An Interview with Sheriff Diaz – Part 10 – The Regulators

A continuation of the interview with Sheriff Will Diaz. Will Diaz is the central character in the four novels that currently make up The Lawman Series. The fifth book is expected out about Christmas of 2025.

Muniz – Sheriff, do you feel like talking about Max yet?

Sheriff Diaz – Let’s kind of work up to it. Let’s talk about us. The Regulators that is and ease into that.

Muniz – OK. Where did the name come from.

Sheriff Diaz – There were four of us in the beginning. Jonesy, Terri, Max, and myself. The name got hung on us when we were working undercover narcotics at Ft. Riley, Kansas. All four of us came from cowboys. The movie, Young Guns was popular at the time so it was in everyone’s minds. Someone made the comment that we were doing a really good job of regulating the drug trade around post. The next thing we know, they’re calling us the Regulators.

We embraced it and ran with it.

Muniz – How did you guys meet?

Sheriff Diaz – That’s where our history really started. I left the MEPS station in Denver for Ft. McClellan, Alabama. I flew into Atlanta and found where I was to wait for the bus that would take me there. There were a couple of dozen guys and girls there waiting also.

One Of them looked like he’d walked straight off the trail and into the recruiters office. He wore this old cowboy hat. had long hair and a beard that made him look like a refugee from ZZ Top. I walked up to him and put out my hand. I said, “I can see by your outfit, you are a cowboy.”

Muniz – That was Max?

Sheriff Diaz – That was Max. We sat next to each other on the bus and talked. I always thought it was funny. You could have heard a pin drop on that bus. The only ones doing any talking was me and Max. When he found out I had almost ten years of law enforcement under my belt, I started telling war stories.

When we got to the reception station, he had the bunk directly above me. Like me, he was coming in as an MP.

Muniz – And when did Terri and Jonesy show up?

Sheriff Diaz – Terri showed up the following day and Jonesy the day after.

Muniz – And?

Sheriff Diaz – I saw the new arrivals. Terri was and is a very attractive woman from a diverse genetic background. So what got my attention was she was dressed in Jeans, a flannel shirt, and wore . . .

Muniz – A cowboy hat.

Sheriff Diaz – I was going to say a belt with a bronc on it. A little unusual for a sister. And yes, she did have on a cowboy hat which was even more unusual.

Muniz – And Jonesy?

Sheriff Diaz – Jonesy took some getting used to.

Muniz – Why?

Sheriff Diaz – Because he’s bigger than a mountain. He played some pro-ball you know. I’m rather used to being the biggest guy in a crowd. Not around him. He has at least an inch on me. He’s half again as broad as me and every inch of him is solid muscle. The first time he stood up near me, I got claustrophobia.

Muniz – All of you were cowboys?

Sheriff Diaz – Yes. Terri and I were the only “Working” cowboys in the group. Max and Jonesy were rodeo cowboys so to speak, though Jonesy did some work with BLM. Max rode broncs and Jonesy rode bulls. Terri did barrel racing but her family owns and operates a ranch in Montana.

Muniz – You never did rodeo.

Sheriff Diaz – I did one. One was enough.

Muniz – Didn’t it seem odd that half your group were black?

Sheriff Diaz – No. Not at all. What they don’t show in John Ford westerns is anywhere from a quarter to a third of the cowboys that worked the range were black. Even today that idea hasn’t exactly caught on.

Muniz – Really!

Sheriff Diaz – Really. It didn’t surprise me all.

Muniz – What happens at a reception company.

Sheriff Diaz – Think of it as in processing at a new job. You get your paperwork done, IDs issued. Things like that. But in our case, it goes a step or two further. We got our haircuts. That was a very interesting experience. Some of those guys actually cried. Max didn’t cry as his beard was shaved off and his hair cut off. But, I had to relearn to recognize him.

We were also issued our uniforms and so on. We spent the next several weeks reeking of moth balls.

Muniz – And from there.

Sheriff Diaz – And from there, we went to our unit. All four of us were going in as MPs.

Muniz – And what did you guys think.

Sheriff Diaz – We took one look at the captain’s name and we all thought the same thing. “Who wrote this Movie!”

Muniz – Anything special about those days that stand out?

Sheriff Diaz – It was a lot of fun. One of the funniest things that happened involved Jonesy.

Muniz – What happened?

Sheriff Diaz – Every couple of weeks or so, everyone takes a PT test. You had to do X amount of push ups. X amount of setups. And do the two miles run in X amount of time. During basic, the numbers always slid higher, so you were doing more and more pushups and setups. The amount of time on the run of course came down.

Screw up anywhere and you’re on remedial PT.

Drill Sgt Thompson was in charge of remedial PT. And when it came the test, if you were in her line, you would probably be on remedial PT.

Muniz – Why’s that?

Sheriff Diaz – Pushups meant almost perfect Airborne pushups. When you go down in a pushup, there’s a straight line running from elbow to elbow across you back. Jonsey’s biceps were so big, he couldn’t break that plain. Finally, the Captain asked why he was always on remedial PT. They explained to him he couldn’t break the plain on a pushup.

