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Show Local Army officer convicted of drug charges in Germany Weary of simulated combat, a quiet U.S. Army officer used his Ranger training to lead a band of GI drug smugglers and hatch plans for arms thefts and a raid on an Army payroll office. But the "Thrill-seeking" of 1st Lt. William L Curry cost him 30 years of hard labor, dismissal from the service and forfeiture of all pay. A seven-officer jury last week convicted con-victed Curry, of Vernal, of 33 counts of drug dealing, theft of Army munitions and conspiracy to steal arms and money. Curry was arrested with seven of his men June 1 in a drug raid on Army quarters in Karlsruhe. In all, 12 members of the group, including a woman, were arrested. The gang smuggled 16 kilograms of drugs from Amsterdam, peddling it to GIs based in West Germany. The gang was smashed on the crest of a wave of Army drug arrests which in one year netted 8,875 soldiers more than half an infantry division and $67 million worth of heroin, cocaine and hashish. Military police also uncovered a cache belonging to Curry with Army equipment and detailed plans for robberies. "We do too much simulation," the soft-spoken demolition expert told the court. "I thrive on the thrill of wiring a couple hundred pounds of real explosives." ex-plosives." Curry, 25, said that ever since Ranger school, he had made up schemes for raids, complete with reconnaissance, intelligence and combat plans. "It's a game with me," he said. "The danger, the excitment. It was the closest thing I could imagine to a combat situation, but I never planned to carry any of it out." Curry, who served with the 78th Engineer Battalion in Karlsruhe, masterminded the smuggling and acted as courier. But Army prosecutor, Capt. Gary Casida, 34, of Canon City, Colo., said Curry's "game" was more than idle daydreaming. Casida cited Curry's cache of 55 "blocks of demolition plastic, 270 rounds of 5.56mm ammunition, 500 rounds of .45 caliber bullets, detailed plans and maps, including a flow chart and contingency plan of robberies of arms and money from army facilities. |