Search for:. Last Thursday and Friday, I had two days of fame, or at least faux fame. There is no doubt that I looked important as I traveled around Greensboro and Winston-Salem in a black SUV behind a highway patrol car and with an identical black SUV full of men in dark suits following.
I was part of a US State Department training exercise to teach law enforcement officers from North Carolina how to protect a dignitary visiting our state. By Friday at lunch, all the attention was getting to me and I was beginning to believe that I must actually be important, and I now understand much better how dignitaries get a big head. While one man in a dark suit held doors open for me, another would go through first, check and make sure it was safe and only then was I allowed through the door, followed by agents that were protecting me from behind.
We walked around Old Salem and took an impromptu stroll through the visitor center where members of the Hammer Detail ushered all the other tourists to one side so I would have a clear lane to walk down. I could tell the folks who happened to be there were trying to figure out who in the world I was and why I needed such a large security detail. Later, in Greensboro, I spotted a friend across the street and saw the shocked look on his face when I stepped out of the black SUV.
He later told me that the only reason he could think of that I would be surrounded by so much law enforcement was that I was being arrested. Dave Monroe, the US State Department resident in charge who set up the training exercise and recruited me to participate was acting as my chief of staff for the two-day exercise. It seemed like a lot of work for them because I had a sudden whim to take a closer look at a building.
At lunch, if I decided to use the restroom, a couple of guys had to jump up from their lunch and check everything out ahead of me and then wait outside the door.
