Our packing was interrupted, however, by the doorbell ringing. Not expecting anyone at that hour, I was reluctant to open the door at all, but after doing so, I had a Polizei badge briefly (we’re talking milliseconds, here) shoved in my face by a plainclothes policeman. I recall trusting the radio – very rare in Germany at that time- on his belt more than the badge, which barely registered.

“Guten Abend, Herr Hebert”, he declared, but I guess one doesn’t need to have lived there to recognize that a German policeman at your door by definition precludes it from being being a “good evening”.

“Wir brauchen ein Zeugnis für eine Durchsuchung”. “Huh?”, I thought as my neurons slowly got a handle on the strange request. “You need a witness for a search?” (And of all the apartments in this building, you selected me? Sort of like Mark Twain’s phrase, “But for the honor of it, I would have declined”. That didn’t seem to be an available option, however.)

Without exchanging many words whatsoever, the context behind this soon became clear. Six days earlier, a bomb had exploded in the La Belle discotheque in Berlin, and killed three people and injured several hundred. Libyan diplomats were considered the prime suspects (a suspicion confirmed years later when the former East German Stasi files were opened after the fall of the Berlin Wall). My small apartment building was south of Bonn, the “temporary” capitol of West Germany. Apparently, three units were occupied by representatives of Libya’s so-called “People’s Bureau”, a quasi-diplomatic (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) activity that served in the absence of a real Embassy. This was a fact which I hadn’t quite been aprised of when my company’s owner/my boss had turned the apartment over to me some months earlier.

More context: U.S. ships in the Gulf of Sidra had confronted a Libyan warship some weeks earlier in a disputed territorial waters zone, and inflicted significant casualties. Tensions between the US and Libya were running pretty high.

The plainclothes policeman was soon joined by a uniformed policeman, and we walked down two flights of steps to another apartment. There, the first policeman did something that still chills me somewhat – He silently motioned me to go down a further half-flight before he and his partner rang the doorbell. I rather wondered just what he’d dragged me into. They did not draw their pistols, however, so I felt a bit more comfortable that I wasn’t in an [Time-warp Alert] episode of NCIS.

Now, we were joined by a third member of this expanding party – a translator – and soon a woman’s voice responded to the doorbell. The door remained closed, however. I was rather impressed by anyone who had the pair to refuse to open their door to a German policeman. It just wasn’t done in the little world I occupied.

The answer from behind the door was repeatedly, “My husband is not here.” The policemen continued to ask the woman to open the door, but she continued to refused.

Minutes later, a bit of a “Hollywood thriller” moment. The man they were looking for nonchalantly made his appearance – quietly coming up the stairs from below. The woman had evidently called him on the phone and he’d come over from the neighboring building. He spoke with the police and agreed to allow them to search his cellar. (I still have no idea why the cellar was more interesting than his apartment or any of the other apartments, for example.)

We went down to the cellar – fortunately, this was a nice one, as opposed to the cold, musty ones often found in older apartment houses in Germany. It did seem rather close quarters, however – especially when we were joined by a photographer, another policeman, another plainclothes – whatever – and a guy in a full-length leather coat who looked as though he might be the last remaining Gestapo officer. (I’m guessing he might have been from the Bundesnachrichtendienst, a fairly shadowy agency that’s the German equivalent of our CIA. I’m guessing, because no one bothered with introductions at this time.) I think there were one or two other nondeascript types that had joined us, and I was starting to wonder who was the Captain on this U-Boat.

The next 30 minutes were surreal. Here are guys lifting – but seldom opening – and moving cardboard boxes from one side of the cellar to another. I’m thinking that they’re obviously looking for explosive material – “Sure, let’s all get together for a Block Party! BYOB.” The photographer takes flash pictures. The SS guy just watches. (I’m sure I later saw this guy in an Indiana Jones movie. Maybe they were looking for an Ark or a cup?) The Libyan offers me a cigarette.

“Ich bin Nichtraucher!” (I’m a non-smoker!), I responded, hoping my heavily-American accented German wasn’t too obvious, nor an unpardonable insult to his culture, at that point. He lights up – somewhat disconcerting under the circumstances.

Finally, all boxes lifted from one corner to the other – and then returned in reverse order to the original corner – the search was concluded. Everybody was happy, smiles all about.

“Alles in Ordnung?” (Everything okay?), asked the plainclothesman of the Libyan. Nodding his head, the Libyan indicated he was satisfied, and in a few more milliseconds, the search party had vanished as quickly and quietly as they’d appeared, leaving a trio of myself, the Libyan and the plainclothesman alone on the steps at the building’s entryway.