He pretty much said, “The man can bench press a jeep and he’s on remedial PT! Take him off it.”

Muniz – Did you ever end up on remedial PT?

Sheriff Diaz – Yes, twice. It takes an extra hour a day out of your life. But Jonesy and I had a lot of fun. Max and Terri were at least smart enough to make sure they never ended up in her line.

Muniz – Any other funny stories from Basic and AIT.

Sheriff Diaz – Terri got herself in a bind once.

Muniz – What happened?

Sheriff Diaz – When I first met Terri, she had one very vial habit. She smoked. She was a pack a week girl.

Well, Basic training is one of those things designed to not encourage smoking. I mean, you can only smoke when you’re allowed. Anyway, she took it in her head that if she couldn’t smoke, she’d chew. So she bought herself some Beechnut.

She was about to find out if Basic made smoking inconvenient, it made chewing even harder. She had a chaw in her mouth and she’s in formation.

Muniz – Oh no.

Sheriff Diaz – Oh no is right. She had to spit, but couldn’t. So, she swallowed it. And it had a boomerang effect on her. She threw up all over her boots and the quad. It wasn’t the drill’s first rodeo and they knew what had happened. Once her stomach had settled down she did push ups. Because of that incident, the State of Alabama is two inches lower than it used to be.

Muniz – What did you guys do.

Sheriff Diaz – I told her, “Girl. Any desire I ever had to kiss you just went out the window. I mean, to kiss a girl who smokes is bad enough. But a girl that chews!” Then I tossed in a bit of a shudder.

Then Jonesy and Max picked up the same thing. She laughed with us until it got old. Then she threatened to arrange it so we’d be wearing our butts for hats. It was several years till I found out that she could have done that for us without breaking a sweat.

Muniz – You’ve hinted that Max had a checkered military career. Can you tell me about the first time thing went wrong for him?

Sheriff Diaz – (took him almost a full twenty seconds to answer). That was between Basic and AIT. See, Charlie 10 was what we called an OSUT company. That meant you went to basic and AIT in the same unit. Made sense since the MP school was right across the street from us.

Well, we graduated from Basic and were at long last allowed to go off post. We all got together with each other and our respective families, had dinner, and then went our different ways. We all had to be back Sunday evening at 1800 hrs.

We all showed up but there was no Max. There was a week between Basic and AIT where all we did was KP and guard duty. Then we had the following weekend off. We all came back.

A cab pulled up outside the building and Max gets. He’s in Class Bs and he walked straight to the company office. He didn’t even respond when we yelled at him.

We were all our shinning shoes and getting ready for Monday morning. The question of what had happened and where he was became the center of attention very quickly.

A moment later he comes out, goes straight to the stairwell and goes up it.

Drill Sgt. King was babysitting us that evening. He’s standing out in the middle of the quad and I remember hearing him shout, “What are you doing.” Another drill looked and right away orders us all to stay put and not to say anything.

Max had gone up to the third-floor balcony, climbed out over the rail, and was going to jump. I rather imagine diving off a third story balcony onto concrete would have killed him. Anyway, they got him talked down, EMS showed up, and he was taken away.

Truthfully, I never expected to see him again. He was back two days later. We were admonished to leave it alone. So we acted like nothing had ever happened.

Muniz – Do you know what set him off?

Sheriff Diaz – He never offered and we never asked. Eventually, it just faded into the background.

Muniz – You never mentioned this in any of the books.

Sheriff Diaz – You’re right. I never did. I don’t know why.

Muniz – You said when you came back from the Gulf, that’s when the Regulators became official.

Sheriff Diaz – Terri felt we needed something to bridge the distances between us. See, we were lucky in a lot of ways. Every friendship in the military lives under the threat of the PCS (Permanant Change of Station). You make a friend and then one or both of you are gone. You might never see each other again.

Somehow, the four of us had stayed together for almost six years. You get a lot of history when you’;re together that long. So, she came up with Charter.

Muniz – What is this “Charter.”

Sheriff Diaz – It’s actually written out. I have my copy framed and in my office. It recognizes that we’re family. As such there’s things we hold each other to. One of them is helping each other. And if any of us ever needed being brought to justice, we’d make sure we brought that person in.

We signed it in blood.

Muniz – Blood!

Sheriff Diaz – Did I mention we were all drunk when we did.

Muniz – You’d have to be. And that’s why you and Jonesy pursued Max.

Sheriff Diaz – Yep.

Muniz – Why?

Sheriff Diaz – (holds up his right hand, palm to me. There’s a white scar across his palm.) Not only did we sign in blood. But we did a blood oath.

Muniz – What?

Sheriff Diaz – We sealed it with our blood. We cut our hands and shared blood. We became more than family that way.

Muniz – Anyone ever tell you that’s weird?

Sheriff Diaz – Trust me. You’re not the first.

Muniz – Let’s back up a bit. Can you tell me about your narcotics days.

CONTINUED

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