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| On one of my trips to Marana with my brother (right) I was able to take a friend, Steve Hodges (left). Neither of us realized we were visiting a secure C.I.A. site. Steve is a Vietnam Veteran, Bronze Star recipient. |
From this article comes the following:
Marana was said to have been used by the C.I.A. during the Iran-Contra Affair to smuggle arms. Marana from all indication was used to fly Israeli made munitions from the US directly to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War in 1981 during the Reagan administration (Covert Operations: The Human Factor). These covert operation in many ways caused efforts by the Reagan administration to ward off assaults on our American Embassy and Marine compound and may have lead to the orders not to insite action that could have thwarted the bombings in Beirut, Lebanon allowing unprotected Embassy personnel and American servicemen to be slaughtered by terrorists. Marana was the primary airfield used by the C.I.A. during the Vietnam War (see this link). It is home to the George A. Doole Aviation Center founder of Air America -- "First in, last out." Intermountan Air was also:
South Vietnam -All this was way before my brother became coordinator for the Diplomatic Security Training Facility. He was angered the the Palestinian government had sent PLO security officers there for training and showed me the Israeli UZI's he made them train with. Now if you know anything about my brother's career you know what he was known for and my suspicions is that he was sent there to clean up the mess that the C.I.A. had made. Read the following from this link:“In September of 1962, several of us reported to Intermountain Aviation in Marana, Arizona. Paperlegs, Jack Cahill (MSO-58), Jack Wall and I were sent to Saigon. Jack Cahill and I started dropping cargo from a C-46 aircraft. Pete and Jack Wall went up north to set up cargo-rigging sites and to work with U.S. Special Forces B-teams. Later, I replaced Jack Wall working with the Special Forces. Cahill and Wall went to work on special ops, setting up a parachutist training area out of Saigon in preparation to [infiltrate] South Vietnamese teams into North Vietnam.
Access this link for a PDF version of Apollo's Warriors by Col. Michael E. Haas with more information regarding Marana during both the Vietnam War and the Cold War.
"...a company that was formed from the assets of a CIA proprietary, Intermountain Aviation, after its cover was blown in the mid-1970s. In fact, Evergreen is listed on Global Airlines' creditor list directly after [infamous] Southern Air Transport...Evergreen operates the giant air base at Marana, Arizona, northwest of Tucson, which Intermountain Aviation had owned. Evergreen's founder and principal owner, Delford Smith, told the Portland Oregonian that his company had one contract with the CIA to assist foreign nationals that the CIA wanted removed from other countries or brought into the United States. Smith told the Oregonian that he believes in the CIA's cause. 'And we don't know when we supported them and when we didn't as a contract carrier,' he said. News reports in July 1984 stated that the CIA was using Southern Air Transport and the Du Ponts' Summit Aviation, as well as Evergreen Air, to transport weapons to the Iran-Contras." (The Mafia, CIA and George Bush: Corruption, greed and abuse of power in the nation's highest office, by Pete Brewton, SPI Books/Shapolsky Publishers, Inc.,1992, pp. 206-207)
Not only do I believe that C.I.A. operations directed towards covert operations took precedent over more important things like placing Air Marshal's on commercial flights within the U.S., protecting our boarders from illegal immigration and larger and more effective firefighting planes being employed by the U.S. Forest Service, I believe that lives can and have been ruined by those that push these covert agendas. There has always been the struggle between civil servants who have worked their way up through the ranks and those that gain their positions by politicians appointment with an agenda that can only be carried out in four or eight years.
Testimony by LTCOL OLIVER L. NORTH (USMC) RET during Iran-Contra Hearings and what the Algeria Accord has to do with embarassment at the Bush White House.
Although he was working as a contract employ with the U.S. Department of State and the Agency for International Development and was doing Security Clearances for them in the Arizona Region he had access to many other agencies after working for several years as Special Agent in Charge of the Washington, D.C., Diplomatic Security branch of the U.S. Department of State. I had accompanied him on a couple of trips to interview while visiting in Arizona. My brother was not a fan of the C.I.A. because of some of our field operatives and was constantly in and out of countries where he was assigned trying to keep up with them. I know he has even disagreed with them at times, not good for ones health, if you know what I mean.
Examples of reasons for disagreement can be found in the following exerpt from the Congressional Record (INTRODUCTION TO `EMBASSY MOSCOW: ATTITUDES AND ERRORS' -- (BY HENRY J. HYDE, REPUBLICAN OF ILLINOIS) (Extension of Remarks - October 26, 1988):
The State Department's determination to avoid outside oversight on embassy security has been so strong that it declared it was willing to take the entire $270 million for tearing down and rebuilding the Moscow Embassy out of its own already strained budget, if need be; partial funding by U.S. Intelligence apparently would allow unacceptable leverage over policy."
The State Department took one of my brothers good friends, Marvin Doig, off an assignment with my brother's private firm Intersect, Inc. at the America's Cup GAGE ROADS, WESTERN AUSTRALIA in 1986 to take control of Embassy Security at the US Embassy, Moscow following the discovery of Marine Sgt. Clayton Lonetree having committed espionage. The State Department later sent my brother in late 1991 to Almaty, Kazakstan to oversee the security of that new Embassy.
For some of the misconceptions of why the air base at Marana would have been better served to train Air Marshal's, and Border Patrol Agents rather that what this crazy man says the C.I.A. wanted. Read this filth by following this link to an article - THE CIA USE OF FIREFIGHTING PLANES FOR DRUG RUNNING AND GUN RUNNING. Or this one ONLY THE GODFATHER - Since I find it hard to read anything in book form anymore I was pleased to find some more filth online by following commentary of L. FLETCHER PROUTY Col., U.S. Air Force (Ret.) entitled THE SECRET TEAM The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (Every time someone wants to bring up something they always bring up either JFK or Marylin Monroe - Let these people rest in peace)
My brother continued his contacts overseas thoughout his career and up until his death in 2001.
J. Stryker Meyer - Commentary
North County Times - April 21, 2002
The Marine Corps prides itself on remembering its history and the major events of its storied defense of America.So I found it somewhat surprising at the lack of public notice by the Corps on April 8, marking the two-year anniversary of the hybrid prop-rotor MV-22 Osprey crash in Marana, Ariz. The controversial plane crashed during a testing and evaluation flight, killing 19 Marines—14 from Camp Pendleton, one from Miramar and the four-man flight crew.
If any public notice was released by the Corps, I missed it.
To put the crash of April 8, 2000 in perspective, more Marines died in the Arizona desert airport during a training exercise 30 miles northwest of Tucson than have been killed during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
The 14-man contingent from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment were the so-called grunts who were training for the first time in an Osprey dubbed "Nighthawk 72." They were training to evacuate citizens in wartime conditions.
But that night, just before 8 p.m., when Nighthawk 72 approached the Marana airport, something went terribly wrong. Nighthawk 72 was one of four Ospreys and other aircraft in the training operation. During its descent, in two critical seconds, eyewitnesses said the Osprey rolled violently to its right and plunged nose-first into the ground, exploding in flames, killing all 19 Marines.
The key villain in the crash was an aerodynamic phenomenon called asymmetrical vortex ring state, or power settling, which occurs when one of the aircraft's two prop-rotors loses its ability to lift. That night, the right prop-rotor went into power settling, losing its lift capability. The left prop-rotor continued to lift and drove the aircraft into the ground.
Several panels and investigations have looked into that crash and the MV-22 crash in December 2000 that killed four more Marines.