 21    A New Goal

Chapter 22    A Slow Start to the New Year

Chapter 23    Awards and then Catastrophe

Chapter 24    Patrols With Our Hands Tied

Chapter 25    A Dark Cloud Over Our Heads

Chapter 26    The End is Near

Chapter 27    The Investigation

Chapter 28    Special Acknowledgements

Chapter 29    Photos Part Two

Chapter 30    Glossary

PART ONE:

Seniors Who Make

A Difference In

People’s Lives

One

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Wanting To Be A Cop

W hen I was young boy like most little boys, I had visions of becoming everything from a cowboy like John Wayne to a bomber pilot like Jimmy Stewart. My aspirations changed pretty much from movie to movie, but ultimately being a fireman sort of stood at the top of the heap—maybe because I saw firemen often as they raced by in their shiny red fire trucks enroute to a fire or rescue of some kind, and maybe more so because of TV shows like Rescue-8. Being a kid gives license to change goals frequently—I just never wanted to be a bad guy like James Cagney often portrayed.

In 1957 Jerry Lewis starred in a movie called The Delicate Delinquent. It was about a teenage juvenile delinquent who was being swayed by the local bad-boy gangs in his neighborhood. After a bad scrape with the law he was taken under the police officers’ wings and he ultimately went through the police academy and became a cop. There was something about the movie and how he transformed himself from being a bad kid to being a good cop that really pushed me into wanting to become a cop. It didn’t hurt that my favorite cousin Harley was a California Highway Patrolman, and I used to sit for hours and listen to his tales of chasing speeders, finding stolen cars, and just dealing with bad guys. During that time there was an abundance of TV programs on about various police agencies, and the moral of every one of them was that crime did not pay. I would watch shows such as Dragnet, CHP, Streets of San Francisco, Car 54 Where are You, and many more, and each episode I watched further solidified my desire to become a cop.

Just about everything to do with law enforcement was fascinating to me. I would spend as much time as I could listening to my CHP cousin Harley as he told me stories about his four-battery flashlight that was wrapped with leather laces, he would show me how he would approach cars holding the light part of the flashlight and leaving the rear portion available to swing it at a combatant like a Billy-club if needed. He had a special revolver holster that had a push button release so that a bad buy couldn’t just reach over and take the revolver out. I helped him polish his patrol Harley Davidson motorcycle when he was off-duty, and was impressed that he showed so much pride in how the bike looked when he was patrolling. He was a Marine veteran of the Korean War and I later realized it was part of his Marine training that promoted the pride factor.

As I became a teenager a lot of things were happening in the world that caused most of us Baby Boomer generation to see life differently than our parents and elders. The rock-and-roll music we all listened to had a major influence on our lives. The Cold War was in full bloom and we were all taught the duck and dive moves to get under our school desks quickly in case of a sudden nuclear attack from the USSR. We almost went into a nuclear war when the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted, and soon after we had to endure the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. And as if those things weren’t bad enough for the Baby Boomers to grasp we had to see the eruption of the Vietnam War that would ultimately take hundreds of thousands of us over to fight an unpopular war that was eight thousand miles from home.

My generation became rebellious and was very untrusting of our government, or for that matter, anyone over the age of thirty. It was believed that we were being lied to and misled about the Kennedy assassination, and the Vietnam War was perceived as losing venture. America was undergoing a major transition: Martin Luther King was marching across America fighting for racial equality for the blacks, and it is fair to say that America was in turmoil throughout the 1960’s. When Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated a short time apart from each other it just cemented the distrust in government.

The drug culture had started along with the Hippy movement, and youths in America were heavily influenced by the music of our times, most of which was anti-war and drug culture oriented. Many were infuriated that they were forced to participate in the war, and that made the military draft a very hot issue. Some young men even ran off to Canada to escape the draft. Many just burned their draft cards. Ultimately a lot of men were just forced into service and had no options other than to go to combat or go AWOL.

After the North Vietnamese committed their sneak attack known as the ‘Tet Offensive’ on the eve of the Vietnamese Tet holiday in January 1968, a sacred time for Vietnam when they celebrate the New Year. Things really began heating up in Vietnam. Every news network carried the bulk of their prime-time news covering each day’s events in Vietnam, and it was all really bad stuff they showed the American people. Colleges and Universities began to have large anti-war rallies that often turned violent, and police were called in. Kent State University had one such rally, and the National Guard arrived. Somehow gunfire erupted from the Guard and students were shot and killed. It was a low point in America, and a turning point for the war.

