GREEN BERETS ENJOY SERVICE ALONG BORDER

Lawyers debate the Posse Comitatus Act. But Green Berets like Gregory N.
Soter live with that law -- and comfortably, too, he says.

Today, Soter works for the State Department as an anti-terrorism
specialist. But in 1995, as an Army major, he led a company of about 90
Green Berets in a three-month drug mission along the U.S. border with
Mexico. They took orders from a task force made up of several federal agencies.

Typically, soldiers dislike being cast in police roles. But nobody ever
called the Green Berets typical soldiers.

"We loved it," Soter said in a phone interview. "We ate it up. We felt we
were on our home soil, doing something good for our country."

Soter said he had treated the mission like a military operation: "You know,
working far behind the lines in a special reconnaissance role, not to be
seen or heard." Although anti-drug work has little in common with standard
military operations, the border mission meshed neatly with Green Beret
training, which stresses stealthy work far behind enemy lines.

But if the creeping and crawling were military, the rules about using
weapons were strictly civilian.

"Basically, we worked under police rules," Soter said. "We were allowed to
fire only if fired upon, or if threatened by somebody with a weapon."

Soter conceded that his Green Berets had probably felt more comfortable
with such rules than would conventional infantry soldiers. "Our job was to
see, hear and report -- but not to get engaged," he said. "If you did get
in a firefight, you had probably failed."

In fact, his Green Berets never fired their weapons, although they
witnessed two shootouts between drug runners and Border Patrol agents. "We
were authorized to fire in support of the Border Patrol," Soter said, "but
both times, my guys had a poor angle and held their fire."

Outside of San Diego, in the Cleveland National Forest, Soter's Green
Berets sniffed out a patch of 20,000 well-hidden marijuana plants, grown
with modern farming techniques and watered by a costly irrigation setup.

Also in California, in an area that the Border Patrol calls "No-Man's
Land," a six-man team of Green Berets ran into a major smuggling operation
one night. Flushed like a covey of quail, the smugglers hastily fled back
into Mexico.

"My 'B' team still holds the record for the most missions in three months
- -- 35 of them, mostly surveillance," Soter said.