Pointing my way, the plainclothesman addressed the Libyan, “Sie hatten mit diese nichts zu tun!” (They had nothing to do with this!)

“Riiighhht.”, I thought, “I’m sure that’ll clear up any questions he might have had.”

And then he was gone into the night. I felt a bit like a quickie, one-night stand as I headed back to my apartment.

“Geez, I sure hope Reagan doesn’t do anything too drastic in the next couple of days”, I worried, later that morning.

Two days later (April 15th), US planes bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in Operation El Dorado Canyon. The raids killed and injured around 2,000, including killing one of Gaddafi’s (adopted) daughters in his compound.

For the three days after that until we left for Istanbul, I took to parking my car a few blocks away from my apartment.

Links:

La Belle Disco Bombing:

1986 Bombing Attacks on Libya

About 10 days before my trip, Boris Yeltsin, in a political standoff with the Russian parliament, had dissolved the legislature, but a hard-core group of the Old Guard, generally anti-West and loyal to the old communist party, had refused to leave the “White House”, their Parliament Building, sitting on the Moskva River. The situation in Moscow seemed unstable, and I’d flown into Russia only after receiving assurances from Sergei, the American Embassy in Moscow and the Munich travel agent handling my ticket that things were unlikely to deteriorate.

They lied.

The day started off peacefully enough. Sergei took us on a nice walk through the Old Arbat, the little piece of old Moscow that had escaped Stalin’s bulldozers. The rest of the city – other than the area around the Kremlin – was dominated by the Socialist Realism architecture of massive, ugly, blocky buildings. He took us for a pretty decent meal in a Georgian restaurant (you’re not in Atlanta, Toto), complete with caviar, and after that, we visited the Kremlin wall, where the favorite sons of the Russian Revolution had been buried: Yuri Gagarin, the three Cosmonauts who suffocated on re-entry due to an open valve, even an American journalist, John Reed, who provided a first-hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution. We visited Lenin’s Tomb, but with the Kremlin closed due to the present instability, we’d by then run out of things to do/places to see.

Well, not quite. Sergei and I were both rather interested in seeing for ourselves the state of affairs at the White House so, ignoring the more rational exhortations of Natalia, we hopped on a bus which dropped us off on the other side of the river from the White House on a main street. Still soaking in the sunshine, we crossed the bridge to get a better look at the Parliament – and noted that we were suddenly right in the middle of several hundred militia who’d just piled out of their buses. We literally pushed through their shields and batons to escape the flow we’d suddenly found ourselves in.

What to do? Sergei and I – rather foolishly, as events played out – wanted to experience first-hand the pandemonium which was sure to come, but Natalia was frightened and we (thankfully) agreed to depart, but in which direction? Go forward (on the main street)? No that’s where the troops are coming from. Go back? No, that’s where they’re headed. The Metro Station appeared to have been closed so that wasn’t an option. How about perpendicular to this flow, I suggested, and we were soon headed that way. One city block later we heard three extended volleys of gunfire which sent a chill through me (with due respect offered to those readers who’ve served in shooting wars). I later read reports that the first volleys were into the air, but I also saw photos which showed corpses where we’d been standing, so I don’t know.

Later I read in the International Herald Tribune that marchers supporting the rebellious parliamentarians had converged on the White House from both directions on the main street, so our unimpeded retreat via back streets had turned out to be rather fortunate. We eventually made it to a Metro Station and each went back to our home/hotel.

My room in the Hotel Cosmos was on the 22nd floor and directly overlooked the Ostankino TV tower, the city center and the White House, perhaps a mile or two in distance. From that afternoon until about 04:15 the following morning, it gave me a view of tracer bullets criss-crossing the city, and on occasion, I could hear an explosion, in particular when the rebels blew open the door to the Ostankino TV Tower, which housed the studios that broadcast to all of Moscow and, in fact, to the rest of the old Soviet Union. The TV stations, none of which appeared to be covering the New Revolution of 1993, suddenly all went off the air and I, as a non-Russian speaking visitor, found myself in complete darkness regarding the events playing out on the streets below. Even more so after the haze from the bombing slowly engulfed the entire city.

Sergei served as my one link to the world outside my hotel, calling me with reports he picked up from God-knows-where – but all were rather gloomy. “The rebels have overrun the militia!” “They now are in control of the White House!” “They’ve taken over the city hall!” I wondered when the airport would join that growing list, and decided it was time to think about an early exit.