I mention all of this because anyone that was either in the military at that time, or was in law enforcement, were all called pigs. Military members, especially Marines, were called Baby Killers and were often spat on by the public as they walked through airports or on city streets while in uniform. Many young military men turned to drugs to deal with the issues. The drug culture was growing very fast and it was accepted as a normal way of life by the Baby Boomers.

I was opposed to the Vietnam War, but opposing it did me no good. I was a student at San Diego Mesa College at the time, and the war impacted just about every action we all took in those days. I initially had a student deferment, but by the first semester in the 1967-1968 school year I had to drop one of my classes and my units fell below the twelve-unit minimum required to maintain a student deferment, and the result was I was re-classified 1-A by the draft board. It was just a matter of time before I was summoned by the draft, and that was something I absolutely did not want to occur.

On January 25, 1968 I married my high-school sweetheart Melody. We had eloped to Las Vegas and several days later the news broadcast the deadly actions of the North Vietnamese as they initiated the Tet Offensive, a surprise attack on all U.S. military installations in Vietnam during what had been a temporary cease-fire by both sides in honor of the Tet. That was the point that the war in Vietnam hit the acme of bad news for American Baby Boomers. When Melody and I arrived home from our honeymoon a day later my mailbox contained a notice to appear for a draft physical examination. That was not the kind of news that a newlywed couple wants to hear.

My bus ride to the Los Angeles Military Processing Center was a long ride. None of the other young men on the bus had any desire to be there, let alone wanting to medically qualify for the draft. We had to go through a very dehumanizing process of walking down various colored lines on the floor of the vast building, each line taking us to a specific test area, and much of the time we were in partial states of undress. I am pretty sure that about the only thing that would have disqualified any of us was if we had lost an arm or a leg prior to the physicals, and then only if we couldn’t use crutches. When they were done with us we were all told to stand by at home because the next step of actually getting a draft notice was just weeks away. We were all being thrown to the wolves and it appeared that despite our opposition to the war we were all going to be participants.

Melody and I discussed the situation and I decided that the last thing I could accept was being drafted, as being drafted was like an insult to me. So we decided I should grab the bull by the horns and enlist in the service. We were both native San Diegans and it was a logical thing to think of joining the Navy since San Diego was a predominantly Navy town. In fact, I actually thought I could get into the Navy Reserves and probably spend most of my reserve time in San Diego, or at the very least on an air-conditioned ship even if it was off the coast of Vietnam—little did I know they didn’t have air-conditioning on those ships. The recruiting office in San Diego at that time was a single office that housed all five of the military services. Melody and I went to the office and I stepped up to the Navy chief who was sitting back in his chair with his feet on the desk, jaw jacking on the phone the whole time we stood there. I have to admit: I was not impressed at his lack of even acknowledging our presence. I heard a booming voice behind me: Can I help you over here son? I turned around and was taken in by the Marine gunnery sergeant standing tall at his desk. He had razor-sharp creases on his shirt, an array of decorations, and his dress blues were dazzling. We immediately went over to his desk and began talking about the options available.

I had two and one-half years of college, most of which was in the area of business administration, so I informed the gunnery sergeant that I wanted to avoid being drafted into the Army and was hoping to use my college experience in an administrative capacity with the Marines. The recruiter told me that he had a new two-year program available that did not have any active reserve time required, but with only two years of enlistment he could not guarantee any type of military occupational specialty, further saying I would have to give more time for that. I added that I didn’t want to go to Vietnam, as I was opposed to the war there. The gunny laughed and said, "Son, all Marines go to Vietnam." I felt like I was sort of between a rock and a hard place—I didn’t want to be in the service at all, but if I didn’t act now I would be drafted into the Army. I told the recruiter I would take the two years and roll the dice. He offered a sixty-day delay entry program that would give me until May of 1968 to enter boot camp. It helped that both my oldest brother and my CHP cousin had both been Marines, so I was going to carry on the with Stoner Marine tradition.

Boot camp training was a difficult thing to go through. It was one of the hardest tasks I had ever experienced, but when it was all done with we all felt almost invincible as Marines. On the evening of boot camp graduation I was stunned when my Platoon Commander called out each new Marine and told us of our military occupational specialty and our first duty station: I was going to be a clerk typist and following the completion of Infantry Training required of all Marines, and the admin school at Camp Pendleton, that I would be going to Parris Island, South Carolina—almost everyone else was going to Vietnam. My life was headed in a positive direction.

