'Delivering the goods in peace and war': perhaps the best-kept secret at the Pentagon, this 50-year-old mover of national security materials is continuously at work behind the scenes

VFW Magazine, Nov, 2003 by Janice Arenofsky

Commander Greg DeWeerd no sooner arrived in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia, when he received an urgent request. One of his "couriers in the sand" must deliver an envelope to New York by tomorrow. The envelope contained a check for $750 million, partial payment from Saudia Arabia for Operation Desert Storm. By the war's end, Riyadh couriers transported more than 1 million pounds of classified intelligence materials.

That number is not surprising since the Defense Courier Service (DCS), which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is responsible for the worldwide movement of national security materials.

With its network of 280 personnel assigned to 21 courier and provisional stations in 13 states and eight countries, DCS moves an average of 3.5 million pounds of materials every year. It serves 6,300 customers, including the White House, Defense and State departments and U.S. allies.

But couriers are far from glorified carriers. They travel on small planes--Air Mobility Command (AMC) flights--and even pickup trucks to reach their destinations, says Dieter Ralston, deputy director of plans and operations. Depending on the assignment, they often come armed with 9mm pistols and/or M-16 rifles. Missions usually last from one to three days; two couriers always accompany material involving nuclear weapons codes.

"Couriers operate on a certain level of obscurity and solitude," says Command Chief Master Sgt. Jeffrey D. Sergent, former chief of the DCS station at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. "Perfect accountability is the standard, and this can cause tension?"

Long-standing tradition

This psychological stress dates to colonial days. During the Revolutionary War, "bearers of dispatches" (such as Austin Rose, whom Gen. Washington assigned to take secret messages from Long Island to New York) carried sealed mail packages often written in invisible or "white, synthetic" ink.

During the War of 1812, "mounted couriers raced about with messages" at the Battle of North Point in Baltimore, says author Joseph A. Whitehorne.

And at the Alamo in 1836, Lt. Col. (and courier) John Nepomuncene Seguin couragously escaped the enemy, only to fail to send reinforcements back in time.

By 1918, the Military Postal Express Service (DCS's predecessor) began reaching to the skies. Capt. Benjamin D. Foulois showed how airplanes could speed message delivery before and during World War I.

As World War II began, officers used couriers from the Army, Navy and Air Forces. But the most patriotic of all was a fake dead courier dubbed "Major Martin."

American and British intelligence arranged for Martin's body and briefcase to wash up off the Spanish coast. When Hitler discerned the briefcase's bogus contents, he moved his troops to Greece to defend an expected Allied attack. The result? The Allies successfully invaded Sicily, a key target. This hoax was later detailed in the book and film titled The Man Who Never Was.

The reputation of U.S. couriers took a hit in 1945, when Klaus Fuchs, a German scientist and U.S. emigre working on the Manhattan Project, was caught passing top-secret information to American courier Harry Gold. Gold, actually a Soviet spy, later served a 16-year prison sentence for espionage.

The war's end brought more name changes for the DCS. In 1946, the Army Courier Service morphed into the Security Courier Service. By 1953, the agency was reborn as the Armed Forces Courier Service (ARFCOS).

Tales of the DCS

Several ARFCOS alumni shared their memories with VFW magazine.

Gene S. Bartlow, a retired Air Force colonel and former commander of the Frankfurt Courier Transfer Station in West Germany from 1964 to 1968, supervised 15 couriers. Wearing civilian clothes topped off by a trench coat, Bartlow carried a German Walther PPK .32-caliber automatic pistol (similar to James Bond's).

The Cold War and the 1965-66 India-Pakistan War led Bartlow to establish a new courier route to Peshawar, Pakistan (an accomplishment for which he was later decorated). With his 60-pound courier bags containing photos and tapes, he initially met resistance from Pakistani border guards. Fortunately, bribes of whiskey and cigarettes bought cooperation.

Courier colleague Jim Stonge says, "I don't remember being scared, even when our truck broke down in the Khyber Pass. We felt invincible. How was I to know I was the first American to enter the fort!"

In hindsight, Stonge says, every trip was dangerous, because one package could easily get lost amid tons of materials. Inclement weather also threatened missions. Stonge remembers thick fog during a landing at Cologne and subsequent truck ride to Frankfurt in Germany. "For the last several miles" he says, "I sat on the hood and helped the driver stay on the road. I still don't know how we made it back safely."

Courier John Hagler, stationed at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, roamed the Pacific Rim and Southeast Asia. "No briefcase locked to the wrist stuff" Hagler says, "[but] ... we accompanied hundreds of pounds of crypto [cryptographic images]. We were mail carriers with a security clearance and a weapon."