The Foreign Service Journal, March 2003

M A R C H 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 47 Editor’s Note: Last month, we presented some of the thoughtful and moving responses to our call last November for AFSA members and their families to share brief vignettes relating to evacuations and life at posts located in danger zones. Here are more of their respons- es. Again, our thanks to all who shared their experiences. — Steven Alan Honley, Editor We’re Number One In the mid-1960s, Venezuelan guerrillas shot up Embassy Caracas, kidnapped the minister of the interior and tortured him gruesomely to death, and otherwise did their best to destabilize a still-nascent democracy. One Friday afternoon, I, a USIA press officer on my first tour, was told in an embassy meeting that I was the guerrillas’ number-one can- didate for kidnapping. I was given a cannister of mace for protection and told to vary my route to work, home and other destinations. As it happened, I was already planning to leave the next morning, with my wife and three young children, for a much-needed week’s vacation at a remote, isolated retreat on the eastern Caribbean shore. Go ahead, our security officer said — if you real- ly want to. We did, and after passing several checkpoints manned by Venezuelan soldiers who waved their submachine guns energetically, I edged our Rambler station wagon, with family inside, onto a homemade raft that was to be poled across a last river in the far boonies. The captain, a tough- looking hombre brandishing a thick pole, came to the dri- ver’s window for payment and a gruff charla (chat). The front of his T-shirt sported an emblem for elite Ministry of Interior troops; when our Charon turned and walked away (to take us further into the sticks), the back of his T-shirt was revealed: a large “1.” Shades of the Friday briefing! My wife and I exchanged looks. The crossing went well, but on finally rolling up a sandy pathway to the super-rustic Club Miami, it turned out that we were the only customers for a week under the palms. Our decent-sized one-room cabin — open plan, cots only — had wooden half-walls and screens to the roof; simple for anyone to penetrate, right? Now, where was that mace? But after a good swim and dinner that first night we were soon lulled to sleep by the quiet creep-and- retreat of the waves. A little before 2 a.m., I sat upright in the cot. A scratching sound from the other side of the half-wall contin- ued; guerrillas working toward the front door? I reached over and touched my wife’s arm. When she awoke, I put a finger to my lips, point- ed toward the half-wall and eased out of my cot to crawl on hands and knees to the wall. I inched up the wall, drew in my breath and peeked through the screen. Instead of a guerrilla with an AK-47, though, a big-horned cow was scratching his flank against the outside of the wall. The next afternoon, we watched a small biplane slip in over the palms, land on the primitive strip behind Club Miami and taxi up. Now what? Who steps out but Charlie Reed, a U.S. Air Force friend from Caracas, just checking up on us. In the end, we had a “number-one” rest, but always — then and later, especially for three years in the Soviet Union — there was the awareness of those who weren’t so lucky. Eli Flam USIA, retired Port Tobacco, Md. AFSA MEMBERS AND THEIR FAMILIES SHARE MORE EXPERIENCES RELATED TO EVACUATIONS AND LIFE AT POSTS LOCATED IN DANGER ZONES . R ECALLING P AST C RISES AND E VACUATIONS : P ART II Instead of a guerrilla with an AK-47, the noise I heard was a cow scratching his flank against our cabin.