When we arrived at Parris Island I was assigned to be the Chief Clerk at the Drill Instructor School—a job that required a rank of sergeant, and for a new private first class just out of boot camp that was a pretty scary job—not to mention being around the instructors who train the drill instructors. I dug in and worked my butt off to excel in the job, and soon had done just that—my efforts had paid off and I was getting quick promotions. As soon as I reached the NCO rank of corporal I decided that I wanted to become a drill instructor and I discovered that if I re-enlisted for three years I could be sent back to San Diego and attend the Drill Instructor School at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot there. I sort of rationalized that we would be in our hometown and being a DI would be sort of like having a regular job there. It was a huge gamble though because if for any reason I did not graduate from the DI School I would no doubt be sent to Vietnam, and that was a scary place to go to at that point in time. But failing was not in my game plan and I finished the school easily despite my short time in the Corps. In fact, just nineteen months from entering boot camp I was assigned to go to the very company that I had been a recruit in, and even more amazingly I replaced my own Drill Instructor who had been relieved of duties. I lived in the same row of Quonset huts that had been my home in boot camp—it was déjà vu for me.

Being a Marine was something that taught people how to lead effectively and how to win the battles we faced. Marines are all about pride and discipline, and we have Core Values: Honor, Courage, and Commitment. Becoming a Marine is a permanent thing—we are always Marines down to the bone marrow. We are proud, and we excel.

During my second enlistment I came to learn that the San Diego Police Department, and most other law enforcement agencies, had a five-foot eight-inch minimum height requirement—I stood just five-feet six-inches tall and my earlier youthful zeal to be a cop was squashed by my short stature. My dream of becoming a police officer went down the drain before I even had a shot at it.

Not wanting to remain in the Marines while we were still at war in Vietnam I decided to leave when my second enlistment was up. I had readjusted my life ambition to desiring to become rich by going into the sales field. After a short stint in a multi-level marketing company in which I rose to the top levels of their management tier, I had to find new employment when the attorneys general of most states put the company I was with out of business. I love cars and that motivated me to become a car salesman, just as the U.S. went into a crisis that became known as the Gas Crunch. Gas became scarce and we all stood in long lines at gas stations, and sometimes they ran out before it was our turn to fill up. All the small economy cars such as Hondas, Fiats, VWs, Toyotas, and others were quickly bought up and the waiting list was very long for getting one once the cars came in. We didn’t have any economy cars to sell due to the car shortage, and what we did have were large Jeep Wagoneers, Oldsmobile’s, and a ton of large American cars that nobody wanted due to low gas mileage the cars produced. It was a very tough time to try making my living selling cars.

By a stroke of luck I was contacted by one of my Marine buddies who had been a neighbor of ours in Beaufort, South Carolina. He had left the Marines and joined the Border Patrol and was working at the Border Patrol station in San Ysidro. He said they did not have a minimum height limitation. The more I thought about it the more excited I got—that would be almost like being in the Marines. I looked up the enlistment process and found I had to take a test first, and if I passed that they would call me in for an interview. My friend Reggie was helpful in letting me know what they were looking for and how the interview process was designed to rattle the applicants to see how they react negatively while under pressure. I took the exam and passed it with flying colors. It wasn’t long before I was scheduled for the oral interview, and if that went well I would be assigned to their academy in Brownsville, Texas. The oral interview was nothing less than Reggie had said it was going to be. They tried every way they could to rattle me and get a reaction from me, but I remained calm and cool the whole time. I really believe my Marine training had a lot to do with that, as we were always under some sort of stress. When it was over I had passed. They said to get ready for a trip Brownsville, Texas where the Border Patrol Academy was located, but first I had to take a physical exam. They gave me the address of the doctor and set the appointment for the exam.

I went to the doctor and for about an hour or more I was poked, examined, and probed for health issues. The last test was an eye exam. I felt confidant and left for home full of enthusiasm for the upcoming academy and future assignments as a federal agent. About one week later I received a letter in the mail from the San Ysidro Border Patrol station: the letter advised me that I had failed the physical exam because my vision was 20/80—they required a maximum 20/70. I was crushed. But at the same time I felt that there must have been a mistake. I went to my own optometrist and told him what had occurred. He gave me an exam and found my vision to be 20/60—well under their limit. I ordered a pair of glasses and then immediately drove to San Ysidro to plead a case to reconsider me for acceptance. However, the captain there informed me that once rejected there was no second opinions allowed. Done is done. I had no other law enforcement options open to me at that point. It was a hard thing to accept after so much excitement about what I thought was a sure deal.

