Word: marshall
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...celebrate Jefferson for his sonorous words in the Declaration of Independence--Hamilton never matched Jefferson's gift for writing ringing passages that were at once poetic and inspirational--we sometimes overlook Jefferson's consummate skills as a practicing politician. A master of subtle, artful indirection, he was able to marshal his forces without divulging his generalship. After Hamilton persuaded President Washington to create the Bank of the United States, the country's first central bank, Jefferson was aghast at what he construed as a breach of the Constitution and a perilous expansion of federal power. Along with Madison, he recruited...
Increasingly, air marshals are being trained not just to respond to hijackings but to detect them in advance. "Every criminal act requires some surveillance," says Thomas Quinn, director of the federal air-marshal program and a 20-year veteran of the Secret Service. "That is why we are out there looking for threats." An instructor taught us how to recognize suspected terrorists whose photos we had seen by focusing on the central triangle of a person's face, which doesn't change much with age or weight. We were trained in the use of the specially configured PDAs that...
Once they're in the air, marshals, unlike cops on the beat, know there is no backup. "There's no waiting for the cavalry to arrive," says Quinn. My fellow students say they are ready. "The threat is always there," a marshal told me at graduation. "We're permanently switched on. We'll stay in the fight...
...marshals are required to be not only accurate shooters but also fast. In one test, agents must draw their guns and hit a target 7 yds. away with two shots in 3 sec. More than one marshal has flunked out of the academy for being .001 sec. late. Under pressure, I was quick but not very accurate. In one hijacking exercise, I "killed" two civilians...
SAFE SKIES: A TIME reporter learns that it takes grit to be an air marshal...