Work Detail

99silveradoz71 · October 29, 2004

Got the call yesterday afternoon at home that I was being called out as one of our multi-agency crowd control unit members to cover the arrival of President Bush. We were out at the Westlake(OH) recreation center for most of the day. It's an 80 acre site, so it was quite the challenge to maintain security, but everything went well. I worked the media gate along with a secret service agent. The President was about 100yds from my location when getting out of his motorcade. I also managed to get relief at my post and watch part of his speech. Also present were Tommy Franks who walked by and said hi. Bob Dole was there, though I didn't see him, and about 30 retired generals who walked through my area. One of our senators came out through my area and stopped to say hi and shake the hands of myself and the agent which was kind of cool. It's unbelievable the number of staff members that are on something like this though...the number of media members was unreal....busloads. Definitely a different and memorable experience.

Here's a site for the facility:

Westlake Recreation Center

The city has a few $, unlike our place, so that probably helped bringing W to town.

R Dogg 56 · October 29, 2004

Sounds like quite the experience, Bill. Any pics by chance, or was the security detail pretty stringent?

Rookie · October 29, 2004

I saw George W in canton a week ago and was impressed by the number of peeps. I like watching what I think was a C-130 take off from Akron canton airport. It must of had the motorcade in it It flew over my house. My kid is still talking about it.

99silveradoz71 · October 29, 2004

I did see AF 1 when W the 1st was in town years ago. It flew over the interstate. As for pictures, unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me and would've had a hard time finding the time to take a pic and a good spot for one. The best I would've done were just shots of him on stage from about 100-200yds away. As for the motorcade, yes, they get flown in and out from what I heard, but they do have spares as he's often landing before the cargo plane would have a chance to, so there has to be a set of wheels waiting.