I went back to car sales and continued to excel, and that success resulted in my becoming a sales manager. But there were a lot of ups and downs during the on-going gas crunch era and it was a hard way to make a living that involved long hours late into the night, not to mention working weekends and holidays. My wife Melody got a job in a mortgage company that was one the largest mortgage brokerage firms in California. We became good friends with one of the loan officers and he talked me into trying to become a loan officer—but first I had to get a real estate license, and that required going to a real estate school.

By that time it was 1976 and I learned that the Highway Patrol had removed their minimum height restriction. I signed up to take their test, and like all those tests I finished with flying colors. The next step was the oral interview, and I felt that it would be pretty much like the Border Patrol’s. I also knew that my Marine Corps background was a huge plus with law enforcement agencies. If I passed the oral interview then the next step was the extended training at the Sacramento area CHP academy. The downside was the potential of being assigned to any location in California. I was not afraid to relocate since just about everywhere in California is a nice place to live. But while we were waiting for word to arrive to schedule the oral interview Melody started becoming very ill on an increasing basis. At first we thought it was the flu. However, we had been trying to have a baby and nothing was working for us, even many medical processes, and we had actually been told by the doctor to sign up for the adoption list. I finally convinced Melody to get checked out by the doctor, and to our total surprise we learned that her illness was morning sickness—she was pregnant and sometime in the middle of September of 1977 we would become parents. That changed everything for us. There was no way we were going to have a baby and then be transferred to who-knows-where in California by the CHP. I dropped out of consideration. It was a mix of a high moment and a low moment.

I went back to my loan officer friend and asked if I could get an interview with the company that he and my wife worked for. I needed a steady income in a more stable business and being a loan officer in a mortgage brokerage firm was just the right solution. I got the interview and despite my having no knowledge of mortgage loans I must have impressed them with my sales skills. They gave me a hypothetical borrower situation in which the borrower had a lot of bills but we could only pay off a certain amount of them and some had to remain. I had to select the correct bills to pay, and it boiled down to paying off those debts that had the highest payments so we could reduce their outgo the most. I did well at understanding and analysis of the client’s financial situation and I came up with the most viable economic solution. I was told that I would be offered the job subject to two conditions: first, I had to get a real estate license, but could work until I took the test—if I passed I was in, and if I failed the test I was out. Secondly, my wife had to agree to leave the company at the time the baby was due and agree not to return after that, as their policy was that no married people could both work at the company. Of course that would be highly illegal today, but that was 1977. We proceeded and I started learning a new trade. I no longer had to stand outside in the heat or rain waiting for a customer to come on a lot. No more demo rides. No more grinding out car sales till midnight. No more weekends. I was in heaven, except I was not in law enforcement.

I succeeded in passing the Department of Real Estate’s test and Melody did leave the company after our daughter Erika was born. For the next thirty-plus years I remained in the mortgage field, most all of which was spent in upper management. During that span the market had interest rates as high as 21% or more and I found out that there was no such thing as solid ground in a sales-related industry. I worked for multiple companies during those times, and despite the excellent financial earning I had the jobs did not offer the type of excitement I knew would have been possible in law enforcement. As time wore on the minimum height restrictions at most law enforcement agencies were eliminated, but I then had to deal with the maximum age limits they all had. By that time I was then too old. I finally gave up my dream and continued with what I had been doing.

