Part II “THE PLAN” “Special Forces – Intelligence”

This Column and the next are the full essence of “THE PLAN.”

PRELUDE: The representative plight of one – Refresher: In December of 2020 I wrote of an experience that stirred my soul. I was at what was very likely to be the deathbed of a young lady I have been looking out for, for years. She is a heroin addict. She had a valve replaced in her heart, a punctured lung and more. The day before her operation she looked at me and tears flowed and she said: “I am going to die Bill.” I held her hand and said: No, you’re not, you are going to be fine. By the grace of God, she made it. She was released too soon and hit the streets using right away, new heart valve and unhealed wounds and all. She upset a few drug dealers over a $10 or $20 sale and they went after her. They beat her unmercifully twice. They blackened her eyes and face. They dragged this petite young girl in the street by her hair leaving skid marks on her body. As I said, it stirred my soul. I want them really bad. And as she is only a fragment of the reality in this city, I hope you do to. The right course is here. That she survived is truly a miracle. That there are so many others is tragedy. That we permit this is beyond shameful. She was on the brink of death, again in the streets, with heartless men with dark vicious hearts. She was arrested in time. The Police saved her life. Jail will provide the healing time she needs to have a future. She was not alone in the streets. Priceless deprived young men and women turn into Zombie like creatures throughout the neighborhood each day. Ruthless scum abuse addicted young women (minors included) at will as their habit needs to be replenished each day. We have looked the other way. Last August another that I love overdosed on heroin bought in this village. The time has come for the good to walk tall.

PART II “THE PLAN” Special Forces “Intelligence”

I will be interjecting Special Forces thinking throughout. Up Front: Please remove the rulebook from your thinking. Conventional thinking is too often a drawback. You may need dispensation from many rules. This is an unconventional approach. There will be a D-Day. Any necessary variance or waiver procedures must be in place. Bureaucracy is far too often a public enemy. It must not impede. For example, this is a test area with dangers that must be removed. No one is playing favorites. Many will say some of these improvements are unfair in one location. To that, I say you must begin, you must have an example, and a place, and a victory, to present for state and much other funding as you move into other dangerous areas in this and other districts.

This is the story in most of our city. Nearly every street in Syracuse, an easy 80% of our city has been pervasively invaded by the drug world. Pockets of Middle Class remain surrounded by poverty and the social infections brought about by heroin and other drugs. In most areas the entire neighborhood is submerged in suffering.

There are too many, too cruel that will destroy you over ten or twenty dollars. The culture is hideously violent. They rule over our sick like czars in hell. A City our size, that is manageable does not have to tolerate this infection.

In designing the plan to go after the drug dealers I realized the peripheral value
that could literally revitalize our city. I knew I was on to something. And the plan was enhanced and came into being. To rid the City of Heroin and keep it that way. As we progress and drugs are removed and neighborhoods become safe, a multitude of tenant, owner, government co-operation will come in to being. (If you decide to move forward absentee owners will be addressed) This cooperation will be inspired by the esprit de corps generated when hope sees its’ path toward fruition. Shock and Awe “explained in the plan” will give birth to hope and citizen participation in each village, and from that moment forward “Forward” will be the only motion, thus retaining esprit de corps and awe and appreciation for the American way that has finally come to the rescue. CEO’s are vastly good smart people. When they see a City “on board, seeking healthy communities “participating” in a unique plan, in a way that ends suffering and is good and that works, they will come. If we bring every City employee on board with this plan, the citizenry will join and an unmatched esprit de corps will set in and this City will move forward united, setting the standard for others and reminding them what “America” is all about.

A city is very much a collection of villages. I will be referring to the designated area as “the village.” I was trained in villages. They are known today as Village Stability Operations or VSO’s. They are today’s adaption of the highly successful Civilian Irregular Defense Group in Viet Nam. This strategy has been fine-tuned since Viet Nam and became the premier strategy for success in Afghanistan. I refined that training for this idea and adapted it to fit our infected neighborhoods. The village perimeter is: (Both sides of the street throughout) Lodi from James to Butternut, Butternut to Hartley, Hartley to Highland, Highland to James and James back to Lodi. A map of the village is with this article.

This will involve all departments. Infrastructure, village beatification, human need, and residential improvements will be vital to this effort. “Each” department should develop a team and study the village and how their expertise will apply. Please think elite and efficient and walk tall within your area of responsibility, designing your very innovative best. Each department will set the standard for others to follow. The Police will set the initial standard in phase one – D-Day. Shock and Awe. You will be Awesome. I understand you are already uniquely elite. In Syracuse the best in the country. And you have many tools and techniques in place and others available that are very impressive. In this village you do have a goal revision that must be complete mindset. The goal is to “END” Status Quo and END the Drug problem in this village and cause quality of life. And then, the key to success, “Design systems to preserve your success.” The policy of abandonment will be over.

