POLITICAL ASSASSIN #1

It's 5:32 a.m. and 66 degrees and foggy otside the window. Patrack got up with me, then promply scooted to Junior's room and crawled into bed with him. Yesterday was third day in a row of 95 degree heat.

In late 1969 or early 1970 I was stationed at Ft. Leslie J. McNair in Washington, D.C., the only Army installation in the District. It shares, with West Point, as being the oldest continously operating Army installation in the country. It started life as the Washington Arsenal, and was the scene of the trial and hanging of the Lincoln Assassination Conspirators. It features a row of southern type mansions with big columns in front, backing on the Washington Channel for Pentagon Generals not quite important enough to get a berth across the Potomac. A contingent of the 3rd Army (The old Guard) was stationed there, as well, the fellows who Guard the Toomb of the Unknowns and bury people at Arlington. When I was there, there were three government schools there, the Army War College ( not to be confused with the one in Carlisle Barrracks, Pa.), the Inter-American Defence College and one other. There was so much brass on base, that by convention, you weren't required to salute them, unless you were right on top of them...

Anyway for a while I was boss of the VOQ, Visiting Officers Quarters, a world war two barracks, that sheltered tempory old Colonels visiting Washington, who wanted free government housing. It was like a motel, and I took reservations, generally ran the place, and had a colored maid. The best part of it was I had my own room, instead of having to live with the rest of the grunts in the open bay barracks.

Joe Quinn, a private from Ohio, was my best friend in those days, and he was boss of the BOQ, Bachelors Officers Quarters, a modern facility which served as housing for unmarried officers assigned to the base. One of Joe's Tenents was Col. Rosas.

Colonel Rosas was from Bolivia. In South America Colonels are the equvalent of our Generals. He was attending classes at the Inter-American Defense College, where we trained South American military types how to fight communism and overthrow their governments. Joe and I got drunk on cheap Scots Whisky one night with the Colonel.

He told us, in broken English, that he was the commanding officer of the unit that captured and killed Che Gueverra. Gueverra was in charge of exporting the Cuban Communist Revolution to Latin America. Col. Rosas saiad he ordered his sergeant to gun down the captiveGueverra, which he did. The Colonel punctuated his story with a "brrrrrrp" sound he made to imitate a machine gun. Was he telling the truth? I don't know. For all I know ALL Bolivian Colonels tell the same story to unsuspecting foreigners to gain respect. Some drunks lie, others get very truthful. We believed him. He was the first of three political Assassins I've met. So it goes.
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