Some dreams are hard to kill. At age fifty I learned that the San Diego Sheriff and San Diego Police Department had both eliminated height and age restrictions. That revelation came at a time in my life after I had been involved in a privately owned mortgage brokerage that was owned by a man best described as a crook. I was with the company for five years and things had initially started out good and seemed to get better and better. The owner of the company was an aggressive man who seemed to be able to charm the fleas off a cat. We made private mortgage loans to borrowers with bad or no credit and if they failed to pay the debts we filed a default and ultimately would foreclose on them. The owner ran the books and things were flying high. I was initially brought in as a vice-president, but was later promoted to president, plus I was offered a deal to purchase part of the company. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was being set up to unwittingly camouflage the actions of the owner. Over time it started to become apparent that things were not as they seemed, and then one day we were raided by the District Attorney’s office by about twenty armed DA deputies. They searched all the offices and files, and took away boxes of what they considered evidence. They felt they could prove fraud on the part of the owner and they were headed for him like a freight train. On top of that the IRS, the California Department of Corporations, and the California Department of Real Estate were also investigating the firm. All of the workers at the company, including me, had been duped into believing things were just fine. We should have suspected major problems when our paychecks started to bounce, but the owner said it was due to bank errors causing the shortages. I resigned my position and left the company. The owner had been embezzling investor’s funds and using them to live his high lifestyle. Soon the IRS and the DA contacted me, and they wanted me to testify against the owner. The company was turned over to a Trustee. I was then served with a lawsuit from the Trustee alleging that a stock sale by the owner to me just prior to the raid resulted in my owing the firm $250,000 from a note I signed for the worthless stock that was transferred to me. As if that wasn’t enough punishment, the IRS also audited me and I was told that my 1099 form from the company was short by several thousand dollars, and that I had to pay fines and penalties along with back-taxes. It cost me over $25,000 in CPA fees and attorney fees to make all of that go away by settling the claims. Essentially I had to pay their legal fees for bringing suit against me in error. What a great country.

I finally got out of the spider’s web and tried to re-establish myself within the mortgage community. The industry had morphed into a new form of lending called sub-prime and the mortgage economy and the real estate industry were booming. I had a job at a small mortgage brokerage to learn the new form of lending. During that time my boss asked me to sit in on a loan closing involving his client who was a San Diego Police officer and whose wife worked in a bank. My boss felt that there might be some questions about the loan at the closing and he wanted me there to allay any issues if something came up. I gladly agreed since the closing was just down the road from my house and I was able to leave the office early and beat all the traffic from Oceanside where our office was all the way to San Diego. I arrived at the title company that was doing the closing and met the police officer—his name was Pete Zajda and he was the officer in charge of a fairly new program with the San Diego Police Department called RSVP, which stood for Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol. To make small talk I asked Pete about the program and he told me that the RSVPs had to be at least fifty-five years of age and had to be retired. They performed a variety of mundane things, but they did patrol in white patrol cars that at one time were regular police cruisers. Pete was a gruff guy too, and after talking about the RSVP program he was in charge of he then wanted to know why I was at the closing, and my presence did not seem to bode well with him. However, I stayed through the end, and Pete and his wife signed the papers for the notary. But I left the meeting with a new hope that once I retired I had a place to go to that actually had a minimum age restriction!

The drive to Oceanside from San Diego every day was a long commute with lots of traffic so I finally took a job a short distance from my home. I was bored with the highly competitive mortgage business at that point, but I could not retire yet. I decided to test the waters again and I signed up to take the SDPD written exam—they were advertising every day in the newspaper. There were about one hundred other applicants at the test center, and all had the same goal as me—only most of them were in their early twenties and I was fifty years of age. The test was a snap for me and I managed to score very high on it. The recruiting office sent me a package and I had to fill out a ton of paperwork. I had to list every single house I ever lived in, and every job I ever had. They wanted references from former employers, peers, friends, and relatives. There was a questionnaire that asked about extremely personal details, and questions pertaining to truthfulness, drug usage, alcohol, and other things. I had to list every driving ticket I ever got. I couldn’t help but think to myself how very difficult I had it due to my age being twice that of most of the people applying. Due to the age difference from the others I literally had a full life more than those guys, and that didn’t alter anything in the eyes of SDPD. But I finished the paperwork and dropped it off at SDPD. Soon, or as soon as soon was in the world of law enforcement applications, I received a request to come in for an initial oral interview. The two officers I met with made me feel very comfortable and even complimented that I still wanted to be a cop at my age—they really seemed to want me to make the team. They asked me if there was anything on the application I had filed with them that I wanted to change, and I had to admit that I had erred on my age—we made a pen change. With that they said the next step was to complete the physical agility test at their academy grounds, and if I passed that then the process would proceed. I was elated.