All departments prepare. It is a new day. You will no longer maintain and rule over decline. Each City Employee will see what is happening and will walk tall and proud and innovate and be ready for D-Day. Except for planning and intelligence gathering
“There will be no movement other than normal until D-Day.” The PLAN requires that
“Intelligence” procedures be enhanced, clandestinely learning the entire drug structure and culture in this area. Embed appropriate blending personnel. Identify sellers and users. Join right in – become as unconventional as success requires. This is a preparation period. D-day will not be until the cusp of winter and spring. (Subject to adjustment) Now, design a team of our very finest for D-Day. Set up a post capture interview process. Make current and foremost at every level esp. when capturing dealers, “follow the money.” This will lead you back to where the seed is planted to grow the poppy that is sold on Highland Street. Above all, if you have not done this you need to understand the sources that feed each village and the City. Understanding these processes will be vital to develop techniques that end them. They will test. The elite will be ready. In the end they will know Syracuse is “Off Limits.” One Village at a time.

Observe and identify inappropriate activity at every house and business in the 15 square block village. “No one” should engage beyond normal activity until D-Day. Determine current camera locations and best sites for additional cameras that may enhance intelligence gathering. You must know the location of drug houses (a few have a door that is set up almost like a store) in the village and drug dealer residences in or out of the village – this will be the only geographic variable – if they sell in the village perimeter, on D-Day they are done, and it is fine to capture them elsewhere. It is imperative that a plan is in place for D-Day and esp. post D-day to capture those working out of vehicles. Begin and maintain a list of license plate numbers with occupant info and activity, and location. Engage store owners and small business owners. (First, clandestinely determine their degree of complicity) It is amazing how many good people in these neighborhoods are involuntarily tangled in this web of poverty and drugs and cruelty. Many residents are anxious to help. They have information difficult to find. You will be surprised – I found 4 in 3 days and I was only searching for my friend. Residents want this to end. Respect confidentiality, keep them safe. Comprehensive resident and owner contact methods and timing with full explanation of what is happening will be discussed next month.

Identify users and those in eminent danger. Make this information available to the Social Services Team. Please understand that “they can’t be helped until they want it” is false
and has become very damaging. Every positive intervention of any nature is an emotional trigger, a series of which leads an addict to the desire to quit. And every user is at a different stage with a different degree of susceptibility.

Every participant should be cross trained in Victim Assistance. I urge developing a small information and drug kit (with Narcan “Naloxone”) and a targeting brochure containing updated Special Forces thinking that can be given to addicts. Ease pathways to get into treatment. (If you like the plan we will talk more about this – it is extremely important and not done well). Undercover and unconventional intelligence gathering will develop an impressive array of detail for designing the plan for D-Day. When you move, there will be no quarter, no status quo. The drug culture will be excised with “Shock and Awe” in real time. Develop a maintenance observation plan using personnel and cameras. On D-Day +1 users will not be able to buy in this village. In the end, success here will show, we are going to fix this city. Let the crud of humanity find another home. They are done here. Once you comprehend the pain and perceive the cruelty and learn of the human harm, once that sets in, the hearts of our best fall into place and it becomes “just a matter of execution.” As the best do not try, they make it happen. We are interested in the elite of our decent. Not just tough. Tough alone, is a big problem. Compassionate and tough is what we are looking for. That is the best humans can be. If you are both, no doubt you are with me. It does not matter your department, most will be eager to participate.

We want the best. We do not want to try. We want to succeed. The elite will get it done. We need professionals of good will to take down those that destroy quality of life in neighborhoods and suck the strength out of our children’s minds. This idea is a perfect example to demonstrate that a City can be cleaned up.

The Mayor, the Council and Each City department should choose only those that do not accept failure. You will be engaging in an effort with massive human value and you will
be implementing and improving techniques that can be duplicated. This effort is to set a standard that proves this can be achieved. In this plan the toughest of the tough may help a young woman get diapers or help a senior living in swill. There is nothing the Special Forces will not do to assist a citizen and the community. None have a problem helping an addict or apprehending a dealer. It is called “cross training” which enables every participant to meet any need to ensure the mission succeeds. This effort must have the encompassing quality of the very finest humans can be. Liberating the oppressed is comprehensive. We are not going in just as Law Enforcement. We are going in as Neighborhood Recovery. This will be multi-faceted, comprehensive and with improvement at the end of every single step.

Sandor Fabian (Ph.D. Security Studies) is a NATO Special Operations Specialist. He along with many others believe that “De Oppresso Liber” (To Liberate the Oppressed – the motto of the Special Forces) should be taken to the Streets of America. This entire project is centered around compassionate, strategic, can do, finish the job, city planning that allows Special Forces thinking to succeed where other avenues fail. “D” day. In WWII this was the coded designation used for the day of an important operation. June 6th 1944, gave D-Day new meaning in terms of getting the job done. Everyone jumped on board and between them with collective pre-planned input, the world was saved and compassion and decency became the order of the future.

