Preparing to deal with threat of terrorism Long Branch man looked at situation for recently published book

Preparing to deal with threat of terrorism
Long Branch man looked
at situation for recently published book

VERONICA YANKOWSKI Lenzy Kelley’s work at Fort Monmouth led him to a greater understanding of the threat posed by terrorists.

When he began writing a handbook on preventing terrorist attacks several years ago, Lenzy Kelley could not have anticipated the recent events that have left a nation in anguish.

"Never, never in my wildest imagination had I considered the possibility of someone hijacking a plane and using it as a bomb," said Kelley of last week’s terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and left thousands dead or injured. "They caught us off guard."

After years of tracking terrorist groups and the havoc they have wreaked worldwide, Kelley wrote Combat Terrorism, Foreign and Domestic, Steps and Procedures to Protect Yourself, Your Family and Your Employees Against the Next Wave of Terrorist Attacks which was published earlier this year by 1st Books Library.

"I was hoping against hope something like this wouldn’t happen," said the Long Branch resident. "I knew we were headed for some trouble. If you think back, they tried to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993 [in an attempt to destroy it] and failed, so they tried again.

"There have been reports of attempted hijackings. People have been trying to do these things, and we’ve been lucky, but it was only a matter of time ’til our luck ran out."

A member of the U.S. Army signal corps for 23 years, Kelley said he watched as the number and intensity of terrorist attacks mounted yet failed to result in the security changes necessary to deter others.

"All of these things were happening," he noted. "It was just a matter of piecing them together, standing back and taking a look at it."

Born and raised in New York City’s Harlem, Kelley joined the U.S. Army right out of high school in 1962. He began military service as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Infantry at Fort Campbell, Ky., and first came to Fort Monmouth to train for the signal corps in 1965. His tour of duty included stations in Florida at the headquarters of the Southern Command; in Belgium, where he was stationed at SHAPE, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe; and in Saudi Arabia.

After retiring in 1985, he became a civilian employee at Fort Monmouth where he is a telecommunications specialist. Kelley began to build a body of knowledge about terrorism following his military career when he found himself appointed bomb-threat coordinator for his division, he explained. That meant attending classes on terrorist activities and bringing back information to share with coworkers.

"Over time, I collected hundreds of pieces of information on terrorism; then I started to cut articles out of newspapers and magazines and threw the stuff in a pile," he explained. "After a number of years, I had accumulated a wealth of information. It was obvious how important it was and how little of this was being put out there for people." The escalating pace of terrorist attacks gave Kelley the impetus to pull the body of knowledge he’d accumulated together as a survival manual for travelers abroad as well as for citizens going about their daily business like the victims of the 1995 bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City.

"Almost everyday there’s a terrorist incident somewhere in the world. In 1999 there were 200 incidents worldwide, and by 2000 there were nearly 400," Kelley noted. "The number of incidents just about doubled in a year.

"It seems like a lot of people have an ax to grind," Kelley said, "and it’s not just against America. Just about every country in the world has a terrorist group running around, and there appears to be an increase in the number of terrorist organizations."

While the seriousness of the situation seemed obvious to him, Kelley said things had gotten lax, and rather than being a wake-up call, each terrorist attack would cause a stir and then be forgotten.

"I saw a degree of relaxation," he commented. "There would be a terrorist incident, and we would get upset about it, but in a couple of weeks, it would be yesterday’s news."

Kelley makes clear that his 106-page handbook is not intended to frighten readers but to educate them on how to go about everyday activities in a way that will prevent them from falling victim to terrorist acts and provides strategies for survival should they become victims. He also maintains a Web site, combatterror@anthill.com.

"I thought it was important that people who traveled should be aware of certain things in their surroundings. But it’s not only for travelers, even at home there are certain things you should do to protect yourself, your family and employees," he cautioned.

Chapter topics include: do’s and don’ts of travel in the Mideast; chronology of terrorist attacks; lists of international terrorist organizations; bomb-threat procedures; and steps to take to avoid becoming a victim of an attack. Written well before the recent disaster, Kelley’s chapter on skyjacking called attention to airport security insufficiencies such as X-ray portals which cannot detect weapons made of something other than metal; security personnel who are not trained professionals; and lax baggage handling.

Some of the calls for changes echo recommendations made by Kelley who urged: reinstating sky marshals; sealing off the cockpit; ending curbside baggage check-in; raising the caliber of security personnel; and less reliance on high-tech intelligence gathering.

According to Kelley, the changes must be cohesive. "It’s a combination of all these things," he said. "If one element is missing, the others don’t matter."

The World Trade Center disaster signaled a shift in the skyjackers’ MO, he noted, and necessitate some revisions in the handbook. "A conventional skyjacking has a different aim," he said. "The terrorists want something and use the skyjacking as leverage for their demands. This time there were no demands. They wanted to send us a message.

"In light of what happened I may have to amend a paragraph because this was a suicide mission," he explained. "That’s the difference. Once the passengers realized this, they had no other option but to fight. In the book I say don’t do this. Now I will say, if you determine the plane is on a suicide mission, you have to take them on and the sooner the better, before they kill the pilot."

What does the future of terrorism hold? Kelley’s chapter on the 21st century says terrorism will replace conventional warfare, and there is likely to be an increase in incidents involving biological weapons, nuclear contamination devices and computer viruses.

It’s likely that it will be a long time before Americans recover a sense of security, Kelley opined. "I don’t think things will be the same again for a long time," he said. "It’s like someone reached into your life and turned the lights out. Things are different, and we can get back to where we were, but I don’t think it will be anytime soon."

Can we make the world a safe place for our children? Kelley said he has no ready answer. "I worry about that," he admitted. "While my 10-year-old, Joshua, is out playing with his friends, on TV I see kids chanting, ‘Death to America’ and learning to shoot AK-47s. Right now there’s a comparable group of kids in another country that’s learning to hate, and I don’t know what to do about that."