The day scheduled was a Saturday, and of all times to be hot, that day the temperature was already 105 degrees by the time we candidates appeared at the course. We were all told to stay hydrated as much as possible. They walked us through the course and explained all the obstacles and the time limit for the course. They had no order of who went first or last, so I just positioned myself toward the end of the line—I didn’t want to go first, as I wanted to see how they were all doing. The first part of the course was to climb up and down a horizontal rack of monkey bars. Next we had to run down and then up three flights of steep stairs, making sure that we hit each step and did not touch our hands on the handrails. When we reached the top we then had to run a sort of zigzag obstacle course weaving through a series of cones. There was a three-foot wall to go over, followed by a four-foot wall. Then there was a six-foot wall. On the other side of the six-footer was a dummy that weighed about one-hundred sixty pounds—we had to drag the dummy about twenty or thirty feet. The last segment was a dash down an alley and back. I don’t recall the exact time limit but it was not extremely long, and delays at any point could prove fatal in passing the test.

One by one the young men and women took off, each being timed by a stopwatch. The hardest obstacle for many was the six-foot wall. A high percentage made it over the wall. Those that didn’t ended their run at that point. The heat was so extreme that some of the people got heat stroke or heat exhaustion during or after their run. Finally it was my turn. I knew I was out of shape and I was carrying a lot of excess weight—not a good thing, especially on a hot day. I took off and had no trouble with the monkey bar climb. I ran down the stairs with zero problems, but the return up the stairs was my first indication that I was not in shape. I made it to the top, but when I got up there I was really dragging and had minimal energy left, and I felt dizzy. I ran the zigzag course with no problem, and was starting to catch my breath by the time I got to the three-foot wall. I rolled over that without a hitch and ran toward the four-foot wall. I also made it over that, but realized my gas tank was already on reserve and I was quickly running out of gas. I ran up to the six-footer and for a moment I just wondered why it wasn’t sixty feet instead. I knew deep down I was a dead duck, but being a Marine does not allow stopping. With every ounce of energy I had left I tried to get over that wall and I just could not make it. The officer at the wall told me it was about technique and he suggested a few things that might help. His suggestions didn’t help me though—I had sort of hoped he would have suggested a stepladder, but he didn’t. My run was over that day. I could see my dream falling apart, and the high temperature and my lack of physical fitness took its toll. The officer told me to start working out and that when I felt I could make it to call back and they would allow me to make the run again. I drove home and was totally dejected in my failure.

I vowed that I would overcome my deficiency and I began to make a daily three-mile run at 0300 every morning with my Border Collie Dallas. I worked out after each run in an effort to build my body strength and conditioning. After six months I went back to the obstacle course by myself to see how far I had progressed. My efforts had paid off enormously and I was much better able to handle the stair climb and other lesser events. But when it came time to make it over that six-foot wall—I was a failure again. I finally realized that it was over for me. After going through the agony of being too short, and then too old, I then realized that despite no more height or age limitations, the fact was: I was too old.

Retirement was still ahead of me, so even when I reached 55 years of age I was still working, so the RSVP program would have to wait.

Two

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Becoming an RSVP

B y the late 2000s the mortgage industry, as well the banking industry, imploded on itself. The ridiculously easy qualifications for a mortgage loan, coupled with purchase plans that failed to require a down payment, and further fueled by pure greed of everyone involved, the industry died a sudden death. It almost took America down the tube with it. Large institutions like major banks, Wall Street, HUD, FNMA, and the auto industry were all on the brink of bankruptcy unlike any time in our nation’s history. Those of us who were in the mortgage business had nowhere to turn to. We were out of jobs. There were no more employers, and nobody was making loans. The government was being asked to bail out all the big companies. It was a horrendous mess like never before. Most companies let their people go and most of us were on unemployment compensation while we contemplated what we would do from that point. In my case it was further complicated by my age even though age discrimination was illegal it was still a real issue or people on the older side of the scale.

I was fortunate in that just as my unemployment ran out I was eligible to apply for Social Security. I was able to pay off my mortgage and other debts and I could then live on my monthly checks from Social Security.

