Many of you have read in Serge's bio page on the disk or here on the web site reminiscences by one of the sailors on his ship.  Recently Peter Basilevsky, Helen's younger brother, sent the following two items:

from Peter Basilevsky:
" I remember in 1990 having lunch with him, my mother and Gail at their apartment in Moscow where he regaled us with his various adventures including being in Tehran during the Khomeini revolution. He was also gracious enough to invite me, my wife and my son Alexis (then 5 and 1/2) to attend a change of command ceremony in 1982 in Newport as he was leaving command of his frigate. Our tour of his ship made a deep impression on my son who still has the autographed picture of Serge's ship."

Peter also passed on this:
Serge was a NILO (Naval intelligence liason officer) in Vietnam and served in the Mekong Delta region. He nearly bought the farm while shaving one day in the field when a RPG buzzed by his head.  But his worst time according to him was when he was invited to a dinner honoring the local Vietnamese Army commander. Apparently, as he entered the restaurant he was required to pop a "thousand year old egg" into his mouth and eat it. Apparently, this was an egg with a chick in it about ready to be born which is then buried so that it can "ripen".  Obviously to have declined would have been a great insult and a loss of face so poor Serge went ahead and consumed it. He told me it was one of the worst experiences of his life since throwing up would have been much worse than declining the invitation to imbibe the delicacy.  Clearly his diplomatic skills surfaced early in his career.