ON A MISSION FOR DOPE: HELICOPTER CREWS GET TRAINING IN ANTIDRUG FLIGHTS

Five times now, Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Alan Proctor has volunteered for
duty flying in helicopters looking for marijuana.

That would be four times in the Pacific Northwest and once in the
Caribbean. And the latter, Proctor is quick to point out, is not
particularly cushy duty.

"The people don't like having us there," said Proctor. "Here they have a
few plants on a hillside. There they have entire plantations. Here you have
to go looking for the plants. There, all you have to do is look down. The
first time I went on a flight I was thinking, 'What are they doing with all
these Christmas trees?'''

For several weeks, Proctor and 53 colleagues from a Marine Corps helicopter
squadron based in Camp Pendleton, Calif., have been hauling law officers as
they look for the "Christmas trees" that are grown to be smoked, not
decorated. Last week, authorities destroyed a 6,000- plant Klickitat County
pot plot that had been spotted earlier with the help of the Marine Corps unit.

Flights winding down

That operation was on state Department of Natural Resources land. Flights
have been conducted over the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and
Gifford Pinchot and Mount Hood national forests and are winding down. The
Klickitat project was the only marijuana operation spotted on this side of
the Columbia.

Tuesday, officials orchestrated a media event at the Portland Air Base,
trundling out Marine Corps personnel against a backdrop of four
1970s-vintage UH-1N Huey and AH-1W Cobra helicopters used in the recent
flights.

Christine Lynch, a Gifford Pinchot law officer, said it has been years
since military antidrug flights have been made over the forest. Officials
asked for help six months ago.

"What we're trying to do is make a dent in the production," she said. "But
we have limited resources, and the fire season occurs at the same time as
the peak (marijuana) growing season."

While it is not possible to know how much pot is being cultivated on or
near the forest, Lynch said it appears that enforcement efforts have at
least reduced the size of illegal operations.

"In the past we would see huge tracts, and now they are much smaller," she
said.

The missions are part of Joint Task Force Six, formed at Fort Bliss, Texas,
under the order of then-Gen. Colin Powell in 1989.

Not all requests filled

Task force spokesman Armando Carrasco said all flights are at the request
of law enforcement agencies, and that only half the requests can be filled.

Military personnel are too busy flying the helicopters to do any pot
spotting. That work is left to law officers who go along on every flight.

"We're just a platform," said mission commander Maj. Rob Russell, a
reservist who flies a Saab passenger plane out of Los Angeles International
Airport when he's not on Marine Corps duty.

Cruising the national forest hillsides during a typical two-hour mission
provides mountain terrain training that could be useful in combat
situations, said Russell. With that, "we both get what we need flying the
aircraft."

Given the age of the machines, some of which date to the Vietnam War era,
task force missions can be first-rate training for maintenance workers as
well. "I'm only two years older than the airplane," said Proctor, 31.