I wrote a short piece about 911 and some photos earlier
I though a more detailed telling would be in order today.
I though I had written this a long time ago, but I cant find
it any where. I guess it was just in my head till now. It is a little long.
I was in an Islamic province giving a class on interview/
interrogation technique to my kids.
They were young, new, Police officers of the newly formed
Democratic Republic. At least that was what it said in the press releases.
I called them my kids, because they were kids, and I had
spent a year training them.
We worked long hours together in a place where everybody and
his dog had an AK 47
They were eager and new to Police work. The whole program
was thrown together so fast most of them had not been to any kind of academy
yet so it was on the job training.
My cell phone rang. Now that was strange in itself because
only about three people in the world had that number. Communications out of
there were iffy at best and cell was the only way to go, when it worked.
I had been the only American in the Station for some months.
That was against the policy, but policy went to hell when you got off the
plane. About two weeks earlier two new Americans had come to the station. I
moved them in with me until they could decide on lodging, and get their feet
under them. By chance, both were former Special Forces reserve. We will call
them Bill and Bob.
Bill was on the phone now; he was listening to the BBC on a
hand crank world band radio he had brought with him. Electricity in the
province was more iffy than the cell service. He said that something had
happened in the US that the WTC and Pentagon had been hit with aircraft in
terror attacks, that other aircraft were missing and that the white house had
been evacuated.
I told Bill to walk over to the office, and we would make
long-term plans from there.
I walked over to the office computer, and punched up the
net. It was running at 2400 kbs. Not twenty four thousand, twenty four hundred,
a page about every four minutes. Now that was pretty good considering I had to
acquire all the materials and install them myself. Find a modem on the market
some where and then phone wire. I had bought the modem and the phone wire out
of pocket, and installed it in the office computer. Some creative wiring into
the phone system and a few user codes “borrowed” from the UN got us the first
internet capability in town. Even if yelling out the window was faster.
I punched up the Yahoo home page and got about 30 seconds
worth of news blurbs on the home page.The acting station commander, an
Austrian, walked in and grabbed me. “Come to my office right away” he said.
Things were moving fast and I expected it would be a call from HQ or the
American contingent commanders office, or even the company we were contracted
to telling something and giving some guidance as to what was expected, a rally
point, or what was going on. It wasn’t that. Those calls never came.
I walked into the office to a sea of humanity. The third
worlders working at the station were packed in tight; all of them seemed to be
there weather on or off duty. The Commander looked at me and said ”you have to
explain to them what is happening”
Well boys it was time to tap dance, because I had no clue
what was going on I walked to the only free spot in the room and that was
behind the commanders desk, the devil in me briefly though of announcing that I
was taking over the station in a coup, but better sense prevailed.
I told them that although this was a terrible event with the
possible loss of many lives that the US
As I gracefully disengaged myself from the room I heard a heated
discussion going on in the hallway. It seemed that my kids, the Muslims were
arguing about who how many of them were moving in with me to protect us
Americans. As I tried to quell that disturbance assuring them that we could
take care of ourselves a Bulgarian Officer walked up to me.
He held a Bulgarian police patch pulled from his own uniform
on my arm over my US
About that time Bob showed up. He had been on patrol and was
called in by the commander. We decided that as no info was coming from higher
up our best bet was to fort up at our house for a coupe of days. The station
Commander said we were off duty till things worked themselves out. Bill walked
in and preparations bargain in earnest.
I was Chief of Investigations. One of the things that went
with that was I was in charge of all the seized weapons and munitions. We
backed up a Toyota
station and bucked brigaded in cases of 7.62x39 and all the
12gauge shells I could find.
We took a yugo AK each, a lonely Mossberg 12GA pump that who
knows how it got there, and being a traditionalist I took a Thompson .45 SMG
We topped it off with a RPD belt fed light machine gun I had
around and drove over to the house.
Living there was called by a better mind than I “ a one year camping trip” with electricity
and supplies being on and off again we all squirreled up things so we were well
stocked for a siege.
We opened the gate to our rented house and backed the four
runner in.
You have to understand we lived ”on the economy” that is UN
speak for your ass in the breeze. You are given some money and told at what
station you will be working and then its good luck. Where you live what you eat
and how you get around is up to you.
I had rented the top two floors of a three story house. The
only way in was an exterior staircase. Even with just a Beretta 9mm I figured I
could make life hard for anyone trying to come up those stairs. The Owner and
his family lived on the ground floor.
He was glad to rent to Americans, because as a Serb, his
house would be subject to attack. Our presence and the US
He had about 20 words of English, and I had less Serbian,
but when he saw the three Americans start unloading a truck load of ammo and
automatic weapons, he knew something big was up. He called his children in the
house and disappeared inside.
I sent for an interpreter and explained things as best I
could.
The guys and I went up in the house and started cleaning
guns and loading mags.
The RPD belt fed got stuck out the doors on the front
balcony. It was visible to all and the message was clear. This is a hard
target, go elsewhere. It was not like we could be covert anyway. Everyone knew
where the foreigners lived.
Were cleaning gear and Bob was cooking some god-awful
combination he had thought up from the things on the shelf. We were glued to
the BBC.
It was months before I got back to the US
We had silence.
We never got any word at all. No heads up cell call or
email, not even through the official channels in the station that were in
microwave communication with HQ at all times.
There soon came a knock on the door. It was the land lord.
He told me “Mr. Lewis come, come.”
I let him in and followed him up the stairs to the roof.
There was a concrete room up there only accessible through my floors. The family
kept extra furniture and things up there. Whenever there was a saint’s day and
people were coming over there would be a parade of chairs through my house
coming down from the storage room. I was about to find out some more about its
uses.
The land lord took me in and started showing me something.
He was pointing out of the room to different areas on the ground. The light
came on. Fields of fire. He was showing me how to defend the house from the
firing ports in the room.
I told him I understood and he left happy as could be under
the circumstances.
We settled back in to cleaning, eating, and BBC.
There was a second knock on the door I opened it and it was
the three Jordanian Police officers from our station. They had come over
prepared to stay and protect us. Looking around at all the hardware one smiled
and said “I should have known Lewis would be ready”.
They stayed and ate with us while we listened to BBC and
tried to make some sense of the world gone mad yet again. The Jordanians were
solid guys. One was in my Investigation unit we often socialized together. Good
guys determined to stand with us if some one wanted to boost his rep by killing
Americans.
The days went by and we went back to the routine. There were
billboards posted around the city saying that the population stood with the US
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