Not being able to call internationally from my hotel room, I found my way to the lobby and placed a call to my wife in Munich, who was soon not happy to serve as the midwife for my change-of-ticket, and I eventually had a connection to Lufthansa’s Reservations, which basically was oblivious to the events of that night. But, yes, there was a seat for me on the flight back to Munich at 0730.

“Absolutely not!” Sergei advised, when we next spoke. “There’s no taxi driver in Moscow that wouldn’t mug you for your money and belongings and dump your body on the side of the road. Wait for us to pick you up at 0830 and we’ll take you with us to Kaliningrad (Where the Russian Control Center was located). You’ll be safe there.” (Questionable, as Yeltsin’s daughter worked there and I suspect she might have been a “person of interest” herself.)

I did not get much sleep that night, as I tried to judge whether the trajectory of the bullets could reach the 22nd floor. As I mentioned, the shooting died out soon after 4:00 the next morning, and I suspected something significant had occurred – either that or even revolutionists required their beauty sleep.

In accordance with the new plan, Sergei and a colleague picked me up the next morning in their Lada, and soon we were navigating the back streets of Moscow to the Control Center. On arrival, I saw no evidence of a well-groomed campus as I’d enjoyed at NASA in Houston, just a space oriented statue in the middle of a roundabout. I soon found myself in a 1950s era building belonging to the space agency, staring at a small room that – I considered – might be my home for my foreseeable future. I wondered how long it would take me to learn Russian and how well their headsets fit. I also wondered how I was going to get any Razorback football scores.

I was treated to lunch in their office with a handful of their colleagues and a “very distinguished Russian scientist” (I haven’t a clue who he was – one of a couple of things on the trip I regretted.) and we soon discussed the preliminary work they’d done on my software project. Their work was respectable and they praised the concept and said they’d like to use it in their operations as well, an assessment that I valued quite a bit.

At this point, however, our thoughts were mainly elsewhere. By now, Lufthansa had come through with a seat on the 5:30 flight and we climbed into the Lada and were soon off to the Sheremetyevo (if memory serves) airport.

On the way, the driver and two other passengers listened intently to the radio, and at about 3:30 simultaneously issued a cheer reminiscent of me celebrating a Razorback TD. “Army tanks have fired on the White House and Yeltsin has regained control – Would you like to stay!?.”

“Next time,” I responded. I was ready to return to the comfortable insanity of life in Bavaria.

Three days later, the IHT article provided three more interesting details:

- The night had been the bloodiest in Moscow history since WW II, with more than 70 killed, one being an American near the Ostankino.

- The Russian Army had debated for three or four hours which faction to support, before eventually siding with Yeltsin. Raise your hands if you knew that Russia was that close to returning to communism in 1993.

- The tanks rolled into the city at about 04:00 in the morning, coinciding with the end of the shooting in the city. Their path also would have cut off my escape to the airport had I attempted to catch my 0730 flight.

I love you my Josh.

I am grateful to God for you and your two brothers.

Thank you son, for your service.

Photo courtesy of Drew.

Hope he gets here soon though.

God bless those living and how have gone on who stormed the shores.

A U.S. soldier from from the 2nd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment runs to his position during a patrol in a market area in Baghdad in 2008. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHOCKER, Iraq — The dusty plain along Iraq’s border with Iran in eastern Wasit province has seen little violence over the past several years. This is a quiet and remote corner of the country, a sparsely populated area southeast of Baghdad.

But for the U.S. troops still stationed here, the mission is as critical as ever.

With less than a year left before the remaining 50,000 American soldiers will likely have to head home, they are engaged in a mad-dash — and often frustrating — effort to bolster the local government and security forces.

“I used to do recon to find out where the enemy was. Now I do recon to find out what the country needs,” said Cpt. Gavin Schwan, a troop commander in the 3rd Armored Cavalry’s 2nd Squadron.

A far cry from the days of busting down doors, Schwan said that among his biggest concerns now are border security, a micro-grant program he is running to fund businesses in the area and a bridge he fears is coming under heavy stress from cross-border truck traffic.

The army’s efforts in Wasit province typify the current U.S. mission in Iraq, called Operation New Dawn, which is focused on advising and assisting the Iraqi army, other security forces and civilian systems.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, who arrived in Iraq Thursday morning, praised the progress made by the Iraqi government, even as bombs exploded around him.

“I’m here to help the Iraqis celebrate the progress they made. They formed a government. And that’s a good thing,” he said.

But although it might be good for Iraq that it finally has a new government, it might not be such a good thing for the Americans. After nine months of deadlock, the Iraqi government that finally came together is made up of politicians who are unlikely to tolerate a U.S. troop presence in their country after this year.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki struck a deal with perennial American antagonist Moqtada al-Sadr, giving the fiery cleric’s political bloc control over a handful of key ministries. Aligned with Iran, Sadr announced earlier this week that he would not support any continued U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond the scheduled withdrawal this year, a pronouncement that Maliki was quick to support.

