Tom Glenn's Blog, page 22

Barista

As readers of my blog know, I worked my way through college at the University of California, Berkeley. I generally had to change jobs every semester because my class hours changed. So I had many different jobs over the four years.

Perhaps the most unusual was that of a barista in an espresso house, called Il Piccolo Espresso, close to campus. I got the job because I spoke Italian. I had taught myself both French and Italian as a child. Those were two of the seven languages I ended up using in my work as a signals intelligence specialist working for the National Security Agency (NSA).

These were mid-1950s, before espresso was popular or even known to the general public in the U.S. The customers were almost all Italian immigrants. They were intrigued by my Italian, especially since so much of it was operatic—I was an inveterate opera fan who took the train to San Francisco, just across the bay, every Sunday during the opera season to buy a three-dollar standing room ticket for the matinée.

As it turned out, my time working at Il Piccolo Espresso was valuable training for my later career, that of a linguist in the signals intelligence business. It was also the job I enjoyed most during my college years. Even now, all these years later, I remember those days fondly.

Firebird Book Award

I’ve just learned that my 2014 novel, No-Accounts, is a 2022 winner of the Speak Up Talk Radio Firebird Book Award. That news is particularly rewarding because No-Accounts is an oddball among my books. I wrote it because I was deeply moved by my experience of caring for men dying of AIDS. Here’s the background:

Between 1962 and 1975, I spent more time on the battlefields of Vietnam than I did in the U.S. As a consequence, I developed an acute case of Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI). Over time, I realized that to help me cope with that disorder, I needed to focus my attention not on myself but on others who needed my help.

Meanwhile, by the early 1980s, the AIDS epidemic was becoming severe. Men were dying on the street because we didn’t know how AIDS was transmitted from person to person, and people were afraid to touch those infected. I couldn’t tolerate the widespread panic that left men to die unattended, so I volunteered at the Whitman-Walker Clinic, a gay organization in Washington, D.C., to care for men dying of AIDS. I was the only straight volunteer in the group. By the time, some five years later, that we learned how to prevent death from AIDS, I had cared for seven men, all gay, who died of the disease. I was so moved that I wrote the novel, No-Accounts, about a straight man caring for a gay man dying of AIDS.

The book was a major departure for me. Nearly all my other writings (five books and 17 short stories) are drawn from my experiences on the battlefield, particularly in Vietnam. And No-Accounts has now won as many prizes as my most popular book, Last of the Annamese, which tells the story of the fall of Saigon from which I escaped under fire after the North Vietnamese were already in the streets of the city.

Recognition of No-Accounts throws light on a little-known part of my life, time spent caring for the less fortunate. After my years of looking after AIDS patients, I spent two years as a volunteer working with the homeless, then seven years of caring for the dying in the Gilchrist hospice system.

To say that the experience of caring for the dying enriched my life is putting it mildly.

My Ancestry

My family antecedents were, on the whole, a humble lot. As I have written here before, my lawyer father went to prison for embezzlement when I was a child. He was in and out of jail throughout my youth, forged checks against my bank account when I was in college, and died in a bar brawl. My mother was an alcoholic and heavy smoker who, long since separated from my father, died just before him of lung cancer.

Their parents weren’t much better. All I remember of my father’s father was that he was a sour, nasty old man without much to say. His wife, my grandmother, was a self-pitying old lady who blamed her husband for her unhappy life. I never knew my mother’s father, Ben Dunman, who died long before I was born, but he was notable enough to have a school named after him in Mullens, West Virginia. My mother’s mother, Ora, took care of me as an infant on her farm in the hills near Mullens.

I know nothing of my ancestors further back. I faintly remember hearing that my paternal grandparents moved to Los Angeles—where from I don’t know—before my father was born. My mother spoke of her family coming from England before the American Revolution but gave me no details.

My lack of notable progenitors only redoubled my feelings as a youth of having to depend on myself. Because of my parents’ neglect, I sometimes found myself without enough food or clothing. I took jobs as early as I could to earn money to feed and clothe myself. I worked as a paper boy, delivery boy from a drug store, restaurant busboy, and, eventually, a waiter. Determined to get an education, I worked twenty hours a week while I was in college and missed my graduation ceremony because I was in the university hospital suffering from exhaustion. I went on to become a linguist (seven languages) and spy and was promoted to the top of the government executive service. That allowed me to retire thirty years ago with a generous annuity so that I could write fulltime. I now have six books and 17 short stories in print.

Not bad for a neglected child with no notable forerunners.