All City departments will have a specific mission and will participate. Intelligence gatherers and clandestine planners from each department will be active prior to D-Day. On D-Day the City moves in. Hell breaks loose for evil and a neighborhood begins to reshape and take on an identity without fear, without violence, without evil men sucking the life from kids. Citizens are in awe and watching with intensity.

Streets, sidewalks, trees, grass, flowers, bushes, street signs etc. Trim, fix, add, plant, and repair. Cause a neighborhood with a sidewalk that can accommodate a young mother pushing her baby carriage. Where streets are smooth and curbs are even and safe. Where Gramma can walk to the store without worrying about breaking her hip. We rebuilt
Iraq. Let’s see what Syracuse can do with 15 square blocks of America. A neighborhood where residents can look around and not feel neglected. A neighborhood where kids are influenced by, and see nice things and goodness and wonder rather than disrepair and violence and drug dealers and fear. That is what Flanders Fields is all about. “If ye break faith with those that die” we shall not sleep.

To understand the methodology of the mission you must understand the goal. The goal will be to enter this neighborhood devastated by fear, violence, cruelty, drugs and drug dealers, crime, poverty, infrastructure neglect, and severe deplorable abuse of the young. Your mission is to correct these matters.

You will win hearts and minds and plant hope. Each resident will think quickly “Wow, somebody cares.” They will feel rescued. No less than American Armies rolling into occupied towns in WWII. Yes, it is that bad. Then, do not leave. Develop and maintain a retention plan in each department. You must not leave them ever again. They must see that.

Then Pride and spirit sets in.

Note there will be many funding options after success in the first village.

Think can do. Not, it’s too much to ask for what should be normal. Succeed here. The doors will open for an array of future funding, government and otherwise. Each department should review the unique unconventional nature of this plan. And remember it is a test area. We should recall that conventional thinking can circle you back to the status quo. You are being asked for elite, special, unusual assistance compatible with ridding this village of evil and making it a home, quickly and with stunning efficiency. You will be amazed what will happen when you put fruit bearing hope into the hearts of the disenfranchised and broken.

Each City Department, please seek out what you can do to help in this village on D-Day. Remember, think, innovate, create. The first essential City Department that needs to prepare is Police. Social Services should be prepared with a clear Rehab path and child placement pathways as abuse is happening. Cooperative victim efforts need attention in the moment, not after far too long bureaucratic entanglement. Department of Public Works, Major Player, roads, sidewalks and more. Fire, Major Player. Fire should review “each” block for compliance and safety issues and all forms of input within their purview. The Innovation Team, love the name, do what you do. The Law Department to remove monkey wrenches, troublesome variances and much more, Neighborhood and Business Development for participation and recommendations noting daily the potential that is being created, Parks, improvements where Schiller borders the area and beautification assistance – Personnel, Planning, Purchase, Research, Water, Zoning and all others, all have a very vital place and should develop thorough input. Please think of what you can do for this village leading up to a comprehensive path within your area of responsibility. And on D-day be ready to move and achieve. Remember, (SUSTAIN) in all of your planning. With planting the only exception, everyone takes what was clandestinely gathered, and we move all at once on D-Day.

Also, American Disabilities Act (ADA) Coordinator, (Addiction and Mental Illness) – Office of the City Auditor, will be a VERY vital player moving forward: economics and funding, (If this takes hold, I have recommendations.) Home Headquarters for home owners seeking improvements. Also, emergency housing. There will be displacements as addicts are being used by pimps, dealers and others. There is also some squatting, etc. Leadership Greater Syracuse, (seek out investment opportunities in the improved village. Project increased value of investment in the city once this effort expands and is successful throughout the city. Done well, with progress, this project will become an economic engine and cause untold economic growth and jobs.

There was a Military cadence song many years ago. I am sure it is still in use. It went:
“Around the block she pushed a baby carriage, she pushed it in the spring time, in the early month of May, and if you ask her why the heck she pushed it She’d say she pushed it for her soldier who was far far away.” Far too many of these soldiers never came home. They never dreamed their honey would not have a sidewalk to push her baby carriage. Let’s give them at least 15 square blocks of what they fought for. Of what they died for. A healthy neighborhood where a new Mom can safely and smoothly push her baby carriage and where that baby can grow free of demons of the street both chemical and human. “De Oppresso Liber”

Next Month – D-Day. PART III – THE PLAN

POSTSCRIPT: Special thanks to the Group on the West Side inspired by the plan and thus putting ideas together to reach their neighborhood. One occasion they gathered hundreds of plants and flowers and gave them to residents to show care exists. I attended this event and was very humbled. NOTE: The people, great people in the neighborhoods are waiting for us. Leaders, you have an Army of beauty waiting for rescue, and guidance that will make it all happen. Let’s fix our City.

Bill McClellan