'Please to no come back again ever!'

BEEN FOLLOWING THE EVENTS unfolding in Cairo and other Egyptian cities the last few weeks, all of the demonstrations, rallies, riots and clashes between the government and protesters. And that includes the harsh crackdown on professional journalists and amateurs able to get their word out through blogs and Facebook. There hasn’t been this much calamity in that country since Moses commandeered an uprising, leading his folks on an exodus away that thick-headed Pharaoh, who couldn’t get the hint after some fairly dramatic plagues.

Sadly, people wielding tremendous power so often are unable to read the handwriting on the wall. I don’t know enough to know whether President Mubarak should pull a Nixon, but it seems at this point he has no ttrump card in the hand he’s playing.

All of this has gotten me to remembering about my own brief time near that part of the world during the winter of 1991. You see, the magazine I worked for had bought my pitch to send me and staff photographer John Simon to Saudi Arabia to cover the unfolding Desert Storm war. Remember that? Saddam Hussein’s troops rumbled into oil-rich Kuwait in August 1990 and occupied its capital and other key places. Kuwait’s ruling class was able to get the hell out of Dodge into safer havens while the lower and largely imported hired hands were forced to hang on nearly eight months under a brutal force.

But lo and behold, on an early February day, my shutterbug accomplice and I arrived on Arabia’s stretching sands. We promptly muscled our way into the heavily controlled U.S.-Saudi media pool. Because we were considered “military-friendly,” we had a bit more access to some stories than much of the mainstream media.

Don’t get me wrong. We did the dog-and-pony sidebars on troops in the field and those manning Patriot batteries against Scuds; we hopped aboard a long refueling mission for U.S. and coalition fighter jocks over enemy skies; and given “exclusives” with well-moneyed Kuwaiti exiles speaking with faint European accents.

We had good access to many features on GI life in a culture that denies you an honest beer, a good strip joint or even having a modest public display of your faith. I will always love the common American guy or gal who serves. On the record, they know what to say. Off the record, they are glib and colorful. And most likeable.

We attended most of the “official” news conferences in Riyadh and Dhahran. I really liked the one near the end of the ground war when Gen. Schwarzkopf took down a reporter who asked him why it took so long to clear minefields, “Stormin’ Norman” fired back, “You ever been in a minefield?” Of course the reporter had not. Perhaps the biggest obstacle in that scribe’s life was hitting his daily deadline. Or maybe getting room service at the Sheraton where he was filing his story.

A couple of vignettes from that time during Desert Storm about how people and cultures can meld or clash. The first came near liberation day of Kuwait City. John and I traveled with a small pool up through the oil-smoked skies into the capital and larked off on our own. While walking a seemingly abandoned street, littered with wrecked, torched cars and buildings, we heard some echoing yell behind us. An Arab came down with his hands in the air, apparently mistaking John’s long camera lens for some kind of weapon. We couldn’t understand what he was saying, but it appeared he was surrendering to us. Yep, two pasty-faced guys in civvies certainly must be with Special Forces.

His name was Alsafadi, we learned, a Syrian left behind to deal with the Iraqi horde. He convinced us to ride with him in a battered Mercedes, pointing out places the invaders had desecrated during their reign. John road up front; I was in the back holding a sharp-screwdriver behind our guide’s seat. The chauffer stopped at one place to show us a huge Hussein mural painted on an office building; then he imitated taking a leak on that image.

The tour continued on until we hit a roadblock manned by a unit of Marines. We got out of the vehicle and explained what we were doing. As I explained, John had them pose for some pretty righteous pics with destruction in the background and Alsfadi shook their hands vigorously. We were able to convince the platoon leader our guy was okay.

The Marines treated him with a couple of boxes of MREs and we parted ways.

I have a photo in my office today which shows all of us posing together, all of grinning like beavers at a timber convention. That’s what real coalition-building is really all about at its most fundamental level.

The second vignette occurred a few days before we were to leave the country. We had some down hours in Dhahran and wanted to travel out on a causeway to the island nation of Bahrain. We just wanted to check it out, say we had been there and get our passports stamped attesting to it. In fact, the Saudi government promised us that we had multiple entry and exit visas for that tiny island kingdom.

As we made our way to the checkpoint, entering Bahrain space, we were immediately told we were in violation. We had no permit to enter. We were invaders, so to speak. The guards forced us from our rental car and inspected everything. Finally, an officer stepped in and did the noble thing: He made us get back into the car, do a nifty u-turn and left us to the control of the Saudi guard shack.

We got out of the car again under gunpoint and were ordered into the Saudi shack. The captain of the guard spoke some English and said we had no authorization to re-enter his country. John was muttering something about us being shot and our useless, pudgy bodies tossed into the gulf. That’s when I began chuckling out loud about the absurdity of the situation. It drew some strange stares from our “allies.” Nonetheless, after several phone calls to his superiors and a few other diplomatic connections, we were allowed to re-enter Saudi Arabia’s turf.

“Please to no come back again ever!” the officer yelled, as John hit the gas and we headed westbound on the bridge. No problem. Look me up if you ever make it to Indy, amigo.

Seems there are many minefields throughout the world we don’t always understand because of our diverse cultures and politics. Always some lame critic questioning the level of danger in navigating places where they never have been.
Jefferson once said “Every generation needs a new revolution.”

That can be interpreted many ways. I just hope what’s happening in Egypt is the change that’s needed for its current and future generations.