Sadr, who once commanded one of the country’s most violent insurgent groups, the Mahdi Army, recently returned from three years of religious study in Iran. His return has stoked fears of renewed sectarian violence and anti-American rhetoric.

The calm along the Iran-Iraq border, in fact, has not extended to other parts of Wasit, including in the provincial capital of al-Kut, where attacks are common. Forward Operating Base Delta, a U.S. base that sits across the Tigris River from al-Kut, comes under regular rocket fire from militants. In December, Pfc. David Dustin Finch was killed by sniper fire while on patrol outside of the city.

Sectarian clashes continue to occur daily throughout Iraq. In one week earlier this month, according to security analysts, 33 people died from fighting around the country.

And so the U.S. mission here has taken on an added sense of urgency. Troops are working overtime to bolster Iraq’s institutions, both military and civilian, before either time runs out or they are run out.

For soldiers in Wasit, however, many of whom fought through the most harrowing years of the war in Iraq, trying to swiftly slog through the Iraqi bureaucracy is presenting a whole new challenge.

Even obtaining ammunition for training purposes, for example, can be difficult for the Iraqi army’s logistical systems, said Lt. Col. Bryan Mullins. Small issues like these hamper American efforts to train their Iraqi counterparts.

“The difference is the Iraqis work by courier car and snail mail and telephone calls, where at least we have email and we all kind of live on the same installation,” he said, noting that it can take 50 to 60 days for his Iraqi counterparts to receive ammunition once they have requested it.

On a recent trip up to the border region, Mullins engaged in the sort of military diplomacy that has become typical of the New Dawn mission. After touring a housing development at the border and visiting the over-stressed bridge, Mullins headed to an Iraqi military base to secure an Iraqi commitment to remove four landmines — remnants of the Iran-Iraq war — from a nearby family farm.

Mullins and Schwan met with 1st Lt. Ahed Ghalab for a frustrating hour-long meeting in which Ghalab repeatedly cited bureaucratic and jurisdictional roadblocks complicating the Americans’ request.

“We know a whole bunch of places where we have mines, but we can’t seem to get support,” a frustrated Mullins told Ghalab at one point.

Still, the pressure is on to — before the end of the year — raise a security apparatus in the country that is capable of staring down the brutal sectarian violence that never seems to be very far away.

Taken from here.

It was a few years later while in college that my mom with the curious mind of a scientist sent me a link to a Wikipedia page on synesthesia and said “I think you have this”.  Somewhere in my brain a wire is crossed (some might say a screw or two are loose as well).  These crossed synapses lead to my involuntary association of personalities with numbers.  Over time I would learn to ignore these tendencies, and much to the relief of my family and anyone down range when I shoot artillery, I became very good at math and physics.  The armchair MD diagnosis of my condition may not be official, but it is pretty clear that this was my problem.

I am not sure, but I have begun to think that my synesthesia may manifest itself in other undocumented ways as well.  I love cars, some call it car crazy.  When I see the smooth lines of a ’67 Shelby Cobra, or the rough edges of a ’51 Willys, it evokes an emotional response.  The shapes and colors of the cars take on more for me than just the sheet metal they are made from.  The name plays a part as well; in fact a properly chosen name puts into a word what I cannot.  Cars are not the sole benefactors of my love of names.  Galleywinter Cattle Co draws its name from a song that says “I’m gone to Galleywinter, the place where all the cowboys ride, the place where all the outlaws hide”.  Pineknot Farm’s name comes from my grandfather’s pet name for my more than a little stubborn mom, but I like to think that it suits the farm just right.  The farm has a certain stubbornness to it, from the old farm house to the tall pines that have withstood neglect, hurricanes, and even the resolute march of time itself.

While glancing through a copy of Stars and Stripes the other day, I looked passed articles of the violence in Afghanistan, the unseated government of Iraq, and the financial difficulties of America, and came to a new name.  In a time when so much seems to be difficult and unsettling this name stood out.  It is a name whose elegance and eloquence evoke feelings of inspiration, awe, and hope.  It’s a name that reminds us of the innocence of childhood, gazing up at the stars and pondering the universes’ limitlessness. Much like Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo did many years ago, the name Virgin Galactic looks forward to a future of boundless innovation.

Juliet famously asked Romeo “What’s in a name?”  Well had she asked me instead, the answer would be quite simply… a lot.