Webmaster's note: Mike Connelly's home site, The Gray Dog, was recently put out of business by a Turkish hacker. Since none of the Dogs reads Turkish, or Arabic, or Martian, or whatever the hell that was they put on his site, it isn't clear exactly who he offended or how.

I am sorry to hear of Gray Dog's CP being overrun by a bunch of Turks. Like Rurik I once knew a little Turkish but that was more than forty years ago and the phrases I knew were mostly bar talk and bartering with the ladies who displayed their exotic charms in the windows of their business establishments in the red light districts of Istanbul. 

I was there on a NATO operation in 1962. We jumped in with our NATO allies, a small contingent of Turkish and Greek paratroopers and that was quite the experience. The Turks all looked like Sad Sacks in their baggy, heavy woolen uniforms, worn even in the heat of summer. The Greek paratroopers, on the other hand, all looked like Errol Flynn in their tailored jump uniforms and stylish berets. We suspected they had been hand picked for this operation because they were all simply too dashing and handsome, each bearing a thin, Flynn moustache, to be ordinary troops. In fact, some of us suspected they were all officers, wearing enlisted uniforms, selected by their superiors to make the Turks look especially bad by comparison.

As it turned out, the most difficult part of the operation, involving a forced march up to the Bulgarian border, was keeping the golden boy Greeks and the Sad Sack Turks from each others' throats. The Greeks all brandished deadly looking jump knives and the Turks, we discovered much to our surprise, were all locked and cocked, their weapons and ammo pouches bearing a full basic load. It got a little hairy a couple of times and I must say that the Greeks weren't just pretty boys. They were ready to take on the Turks at any moment. And the Turks, who for the most part had all the dash and pizzazz of peasant goatherders weren't intimidated in the least. Fortunately, although there were some fistfights, we were able to prevent any lethal confrontations. However, when alcohol was involved, there was no way to prevent the exuberant Turks from firing their pieces off into the starry sky just like the later Saddam Hussein and other Muslim celebrants.

The most interesting experience I had on this particular operation was in Istanbul following the field exercise. We were turned loose in Class A's to see this city before flying home. Walking down a boulevard with a couple of buddies, I noticed we were suddenly the object of attention of three gentlemen sitting in a sidewalk cafe, one of whom became very agitated, pointing to us and jabbering excitedly. We stopped, thinking as all young paratroopers do, "Hey, these Turkish assholes lookin' for a fight?"

One of them stood and approached us and enquired if we spoke Turkish. My roommate back at Fort Campbell, SP4 Charley Turbeville, replied that we did not and asked if they spoke French, which Turbeville, whose father was a foreign service officer with the state department, had learned at Portsmouth Priory. The fellow did and quickly asked us in French to join them. We seated ourselves at the table and a waiter was called to take our order, with it made clear that we were their honored guests. As we waited for the drinks, the excited fellow explained through our mutual translators that he was German, had been in the Wehrmacht in WWII. During an American airborne operation, his squad had been captured by the fierce American paratroopers wearing the eagle on their shoulders. Much to their amazement, he and his kamerads had been treated better and fed better by their American captors than their own officers and NCO's. He fervently believed he had survived that great war due entirely to the beneficence of those men who wore that screaming eagle.

Following the war, he had made his way to Turkey and taken up residence in Istanbul. From the day he had been dropped at the POW camp by his paratrooper captors he had never again seen that shoulder patch, which explained the astonishment we had first seen registered on his face as we approached the sidewalk cafe. So it turned into a jolly time with us drinking away the afternoon on this gentlemen's tab and only extricating ourselves by firmly explaining we had plans for an evening engagement with some fair Turkish damsels. We parted with much hand-shaking, back-slapping and even hugs, something young, American males were not really comfortable with back in those days.

As we walked away, I looked back, waved and then reflected that it was a good thing some of our senior NCO's who were WWII vets weren't with us; they might have spit in his drink and then killed the poor bastard. It was only eighteen years from the last European battles and there were still old vets who harbored harsh feelings against the Germans. I mentioned that to my buddies and we agreed that it might be prudent not to share this little vignette with any of those tough old birds. He may have gotten good treatment from those who had captured him but I couldn't help but think he had been lucky not to fall into the hands of some of the senior NCO's I was familiar with.

Sorry, Gray Dog, I'm sure this doesn't help your anger at your Turkish malefactors, but you never know what memories will be triggered in an Old War Dog's foggy brain by a current event.

Russ Vaughn

Contributed by Russ Vaughn on September 12, 2006 at 11:50 PM in Best of Old War Dogs, Russ Vaughn, Turkey | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: The Gray Dog

Russ,

Always a pleasure to be an inspiration. Your anecdotes read just as sweetly as your poetry. Although you beat me to the punch, I promise a "Hacked Off" post is coming soon.

Posted by: The Gray Dog | Sep 13, 2006 10:26:07 AM

Posted by: John

Sorry, Mike. Your woes were well worth the trouble, by eliciting this savory "war story" from Russ.

Posted by: John | Sep 13, 2006 6:30:04 PM