Another time, a pipe burst in the untenanted suite of a front company in Washington, causing the landlord to become suspicious because the place flooded and no one was Delta Force Boosting around to open the door. Williams and a co-worker jumped into one of the unit’s brand-new sport-utility trucks and drove at top speed all the way to D.C. to deal with the situation. “Sorry,” they told the incredulous landlord. “Everybody’s away.”
Williams’ time in the unit was a roller-coaster eight years of her life. She was expected to wear a pager at all times and be at the Building within an hour of it going off. She juggled multiple cell phones, and when one would ring, she’d have to remind herself which front company it pertained to, and what role she played in relation to that fictitious entity. “In two seconds,” she said, “you have to swap mentally.” Staffers were routinely dragooned into supporting training exercises, and in airline hijacking scenarios Williams was invariably cast in the part of a damsel in distress. “I got shot a bunch of times in the face with a paintball gun,” she wryly recalled. The operators were forever playing pranks on the Cover Girls, packing their desks with plastic explosives, for example, or coming down from the team bays with savage war dogs straining against their leashes to frighten the women who were afraid of dogs. “It was not a professional environment,” said Williams, and Licea agreed. “Having worked in corporate America prior to going to the unit,” Licea said, “this stuff would never fly. You’d be fired.”
Fat people on the support staff were relentlessly mocked. A soldier of Asian descent was called a “chink” to his face. The boozing in the team bays inevitably degenerated into obstreperous roughhousing. “That’s it, we’re not fucking drinking anymore,” a sergeant major would bellow in frustration. “You guys are out of control.” But the dry spells never lasted long. “It was like they were trying to herd cattle,” said Williams, “or take care of a bunch of children.”
On two occasions that both Williams and Licea recalled, aggrieved women came on base and went to the front gate of the unit demanding to speak to the commander. One claimed that an operator had attempted to rape her at his apartment after a date. The other was an operator’s wife who had learned that her husband had married another woman while working under an alias identity in Jordan. On neither occasion did the commander cheap Delta Force Boosting grant an audience. The unit sent counterintelligence personnel to placate the women and pretend that something would be done about their complaints.
Another time, a pipe burst in the untenanted suite of a front company in Washington, causing the landlord to become suspicious because the place flooded and no one was Delta Force Boosting around to open the door. Williams and a co-worker jumped into one of the unit’s brand-new sport-utility trucks and drove at top speed all the way to D.C. to deal with the situation. “Sorry,” they told the incredulous landlord. “Everybody’s away.”
Williams’ time in the unit was a roller-coaster eight years of her life. She was expected to wear a pager at all times and be at the Building within an hour of it going off. She juggled multiple cell phones, and when one would ring, she’d have to remind herself which front company it pertained to, and what role she played in relation to that fictitious entity. “In two seconds,” she said, “you have to swap mentally.” Staffers were routinely dragooned into supporting training exercises, and in airline hijacking scenarios Williams was invariably cast in the part of a damsel in distress. “I got shot a bunch of times in the face with a paintball gun,” she wryly recalled. The operators were forever playing pranks on the Cover Girls, packing their desks with plastic explosives, for example, or coming down from the team bays with savage war dogs straining against their leashes to frighten the women who were afraid of dogs. “It was not a professional environment,” said Williams, and Licea agreed. “Having worked in corporate America prior to going to the unit,” Licea said, “this stuff would never fly. You’d be fired.”
Fat people on the support staff were relentlessly mocked. A soldier of Asian descent was called a “chink” to his face. The boozing in the team bays inevitably degenerated into obstreperous roughhousing. “That’s it, we’re not fucking drinking anymore,” a sergeant major would bellow in frustration. “You guys are out of control.” But the dry spells never lasted long. “It was like they were trying to herd cattle,” said Williams, “or take care of a bunch of children.”
On two occasions that both Williams and Licea recalled, aggrieved women came on base and went to the front gate of the unit demanding to speak to the commander. One claimed that an operator had attempted to rape her at his apartment after a date. The other was an operator’s wife who had learned that her husband had married another woman while working under an alias identity in Jordan. On neither occasion did the commander cheap Delta Force Boosting grant an audience. The unit sent counterintelligence personnel to placate the women and pretend that something would be done about their complaints.