Blog Corner

Meeting President Bill Clinton

In September of 1996, Hurricane Fran came into the Coast of North Carolina.  My family and I were on vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  Needless to say but we were evacuated out of there for safety reasons.  At the time, I was a member of the North Carolina National Guard as a Military Policeman.  The very next day I found myself on orders heading to Topsail Island, North Carolina to help with the protection of lives and assets.  I was a Platoon Leader with a heavy load of tasks in protection of the folks that were so scared and who lost most if not all of what they had.  After the storm had passed and folks started coming back to see what if anything was left.  This was a miserable task not only for us but for those homeowners that we escorted to their property only to find out that their house was gone.  A few days into this, we were notified that President Bill Clinton was coming into the area to view the damage and our Platoon was tasked to work with his secret service for entry and exit of the presidential visit.   This may have been one of, if not the toughest assignment that I ever had.  Once all of the aircraft carrying special vehicles were in and the debarkation area was secure, we received the President.  We were the first military unit to work with the secret service carrying loaded weapons.  I was so proud of this team and stay in touch with some of them to this day.  The president was so kind and thankful for our service alongside his secret service team.  It was really cool to see our unit on CNN that night.  You just never know what the next mission may be!