WEED WARS IN THE WEST
“Large pools of blood were forming on Mojo’s pants around both bullet wounds and had started to drip onto the ground. This was not a good sign. Blood loss and shock were now his biggest threats. Mojo was too young, too dedicated, and too deserving of a full game warden career to bleed out and die on this remote hill during his first eradication operation.
When starting this mission just a few hours ago, seeing my teammate and friend in this condition was the last thought that crossed my mind, and something that our newly developing team had not come close to experiencing before. Today was a wake-up call to the seriousness of what we do and a reminder of the domestic war we fight every time we gear up and hike into the bush for an op. This is the story of the day the MET’s preparation and approach to all future operations changed forever.”
— War in the Woods, Chapter 2
Two other game wardens and I were assisting fellow operators from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office Marijuana Eradication Team (MET). That day’s mission was an allied agency arrest and eradication operation against a Mexican drug cartel’s illegal trespass marijuana grow located in the densely wooded mountains above the urban sprawl of the Silicon Valley. While tactically stalking into the grow complex, we were ambushed by a heavily armed crew of cartel gunmen. The gunfight that ensued a split second following the tell-tale muzzle blast of a grower’s AK-47 left my partner severely wounded, one gunman neutralized, and at least one additional armed grower on the run.
