I entered the business of enforcement security at a relatively early age; I was about 21.

Enforcement security, a term coined by me loosely, can be explained as security services that require the provision of high-risk services. This could include, but is not limited to, bad debt collection, squatter removal, hostile takeover of companies, seizure of property and investigative services (other than domestic, that I didn’t do and still don’t).

My father didn’t like my chosen career and often told me that he sent me to school to have a career that I walked with a briefcase and a pen, not a gun and a sledge hammer. He also told me as we argued about combat against the gangs that “you just don’t understand”.

Despite this, oftentimes when I was conducting my high-risk operations I would see him parked 50 metres away, lying low, not saying anything but ready to run to my rescue if I needed it. I never mentioned that I saw him, he never mentioned he was there.

He was the front line of the front line when Jamaica was going through the worst of times, this being the 1970s.

Although that era had lower homicide numbers, it also had a smaller population and the highest rate of increase in murder in our country’s history.

One day, before I was armed and even before I had a full beard, I went to Clarendon to collect money on a site from a man who owed on his roof. This man was indeed a criminal and a feared gang man of that era. My lifelong friend from Calabar High School, Rodney McPherson, was with me as my partner in our collection agency. We went to collect under threat that we would seize his roof. It was the late 80s.

Upon arriving on the site and informing the noted thug, who was twice our age, of our intention, we were greeted with some choice words followed by the sudden appearance of a full staff of site workers all armed with various cutting and chopping tools and a few revolvers. We were surrounded and overpowered by the numbers and helpless without even a simple blow being delivered.

I immediately began a serious reasoning with this thug during which I identified with his point of view and agreed with his argument that the roof was overpriced and the company that supplied it was dishonest. I was scared beyond belief.

In short order, he was distracted from his previously expressed view that he was going to kill us and instead gave us an incredible lunch of a gallon of soup each, which I drank from an ice cream container from the era when ice cream came in those containers. ‘Macky’ did the same.

Neither of us were hungry, but we didn’t want to displease him.

As I forced this reservoir of soup down my throat I remembered thinking that this is what daddy meant when he said, “Don’t put yourself in a position where you are powerless and defenceless”. I also remembered him saying, “You just don’t understand”.

Not to long after that I got a job to seize some tractors from a farm in St Mary. I kept the staff small in an effort to minimise costs. Well, I underestimated the number of workers involved in cane cutting, the intimidation of their machetes and the penchant they have to use them on people, with little or no provocation.

We soon had to flee, all scattering in several directions. I got to my car and was able to speed off through the cane field roads. In no time I was lost and speeding through the plantation. To my horror, as I made a turn I found myself right back where I had started and couldn’t turn around. I had to drive right through the machete-wielding mob again as they descended on the car.

I got through and I even found my way off the plantation with my skin intact, but as I ploughed through that mob my father’s words, “Never to choose profit over safety on any job” rang in my ears, as did his usual phrase “You just don’t understand”.

Some years later, in 2001, I was assisting police personnel pinned down on the outskirts of Tivoli Gardens by evacuating them or carrying supplies to them in my armoured truck. War was being waged because SSP Reneto Adams had entered Tivoli Gardens as part of his police duties and he wasn’t going to be chased out.

Back then Tivoli ran like a State within a State, with the open support of its Member of Parliament and Leader of the Opposition Edward Seaga. I came upon a group of police pinned down for days, lying down taking cover on the steaming, hot asphalt. I asked them if they needed evacuation and they refused, but they took the water and supplies.

I couldn’t quite understand why they would choose to remain there under fire for days, and not even be willing to leave when they got the opportunity. It was my first lesson in uncommon valour and the need to not allow criminals to dictate when police remain or leave.

The leader who refused to abandon the post was a young inspector called George Quallo, who would many years later become the commissioner of police. As I was leaving them and the gunfire behind I remember thinking, “Maybe daddy is right, maybe I just don’t understand”.

My article last week compared the evil of the Russian troops who participated in the raping of women in Berlin in 1945 to our present gangsters. I received several e-mail rubbishing my comparison. My answer to those of you who share that belief is, “You just don’t understand”.

In fact, many or most who have served in your Parliament don’t understand.

Most of our business community just don’t understand.

None of our human rights activists remotely understand.

You don’t understand it till you have lived it.

After decades of fighting these gangs I now understand totally what my father meant. The Russian army had good men who marched into Berlin. Some, to many, were bad men and did terrible things out of hate caused by their own losses. Nine million Russians were killed because of the Germans in World War II. That doesn’t excuse the rape of innocent women though. Nothing excuses the rape of any woman.

There are no good men among gangs. Just cowards, just criminals. By comparing them in their acts of evil they are no better than the raping Russian army. They are, in many ways, worse. Hopefully, one day when all of you join in the fight you may finally all understand.

Feedback: drjasonamckay@gmail.com