Thursday, September 07, 2006

Why you always have a liberty buddy....

Back in the day, when we could first dive all the way into the former Warsaw Pact - at a minimum I went with on liberty with one other person, usually at least one from the EOD or SEAL det.

I'm a tall former Defensive End, and when the boss signed off on a 10 day liberty and I would stand in the train station at Livorno (Leghorn) or Trieste looking for the strangest place I could go that hundreds of other Sailors wouldn't be, no one had to tell me not to go alone. 2-4 is a good number. No more no less.

Consider; you are a female. Small female from the looks of it. Blonde hair, blue eyes. You may weigh a buck-5, buck-15 max. You are in a Muslim country. You are an American, and you are shopping with people who are supposed to be looking out for each other in Kyrgyzstan. You are under orders to not go out in town alone. You don't, but once there you - for whatever reason - wind up alone.

You are Maj. Jill Metzger, and you are now missing. OPFOR is correct; we should all pray for her. She if a female missing in one of the 'stans. She has to be tough to be a marathoner and she should have had the professional training to survive. I hope she received the training she needed and we see her again soon.

In that part of the world, they don't care if you are a marathon running USAF Major. You are just a woman. A little better than property. And they steal them.

Male, female, or otherwise - the world is mostly a cruel, mean, violent place. Keep this in mind. These things don't happen to other people - they happen to you.

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