Our community of Allied Gardens had an annual social event that included a parade, sometimes a car show, and a lot of vendors with tables who offered information about their services and products. Melody and I always attended those shows, and at that particular time we stopped at the two RSVP booths at the event. One of the booths was for RSVP Traffic, and the other booth was from Eastern Division’s regular RSVP unit. The Traffic RSVP booth was well manned with about four sharply dressed RSVPs in uniform. A man by the name of Bob Stewart was there and he wore captain’s bars on his collar—he was the administrator of the Traffic RSVPs, and he had also been in the Marines. We struck it off really good and he told us how versatile the Traffic RSVPs were—they could travel to all parts of San Diego from the border at San Ysidro to the far ends near the Wild Animal Park up north. He explained they don’t visit YANAs (You Are Not Alone) or do house checks like the regular RSVPs, as they dealt with traffic accidents and other exciting things. It sounded interesting to us, but at the same time I couldn’t help but wonder why there was emphasis on no YANAs, house checks, and other little nuances he mentioned. However, we did take the information papers they had and I left him with my name and phone number for follow up. Somewhere along the line of our conversation I indicated that we were interested in serving our neighborhood, and I was left with an impression that we could do both Traffic RSVP and regular RSVP at Eastern Division.

We next went to the other booth that was manned by a sole RSVP man who was looked very old, and moved very slowly. I asked a few questions, but I didn’t get any strong answers from the man. I was less than impressed to be honest. But I did learn that they only patrol in the Eastern Division, and one of our goals was to be patrolling in our neighborhood, or least our neck of the woods. The Traffic guys seemed to make going everywhere in San Diego a big plus, but for us it didn’t hit our need at the time. But still, the Traffic guys were far and away better prepared than the old guy we spoke to. We also gave our name and number to the RSVP for a follow up call.

About a week went by and I finally got a call from Bob Mazeika, the administrator for the Eastern Division RSVPs. To be honest, I really was not clear on what or where he was from, as the only administrator I had previously talked with was Bob Stewart from Traffic. Anyway, Bob Mazeika told me that the starting process was to go out on a ride-along with RSVPs so that we could see what they do in the field and then determine if that was what we wanted to do. That seemed reasonable so we set up a ride-along for the following week.

We arrived at the Eastern Substation (Sub) at 0730 as Bob had requested. The RSVPs were already getting set for the lineup meeting that occurs prior to each day’s patrol activities. There were four sets of two RSVPs sitting at the lineup table. Melody was assigned to one pair and I was assigned to another pair of RSVPs. A lineup leader conducted the meeting and gave information to everyone that was pertinent to their patrol activities. One thing really made Melody and I take notice—the lineup leader mentioned that the RSVPs were not to patrol on our street due to a dangerous person there that had threatened the RSVPs. We never did find out what the deal was, and we found that a little disturbing to know there was a problem on our street and not even find out where it was.

I have to be honest here—I was paired with two RSVPs that I felt were nowhere near what I felt an RSVP officer should look like or talk like. The female wore a uniform that was old and faded and it looked terrible on her. She had no pride in wearing it. The male had a better appearance, but he ran his mouth like a boat motor and just talked and talked the entire time. My patrol beat was Allied Gardens and Del Cerro, which was our neighborhood, so at least I got to see how our neighborhoods got patrolled. Melody had a similar experience with two RSVPs but she was in the San Carlos community.

The male RSVP tried to explain what we were doing at the various places we went to, but I felt that he was trying to impress me more than educating me on the process. At precisely 0900 we drove to a YANAs house—we were told that the lady liked us to arrive promptly at 0900 so she could be free to leave after that. The YANA was a very old lady in her late eighties and she invited us inside her house. We sat in her living room for an inordinate amount of time all the while doing small talk that could have bored any of us into a coma. We finally left and drove to the strip mall in Allied Gardens where the RSVPs scoured the lot looking for disabled parking citation opportunities in hopes of writing a ticket. We drove through the bank parking lot and I was told we were doing a ‘bank check’ to make sure there were no robbers parked in the lot. Our next move took us down Waring Road to a San Diego water pump station located near the bottom of the grade. Our purpose for being there was never explained, but to get to the station required driving down a narrow access road that ends at the gate entrance. Once there it would have been a fairly easy three or four-point u-turn process, but the driver instead decided to back the vehicle all the way up the slightly windy access road until he reached the parking lot at the top of the hill. He explained the road was too tight to make a u-turn, yet he risked potential damage by backing up. Our next stop was another YANA at the top of Del Cerro in a gated community. We arrived at her door at precisely 1000 hours. That YANA also insisted on a prompt arrival, and she demanded we arrive at 1000 hours even though the window of time for these RSVP visits was actually a two-hour window (1000-1200,1200-1400, etc). It was obvious that the lady intimidated the RSVPs with her demanding ways, and she was also a good friend of the former Eastern RSVP administrator. We next drove to an area that contained an underground water reservoir that has two entrances—we checked the top entrance first.