Pickup Zone (PZ) "Treasure," Oklahoma
They had armored vehicles. They had other heavy weapons. They had troops, mostly fairly well-trained for their usual missions. They had a logistic and administrative tail.
What the PGSS lacked was helicopters.
Oh, there were a few somewhat plush command and control jobs available . . . "for the brass," as they say. But as far as moving any substantial number of Treasury agents (for they carefully preserved the fiction that they were merely agents of the public fisc)?
None.
For this, they needed the Army. And the Army duly and dutifully complied by sending down nearly half the 101st aviation group out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, that half being somewhat reinforced by the helicopters of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, at one time known as Task Force 160.
And yet using helicopters is not something that comes naturally to a military organization. True, some of the PGSS had previous military experience working with choppers. And yet many did not. As organizations, none of its battalions had any.
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