Hong Kong Names

Several times over the years, I’ve devoted blog posts to Asian place names which continue to fascinate me. And I’ve written here about my love for the city of Hong Kong, where I visited every chance I got during my years in the Far East. I loved the city, then under British control—it returned to Chinese jurisdiction in 1997 and has since lost its colorful character. It was the commercial capitol of Asia where I bought many of the treasures that still decorate my house.

The British colony consisted of the island of Hong Kong and its adjacent segment on the mainland named Kowloon. My linguistic spirit was fascinated by these two names, so I learned all I could about them.

The two characters for Hong Kong are

In Chinese Mandarin (the accepted national dialect), they are pronounced syang gang. That means “perfumed harbor.” The characters for Kowloon are

They mean “nine dragons.” I was unsuccessful in trying to find the Mandarin pronunciation for Kowloon or an explanation of why it is referred to as “nine dragons.”

The old days of Hong Kong are gone. The Chinese Communists have stripped the residents of their freedoms and, in the process, deprived the city of its charm. It is now just one more dull town populated by the powerless.

As much as I mourn the loss, I still have and relish my treasures from Hong Kong. A ceramic temple dog, ceramic and wooden garden seats, a large painting of a tiger, and many more prized possessions still grace my house. My memories comfort me.

Criminal Punishment

I continue to rail about the ways in which the U.S. fails to adjust to modern democratic practices, particularly when it comes to punishment for crimes. We have the highest prison and jail population (2,121,600 in adult facilities in 2016, the most recent year for which I could find figures), and the highest incarceration rate in the world (655 per 100,000 population in 2016). And the U.S. is the only G7 country where capital punishment is legal. Methods of executing prisoners in use in the U.S. are hanging, electrocution, the gas chamber, firing squad, and lethal injection.

What are the alternatives to incarceration? Probation, enforced restitution, community service, and enforced rehabilitative services.  And to capital punishment? Long incarceration, including until death.

Does more severe punishment reduce our crime rate? No. U.S. crime rates for the three violent crimes (homicide, rape, robbery) are several times higher than the averages for reporting European countries. According to one source, the U.S. homicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 population compared to Europe’s less than 2 per 100,000.

I have no idea why we have a higher incarceration and execution rate than the G7 countries and at the same time have more crime. Visitors to our country sometimes accuse us of being people addicted to violence. I can offer no evidence to prove them wrong.

Asian Screens

I’ve written here several times about the objets d’art I collected during my years of travel as an intelligence operative. Some of the pieces come from places I can’t claim to have ever been—like the watercolor of the Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine. I was able to get the fact that I was in Vietnam conducting signals intelligence on the battlefield declassified, but where I went, who I worked with, and what I did in other parts of the world after 1975 is still secret.

Two of the objects of unidentified origin are folding screens. One, made up of five panels, each 18 inches wide, is quite plain and undecorated. Just five feet high and constructed of wood of a medium brown, its slats are adjusted by a round button at the top of each panel.

The other screen is much more elaborate. It consists of four panels almost six feet tall and 20 inches wide. It is a darker brown, and every inch of it is meticulously carved. Portrayed in its intricate sculpture is stylized leaves, branches, and berries. The pattern the carving forms on each panel shows the two sides mirroring each other.

It’s now been so long since I acquired the screens that I don’t remember where they came from. I searched both for any writing that might give me a hint of their origin. No luck. But since screens are much more common in Asia than in the west, my best guess is that that’s where they originated.

I don’t much care where the screens came from. What’s important to me is that in their balance and placidity, they offer me a quiet peacefulness at odds with most of my memorabilia. So many of the objects I gathered over the years bring back memories of the battlefield.

Here are two that speak only of peace.

Asian Screens

I’ve written here several times about the objets d’art I collected during my years of travel as an intelligence operative. Some of the pieces come from places I can’t claim to have ever been—like the watercolor of the Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine. I was able to get the fact that I was in Vietnam conducting signals intelligence on the battlefield declassified, but where I went, who I worked with, and what I did in other parts of the world after 1975 is still secret.

Two of the objects of unidentified origin are folding screens. One, made up of five panels, each 18 inches wide, is quite plain and undecorated. Just five feet high and constructed of wood of a medium brown, its slats are adjusted by a round button at the top of each panel.

The other screen is much more elaborate. It consists of four panels almost six feet tall and 20 inches wide. It is a darker brown, and every inch of it is meticulously carved. Portrayed in its intricate sculpture is stylized leaves, branches, and berries. The pattern the carving forms on each panel shows the two sides mirroring each other.

It’s now been so long since I acquired the screens that I don’t remember where they came from. I searched both for any writing that might give me a hint of their origin. No luck. But since screens are much more common in Asia than in the west, my best guess is that that’s where they originated.

