After St. Clement, I first went into the military service before I enrolled in college. I enlisted in the U.S. Army and was in what they called Airborne Unassigned—which was really stupid. Back then, most people in the military didn’t even have a high school education. Many of them ended up there. It was either go there or go to jail. Of course, it’s quite different today, but that was in 1962, and it was a huge eye-opener for me. I could’ve gone into other fields of the military, joining the “white-shirt army” and pushing papers somewhere. In fact, my father tried to talk me into going into an area in which I could use my education, but I didn’t heed his advice. Instead, I was in the mud airborne infantry, because that was what I wanted to do.
The President knew of my military service, but we hardly ever talked about it. He couldn’t go into the service as a combat soldier in the Second World War because of his poor eyesight, and he had to watch his friends like Jimmy Stewart enter the combat arena. He idolized Stewart, who became a general. I think the President was disappointed that he never got his chance, but he never complained that he couldn’t go overseas. He told me, “I tried to go into combat, but I couldn’t. I’ve always had bad eyesight.” He was also deaf in one ear from pistols going off. During one of our rides, he told me how while filming one of the movies, a stuntman held a gun right up to his ear and then fired it. He lost a lot of his hearing from that incident.
Following the military, I went on to Boston College, where I was taught by the brothers. I was there for two years, but completed just one year of studies because I went part-time at night. Each evening after classes I drove to Logan Airport where I worked as a flight information coordinating agent for TWA. At the time, I was the youngest person to work in that position for TWA. After those two years, I transferred to the University of Arizona where I finished my college work.
One thing that Reagan and I shared in common as young men is that we both saw going to college as an immense privilege. Financially, it was a struggle for both of us. When I came back from the military, I was able to go to college on the G.I. Bill, which gave me one hundred seventy-five dollars a month. I lived on campus, and because I was a little older when I went to college, I truly appreciated it.
I really started my heavy riding while I was going to college in Arizona, where I met Mr. Kelly. He was like a thin John Wayne, and he ran a horseback-riding facility. He rolled his own cigarettes, wore a cowboy hat, and was a natural around horses. He had a lovely wife and young kids.
I wanted to ride, but I couldn’t afford to rent his horses. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ve seen you ride, and I could use your help. When people come in, you take them out for a ride, whether they want to go for an hour or two. Then you can have the pick of any horse you want to ride for nothing.” He just liked the way I handled horses and my way with them.
This ranch was out in the desert. Riding in Arizona was different from Boston—no cobblestones, but plenty of cactus. In the Arizona desert, a type of cactus grows called jumping cactus, which looks like a spiny round fish, and I learned quickly that the horses would always get the jumping cactus in their feet. To deal with this problem, I started carrying a comb with me. Using the wide edge of the comb, I would stick it on the horse and pull the cactus spines off his foot.
I began taking groups out for rides. Before I took anyone out I’d ask, “Do you want to trot? Can you trot? Do you want to run? Can you run? If you are running, you have very little room for error.” Most people would exaggerate their riding skills. (Later, even the Secret Service agents would inflate their abilities with horses.) However, this wasn’t too hard for me to figure out. As soon as we reached the stables, I could tell who could really ride. I’d always go over it with them again and say, “Don’t tell me you know how to ride if you don’t, because I’m going to give you a horse to match your ability. If you don’t know how to ride that well, then I will give you an easier horse.” Usually the guys trying to impress their girlfriends were the ones who exaggerated their abilities, but I said, “You can get hurt out there.”
One of my first rides was with a group of ten. Mr. Kelly’s son rode drag, keeping everyone together. After the ride, I went to Mr. Kelly and asked, “How did I do?”
“John,” he said, “you did great. Everybody liked you, but would you please learn how to pronounce horse? They’re not hosses. They’re horses. When you start using words like that, the people start doubting that you can ride.” He reassured me, however, that in spite of my Boston accent, the minute I did start to ride, it was obvious I knew what I was doing.
I stole away to ride whenever I could. I’d go up into the hills by myself, wearing my Army field jacket with the insulated liner. My friends would harass me asking, “Where the hell are you going with all that cold weather gear?” I guess those guys forgot that I was going from the ninety-degree Arizona heat to about a forty-degree temperature up in the hills. I’d sleep overnight on a saddlebag, just like in the movies. It was my kind of fun.
During my early riding days in the late 1960s, Reagan already owned a ranch. By that time, he had established his habit of escaping to go riding by himself. Although Reagan was from the Midwest and I was from Boston, we both did a lot of early intense riding out on the dusty trails of the West, seeking solitude. It was dangerous to ride alone, but it was something we both took our chances with.
I joined the Secret Service in 1974. As it so often happens, the direction my life took hinged on two things: a telephone call from an old friend and one decision I made. I had returned to Boston after I graduated from the University of Arizona in the early 1970s. Tom McCarthy, also a former student from St. Clement, called me when I was back home. He was three years older than I was, and following his service as a U.S. Navy scuba diver in the Vietnam War, he had become a Secret Service agent. “John, have you given any thought to the Secret Service?” he asked.
“No,” I told him. “I had never even considered that.”
“Well, why don’t you at least talk to my boss, Stu Knight, who is the SAIC of the Boston field office?”
I called for an appointment, and after listening to Stu, I became quite interested. I wanted to become an agent. The Secret Service didn’t recruit in those days. In fact, at that time there was only one job opening for every one hundred applicants. The background checks can take six months, and mine was taking awhile. At that point, I moved back to Arizona where I was just getting ready to enter the Arizona Highway Patrol training program. I then received word that I had made it over all the obstacles, and my security clearance had been okayed. They were ready for me to become an agent. I decided to join the Secret Service instead of becoming an Arizona Highway Patrol Officer.
When President Reagan was elected, he became the first modern president who enjoyed horseback riding, and I was the one tasked with establishing a Secret Service detail on horseback to protect him on his rides. The U.S. Park Police in Washington, D.C., put me through a three-month course in three weeks, which helped enormously. I requested that every Secret Service agent assigned to the horseback detail undergo similar training. The supervisor of the Secret Service was a little skeptical about it. He asked me, “Well, can’t you just take someone that knows how to ride?” Secret Service agents are all Type A personalities who think they can ride. “Well, they need to prove to me they know how to ride,” I told him.
The agents in training and I would run our horses through Rock Creek Park, a beautiful area with woodlands bordering Washington, D.C. We’d ride wearing windbreakers that had the words Park Police on them, because we didn’t want people to know we were Secret Service agents. It was dangerous, and several agents did get hurt. The rule was you couldn’t go out alone. I insisted that we ride all day, and it got to the point where the officers were complaining. To them, riding was work, but to me, it was fun. Finally, they gave me permission to