An Offer From the Don

The parachute operations were essential as tests for
strength and resistance to impact when hitting the ground dangling from a 20
-25 foot bungi cord attached to our parachute harnesses at a speed of 20 to 25
feet per second under various wind conditions. After laboratory and parachute
testing was completed we would take the equipment back to Fort Bragg for a 42
mile forced march to test the affect a heavy-laden rucksack would have on the
unconventional warriors while determining the compatibility of the new jungle
boots to long distance marches. To make certain it would be a valid test; each
rucksack was loaded with equipment, supplies and field rations weighing a
minimum of 75 pounds. We each, regardless of rank , began the 42 mile march
with a full canteen, M-16 rifle, two bandoleers of ammunition, bayonet, and
first aid kit in addition to the heavy rucksacks. At the end of the march,
boots and rucksacks were inspected by Natick Laboratory personnel and feet and
backs were examined by the Special Warfare
Center surgeon’s staff.

MSG Hill
and I were trained in all aspects of unconventional warfare to include special
weapons, demolitions, civic action, assassination techniques and
terrorism. It is yet interesting to me
to reflect on how assassination training was a normal activity to the extent
that Special Forces men's wives were aware of and seemed to accept it as a
routine part of training without pondering on the true impact of what it
was. An assassin would be used to kill
people our government wanted eliminated covertly and did so as volunteers. As an example, after completion of Special
Warfare Center
training in the summer of 1964, a Green Beret and his wife went shopping at a
furniture store just outside the post of Fort Bragg,
NC, looking for a dining room table. Knowing her husband didn't like to be
bothered by salesmen, and after a salesman asked her husband three times if he could find something for them
and was told emphatically he would be called if he was needed, the wife,
perhaps fearing what might happen, got close to the salesman, looked him in the
eyes, and told him "You should know that my husband doesn't like being
bothered, and - he is a trained assassin." Needless to say he disappeared
from sight! Years later when faced with the reality of what she had read in my
book Expendable
Elite about assassinations, she realized that it was real people who
Green Berets were asked to kill people our government didn't want around and
couldn't get rid of legally. What follows supports the fact that the Mafia was
well aware of our training and even more importantly - our use as military "hit
men." It was no different, in their
minds, then what they did to eliminate competition or when hired by the CIA to
silence certain people here in the United States.

The first night
at Natick labs in late November, 1964
saw MSG Hill and I put up by the Army in a Holiday Inn located close by Natick
labs. We ate dinner in uniform at a where Frank Sinatra was entertaining that
night. We knew if he was there that there would likely be Mafia in the crowd. It
was that very night that we met the son of a “family” don. As Frank Sinatra
crooned on stage near our table, a man who had been sending drinks to our
table, after asked why he did, told how he had noticed our camaraderie and that
he had never before seen an officer and a sergeant treat each other as equals.
He introduced himself as Robert P....... He accepted the fact that we were a
different breed of soldiers and invited us to join him. One thing led to
another, and he invited us to his home to get to know each other better

We
presumably passed muster and on our third visit to Natick
laboratories on 6

January 1965 Robert invited us to meet his father, the local
area don, at his home the next evening. Joe and I met him at the Holiday Inn
and he took us to his Dad's home where we were served filet mignon with all the
trimmings and then asked to join them in the living room where the don sat us
down on the sofa and offered cigars. He told
us of their need for a good hit team to help "control" competition
and wondered would we be interested. We would be taking out people trying to “invade”
his territory and would never be asked to kill a cop or so-called “innocent”
civilians. Shown a matched pair of silenced pistols and told we'd get $40,000 a
year as a team and $10,000 each time we were "used, I did give it a
fleeting thought wondering what that kind of life that might be, doing for the
mafia what we were trained to do for the CIA.
Reality caused me to know better than to consider such a life as my wife
and three daughters' needs came back into focus. I knew it best to move quickly
to decline his offer rather than push our luck in this dangerous ruse of our
own making, but first, I posed a question that had been in my mind since JFK
was killed, looked the don in the eyes, "Were you asked by the CIA to help
on the hit on Kennedy?" Pausing to
light a fresh cigar, he affirmed that somebody in the "company" had
called and asked if he wanted a part in it. He said he refused, telling the
caller that he “had no problems with the Kennedys in Massachusetts.”

I then told
him we’d have to pass on the offer.
Knowing each of us, the Don, his

Son Robert, Joe and me, had learned a lot about each other’s
“way of life” that would best be kept secret, lest we fear the possible
consequences of opening that door to others, the don and I agreed to a need for
silence. He pulled out a sharp dagger and
drew blood in each of our right hand's palm and we shook hands with each other and
swore by blood oath never to disclose each others identities so long as we
lived. MSG Joe Hill and I had a quiet ride back to the motel that night. You
could have cut the silence with a knife and we were surely glad we'd met the
don, but relieved that it was now behind us and that we were yet breathing.

©2007 Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Marvin, US Army Special
Forces (Retired)