I don’t much care where the screens came from. What’s important to me is that in their balance and placidity, they offer me a quiet peacefulness at odds with most of my memorabilia. So many of the objects I gathered over the years bring back memories of the battlefield.

Here are two that speak only of peace.

Vote: Democracy Is at Risk

The Republican Party has become a danger to our democracy. It no longer promotes conservative views—that what we have or had in the past is preferable to what we could have in the future. It now favors restoration to power of Donald Trump, the most autocratic politician of my long life. It pretends, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that Trump really won the 2020 election and that Biden’s victory is fraudulent.  The GOP is pushing nearly 500 bills in 49 states to suppress the right to vote, arguing that preventing citizens from voting is really cleaning up voting fraud.

President Joe Biden put it very well recently when he talked about the fight for the soul of the nation. It’s time for us all to show up at the polls and protect our democracy.

Fortunately, I vote by mail. So the Maryland State Board of Elections already mailed me my long and complex ballot for the national, state, and local elections. I filled it out and mailed it back immediately. And the board has now informed me by email that my ballot has been received. And it sent me a sticker that I can proudly display:

I urge all to get out and vote. If there’s any question, get ahold of your elections board and be sure you’re registered. This is the most important election of our lives.

So don’t leave anything to chance: get out there and vote!

Review of Benghazi!

I mentioned earlier that my review of Ethan Chorin’s Benghazi! is now available online. You can read it at https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/benghazi-a-new-history-of-the-fiasco-that-pushed-america-and-its-world-to-the-brink

The book tells the story of brutal attacks just over ten years ago in the city of Benghazi in Libya. Quoting from the review, “On September 11, 2012, the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia launched the first of two attacks against United States government facilities in Benghazi, Libya. The first assault, at 9:40 a.m., was against the American diplomatic compound. It killed both U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith. Then, around 4 a.m. the next morning, the group struck again, launching a mortar attack against a CIA annex a mile away, killing two CIA contractors, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty, and wounding 10 others.”

The book had a profound emotional effect on me because the story reminded me so vividly of what I lived through during the thirteen years that I spent more time in Vietnam than I did in the U.S. And so much that happened in Benghazi sounded like the final days of Saigon in April 1975 when I and the two communicators who were holed up with me were subjected to continuous shelling, first rockets, then artillery. I finally succeeded in getting my two guys out by helicopter on the afternoon of April 29. I escaped that night under fire after the North Vietnamese were already in the streets of the city.

Because of my time in combat and living through shelling, I suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI). That means, among other things, that detailed descriptions, like those in Benghazi!, of fighting on the battlefield awaken in me the symptoms of PTSI— irrational rages, panic attacks, nightmares, flashbacks, and depression. But because of my background and expertise, I am repeatedly given for review books about war. So I have trained myself to react more calmly.

And I have no complaints. I’m proud of my time spent in combat and the lives I saved with the signals intelligence I provided. That pride is more important than the wounds to my soul that combat inflicted.

I’m content.

Saudi Arabia

I am deeply disturbed that the U.S. continues to treat Saudi Arabia as a friendly nation. First and foremost among the reasons not to befriend Saudi Arabia is, of course, its October 2, 2018, murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist and contributor to the Washington Post, critical of Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and de facto ruler, known as MBS. Khashoggi was assassinated by agents of the Saudi government at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Khashoggi was ambushed and strangled by a 15-member squad of Saudi assassins. His body was dismembered and disposed of.

But Khashoggi’s murder was not the first or only homicide committed by MBS. Rape, murder, apostasy, sedition, sorcery, armed robbery, adultery, and drug trafficking are all punishable by death in Saudi Arabia. In the first six months of 2022, Saudi Arabia executed 120 people, nearly double the number put to death in all of last year despite MBS’s promises to reduce capital punishment. That compares to eleven executed so far this year in the U.S., a country almost ten times as populous as Saudi Arabia. Capital punishment has been completely abolished in all European countries except for Belarus and Russia, the latter of which has a moratorium and has not conducted an execution since September 1996.

MBS’s authoritarian regime is consistently ranked among the “worst of the worst” in Freedom House’s annual survey of political and civil rights. Saudi Arabia is one of approximately thirty countries in the world with judicial corporal punishment. In Saudi Arabia’s case, this includes amputations of hands and feet for robbery, and flogging for lesser crimes such as “sexual deviance” and drunkenness.

Saudi Arabia uses its huge oil reserves to bend other nations to its will. It has now teamed up with Russia to cut oil production to force prices up and worsen inflation, particularly in the U.S. As a result, President Biden is (finally) considering curtailing its arms sales to MBS, including $3 billion in Patriot missiles.

The time has come for the U.S. to withdraw its support for the rogue nations of the world. Let Saudi Arabia head the list.