Me and Mrs. Clinton by Jim Doherty

     I never shook hands with her, nor did she and I ever exchange words, but on two occasions I was in the position, at least theoretically, of being obliged to take a bullet for Hilary Clinton.
                                                                    
      At the time I was working as a Department of Defense police officer, which means I was a civilian federal cop employed to provide law enforcement at a military base. Specifically, I was employed by the O’Hare Air Reserve Station, a USAF base that, until 1999, occupied the southwest quarter of O’Hare Airport in Chicago.

     Because military bases are easier to secure than civilian facilities, it was common practice that, whenever the President and/or his wife came to Chicago, Air Force One was parked in O’Hare’s military section. And for as long as the President and Mrs. Clinton were on base, part of the responsibility for their safety rested with the DoD cops.

     Of course, the U.S. Secret Service is the agency primarily responsible for providing bodyguard service to the President and his family, but it’s a big job, and they can’t do it without the help of local and state law enforcement.

     In simple terms, presidential security is designed as a series of concentric circles with the president (or the relevant family member) in the center. The innermost circles are occupied by Secret Service agents or patrol officers in the Secret Service Uniformed Division. But larger, outlying circles are generally occupied by local or state cops (which, in this case, included O’Hare’s DoD cops).

     My second day as a DoD cop was my first experience working a presidential detail. President Clinton and his wife were traveling together that day. As the disembarked from Air Force One, the circle I was part of was outlying enough that I barely recognized them. They posed for photographers, shook a few hands, and (I presume) would have kissed a few babies had there been any babies to kiss. They quickly entered their limo, which took its place in the motorcade, and were driven off the base. For as long as they were on the base, the lead vehicle in the motorcade was a DoD police car.

     The big thrill for me was that, after they were gone, I was assigned to guard Air Force One. I was one of two cops handling that part of the security assignment (the other being a USAF Security Policeman). My assignment was to “walk a beat” around the rear of the plane, from one wingtip to the other. Sounds boring as hell, but, at the time, I got a real charge out of knowing that I’d be able to brag about having once stood guard over the presidential aircraft.

     The second time, Mrs. Clinton came by herself. I was even farther away that time. I was assigned to a guard shack by a gate in a remote corner of the base that was usually opened only during rush hour. For reasons I was never privy to, it was decided that Mrs. Clinton’s motorcade would exit through that gate rather than the main entrance. My sole job was to open the gate once informed that the motorcade was on its way. This I did.

     Problem was, there was no human traffic control outside the gate, and the motorcade arrived just as a red light hit. The motorcade had to stop for traffic! The lieutenant driving the DoD squad car that was leading the motorcade off the base eventually decided to block traffic himself so that the motorcade could exit expeditiously. Though this sounds like a common sense solution, it was actually a fairly courageous decision on his part. One of the things that we were constantly reminded of during my tenure as a DoD cop was that we were not empowered to take any police action off the base. The lieutenant’s taking it upon himself to control traffic outside the gate was a violation of that principle. As far as I know, though, he never got in trouble for it.

     The first time I was involved in her protection, I only saw her from a distance. This second time, she was in a limo with darkened windows, so I never even got a faraway glance.

     Those two incidents were my tiny contribution to First Lady history.