Explore "Border Guard" by Don Whitehead on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
One of the most serious problems confronting the Customs Service in this century is the control of the illegal importation of narcotics. Some of the difficulties involved in handling dope smuggling can be seen when it is realized that these drugs are being sent from all over the world, by every means of international transportation. The comparatively small number of Customs agents rely on patience, diligence and intelligence, and they are doing a remarkable job. Since this problem is so important, and so typical of the job the Service does, we will begin with the story of one successful case.
On the night of May 17, 1955, seventeen-year-old Truls Arild Halvorsen sat in an office in the Customs House in Boston, Massachusetts, blinking back the unmanly tears that threatened to spill down his face. He kept trying to swallow the dry lump of fear in his throat, but it wouldn't go away. And he had to concentrate hard to remember the answers to all the questions being asked of him by the men sitting about the room.