All gone.
So, in another lifetime when I was in the Air Force, I was a fighter jet mechanic. Hmmm, on one of these, actually:
Ah, those were the days: burning your hands on sizzling hot cockpit rails, banging into pointy drains on the underside, trying to kick chocks out from tires when the pilot isn't applying the brakes...but I digress.
At the time I was fixing these gorgeous flying machines, the US was also selling the same airplanes to the Iranian military and we were training Iranian pilots and mechanics so we could send them back to their own country and use them for...um, their own war stuff. We would see the young, swarthy men in the chow hall, the BX and the Base clubs. They had a unique way of trying to seduce what I'm sure they thought of as sex-mad American women. "You will come to my room, yes?" they would ask. "I have cigarettes, I have liquor;" (both forbidden [as well as adultery] by the Muslim religion.) They tried so hard! And on the flightline, they were so adorable in their chauvinism. I would be up on top of my plane, pulling a panel or replacing a light, and they would climb up and watch me at work. They begged me to let them help but, of course, I couldn't let them; they weren't trained and it was my responsibility to get the job done right. Or maybe it wasn't that they wanted to do the work for me so much as to just sit up there with me and my t-shirted Large American Breasts. Whatever, those young men were sweetly amusing.
Now, thirty years later, I work with a gentleman from Tehran ( the well-dressed fellow I referred to a couple of days ago.) He asked about my military service and if it was in the 70's. I told him that yes, it was that long ago and we talked about how it had been just before the revolution, when the Ayatollah came to power; that was about the time he had come to America, too. I told him about training those young Iranian soldiers. "Yes, yes," he said, "I remember those days. You know, they are probably all dead now."
I wasn't sure what he meant, because they had been the same age as me. "Really?" I asked.
"Yes. All dead." And then he pantomimed a machine gun. "Executed. During the Revolution."
Major. Conversation. Damper.
Ah, those were the days: burning your hands on sizzling hot cockpit rails, banging into pointy drains on the underside, trying to kick chocks out from tires when the pilot isn't applying the brakes...but I digress.
At the time I was fixing these gorgeous flying machines, the US was also selling the same airplanes to the Iranian military and we were training Iranian pilots and mechanics so we could send them back to their own country and use them for...um, their own war stuff. We would see the young, swarthy men in the chow hall, the BX and the Base clubs. They had a unique way of trying to seduce what I'm sure they thought of as sex-mad American women. "You will come to my room, yes?" they would ask. "I have cigarettes, I have liquor;" (both forbidden [as well as adultery] by the Muslim religion.) They tried so hard! And on the flightline, they were so adorable in their chauvinism. I would be up on top of my plane, pulling a panel or replacing a light, and they would climb up and watch me at work. They begged me to let them help but, of course, I couldn't let them; they weren't trained and it was my responsibility to get the job done right. Or maybe it wasn't that they wanted to do the work for me so much as to just sit up there with me and my t-shirted Large American Breasts. Whatever, those young men were sweetly amusing.
Now, thirty years later, I work with a gentleman from Tehran ( the well-dressed fellow I referred to a couple of days ago.) He asked about my military service and if it was in the 70's. I told him that yes, it was that long ago and we talked about how it had been just before the revolution, when the Ayatollah came to power; that was about the time he had come to America, too. I told him about training those young Iranian soldiers. "Yes, yes," he said, "I remember those days. You know, they are probably all dead now."
I wasn't sure what he meant, because they had been the same age as me. "Really?" I asked.
"Yes. All dead." And then he pantomimed a machine gun. "Executed. During the Revolution."
Major. Conversation. Damper.