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Daniel Hutchinson
This is your day to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our being graduated from Ben Lomond High School, in Ogden. I never thought getting old would happen so quickly.
I hope all of you have or have had a wonderful time, wish I could have been there to rub shoulders, give hugs and mingle with you dear classmates
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"Something I posted back in March of 2016, and thought I'd share it again, just to relate one of my overseas experiences. As most of you know, I lived in foreign countries for 36 years, mostly in 'so-called' Socialist countries -- that is a topic in itself, but not related to my time in the Muslim world, which was over nine years.
“I’ve come to realize that if I tell you all of my stories, there will be no need for me to attend the next reunion, because you will already know all about me!
I have another little tidbit which was exhilarating, just a possibility of some danger, but that’s what made the job fun.
I believe I told you toward the end of my career I opted to go back overseas, after spending five years at our Headquarters at Langley. I had some excellent and responsible positions. My boss wanted me to stay in Washington and assume control of a couple vital systems and operations at the headquarters level, which meant I would have been desk bound the rest of my career. The thought of this was something I just didn’t want to end my career on. I was told I could most likely have been promoted to the Senior Intelligence Service rank, which would be equivalent to general rank in the military. I have to tell you I was tempted, yet when I thought about it, what did it mean other than ego. Yes, I would have earned a few more thousand dollars in retirement annuity, but I would have been miserable. I was a ‘field man’. Being in the field gets into a person’s blood, and to be tied to a desk was tantamount to torture, in my view. I was already completing five years at Headquarters, and it was really getting to me. The politics played around the flag pole (term used for being around the big shots), was so transparently hypocritical. I was never a ‘yes-man’, and didn’t want to play the games any longer.
I won’t go over the whole thing again about my boss, the Director of Communications not wanting me to go, unless I took an assignment nobody else wanted. I eventually ended up taking the Officer-in-Charge position in Dhaka, Bangladesh, after my assignment to Monrovia, Libera was cancelled because of a civil war breaking out in Liberia. We (in the Office of Communications) almost never sent a married man to a war zone, and certainly would not send a family. So Dhaka was what was left. My family and I arrived in Dhaka, in November of 1990. The Second Gulf Storm air strikes began in Kuwait, then concentrating onto Baghdad, in January 1991, with Allied ground forces moving in in February 1991. Naturally, the U.S. were the principle contributors to the ground invasion and air strikes.
We had only arrived a little over a month before, and our household shipment was held up because of the conflict. You ask, “what did being in Bangladesh have to do with Iraq being invaded”? Since Bangladesh is 86% Muslim, there was a lot of nervousness at all of the Embassies in the Muslim world, as to what backlash toward the U.S. would the host countries unleash toward the U.S.
Our Ambassador at the time was William Milam, who was career political officer with a long list of distinguished service. Ambassador Milam was already an older man in 1990, and tended to be a grandfatherly type, always showing concern for his American Embassy staff, of which I was part of.
It was felt that any Embassy in the Islamic world which wanted to let families and non-essential personnel leave during the tumultuous times, and uncertainty if what the host country Muslims might want to do to exact revenge for their Iraqi brothers. Ambassador Milam granted ‘voluntary evacuation’ immediately after the invasion of Iraq began.
I was considered essential, as were the principle officers of the Embassy, so we remained. Jane being Bolivian, had seen many civil disturbances in her country over the years, and said “I’m not going anywhere, if you’re staying, I’m staying with you”. We really didn’t expect too much trouble, otherwise I would have sent Jane and the kids out of country.
We did go to lock down and established emergency procedures. I was asked to take our ‘typical’ emergency communications package, which was a portable satellite system which fit in a couple of those silver metal ‘zero’ type suit cases. In order to afford the equipment some protection it had to be housed in someone’s home with Diplomatic status. Normally we had these packages either in the Ambassador’s Residence, or at the residence of the Chief of Station. In this case, since I had diplomatic status, and I lived in close proximity to the Embassy, I had the package at my house. Should the preverbal ‘stuff hit the fan’, we could most likely get our people out to my place, if evacuation was needed, and I could communicate with Washington away from the Embassy. We had this ability everywhere in the world in the event communications was denied from the Embassy, or if some reason the Embassy was over-run or destroyed.
I had a young woman working for me who was single. A former Marine herself, the only thing that distinguished her from a man, was her physical appearance. She was a tough gal; someone who caused me all sorts of grief over the few months I had been with her in Dhaka. Her name was Jane (just a coincidence to my wife’s name). The Marines at the Embassy called her “Jungle Jane”. I had her take up 24 hours residence in the Communications Center in the Embassy, to keep normal communications going with Washington. I remained at my home with the emergency radio package, and would go into Embassy a couple times a day to make sure Jungle Jane was alright, that she had enough to eat and drink. She actually did a pretty good job in my absence, which didn’t require I be away from the emergency radio for long.
The day the invasion occurred they delivered my Air Freight, a small shipment we were allowed to help make our lives a bit more comfortable, with items which we couldn’t take in our suit cases on the airplane. I had a few comfort item but we never got any of our Christmas items in time for Christmas, and thank goodness one of the Embassy Officers loaned me a small Christmas tree with some trimmings which made for a nice Christmas for my kids.
So back to invasion day, with most of the Embassy personnel gone, the Embassy was running on a Skelton crew, the essential personnel. About a mile from the Embassy in one of three upscale housing suburbs of Dhaka, was the location for the U.S. Embassy Association Club. The club was in a large house, with a very large yard, with tennis courts, large swimming pool, and some nice outdoor BBQ and bar areas. We had Horse Shoe pits, and a very nice dining area. The club was very well known to the local people, so it was a target, if there was going to be any trouble.
There was an isolated mob which we identified as being paid by the Iraqis to attack the Embassy. Each of the mob members were paid 50 cents to act as though they were angry with the U.S. over the invasion of Iraq. We termed it a ‘rent-a mob’. The Embassy in Dhaka, is called the Red Fort, after the famed Red Fort in India. The Embassy was a new building/compound very solid with tight security. We had had razor wire strung around the top of the 16 foot walls, and the perimeter wall was a couple feet thick. The only damage the ‘rent-a-mob’ could do was break off a few of the external light fixture, and throw a few rocks over the wall. They soon got frustrated then decided to go attack the Embassy Club, which had a wall, but with a battering ram, it was easy to gain entry. The mob went in and threw all of the pool furniture into the pool, broke a bunch of windows, and threw stuff around inside, we knew they were a mob that really didn’t hate the U.S. but were a rent-a-mob, because the damage they did was superficial. The club had several computers around in the various offices, and not one of them was stolen or damaged. The statement was made, but we knew then, the Muslims in Bangladesh, didn’t have all that much solidarity with their Iraqi brothers.
After about three weeks, things calmed down to where the Ambassador gave his OK for people to return. What many of them learned, is the Embassy officers and USAID Officers, who left on voluntary evacuation were charged annual leave, since it was voluntary. That sure upset a bunch of them. They thought the evacuation would be a freebee.
I wanted to tell you about a couple of exciting operations I was involved with related to our attempts to recruit a couple of Iraqis working in the Iraqi Embassy in Bangladesh, but this tidbit is getting too long, so I guess I’ll have to save that story for another time.”
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