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Ah, Egypt and the Pyramids!

When I was in the USN my ship visited Alexandria, Egypt in 1977, and on day one, I had Shore Patrol duty...

Hahaha...I was just checking the date in the cruise book to see if it was in 1977 (not 1978) and I saw this picture-I swear this has to be me (I never noticed it all these years):

The second time I went on liberty (we were there for four days, IIRC) I went on a tour to visit the pyramids.

It took us two or three hours to get there IIRC, and all of it was through the desert, and you could occasionally see antiaircraft sites. When we got there, part of the tour went to some museums, and I swear, I was nearly cross-eyed and dizzy from Egyptian artifacts, room after room, glass case after glass case until my eyes turned glassy...heiroglyphs, scarab beetle things, I could not absorb one more thing!

When we went to the pyramids, it was impressive. Back then, it was legal and allowed to climb on the pyramids, so of course, anyone who was anyone had to take a stab at it. The blocks at the bottom were larger, IIRC you had to hoist yourself up on the first few, but after that, you could kind of climb them. The problem was, as you went further up, the stones became progressively rounded and crumbly, with grit and sand on them.

I got a few levels up, and in a flash of realization, understood that if I slipped, I was going to go all the way down the side of that pyramid and get killed, if not badly hurt. I gingerly climbed down, and that was that.

I have heard that a tourist was killed in just this fashion some years ago, and they banned climbing it after that on the basis that they were precious antiquities.

It was funny-they had all these guys with camels, and if you had a camera, they would invite you to get on, and offer to take a picture of you. I handed the guy my new Minolta SLR-202 and climbed up. He took my picture, and then demanded money to let me climb off. I swear, I felt like I was sitting on top of a building on top of that camera, it was damned high up. But no way I was going to pay ransom money, so I found a way to jump down as the camel fidgeted, and then the guy didn't want to give my camera back until I paid money. No way I was going to do that, either, and retrieved my camera.

The next time I went on liberty, I loaded up with a combination lock, ball point pens, and some other things thinking I could trade them for some kind of souvenir, but it wasn't even close. They weren't going to part with anything for a trinket I offered (especially not things like ballpoint pens) and it was an eight year old kid I was bartering with. When I offered, he looked at an old lady there who silently shook her head to say "No." I have to admit, I felt pretty stupid for even thinking that would work.

The last time I went on Liberty in Alexandria, there was an open invitation to the crew of the JFK to attend a party at the USMC quarters for the embassy. Now, I have to tell you...when I heard that it was open house while I was ashore one night with a buddy, we said "Okay..let's go!" I thought there would be a thousand guys there in...how they were going to accomplish that, I didn't know. Maybe I thought it would be a soccer field on the grounds of the embassy or something like that...I was clueless, but my friend and I took a horse drawn carriage over...told them where to take us and away we went.

The cart looked like this, and we were having a grand time!

However, the ride over was notable for two reasons: First, as we went clip-clopping along the shore road, a guy ran up and jumped up on the side of the carriage, holding up a half empty bottle of amber fluid which I presumed was some kind of liquor. He was very animated giving his pitch, and there was no way we were going to buy it from him, but before we could refuse, the driver turned, and cursing (I presume) put his hand right over the guy's face, and gave him a good shove that caused him to tumble into to the road!

Second, a little further up, there was a guy in the road. He was a skeletal man, wearing a filthy loincloth and nothing else and was dragging himself across the paved road. You could see his legs, which appeared to be paralyzed as he was dragging them, had red bloody abrasions on them on his legs and feet. He was a most pitiful sight.

But instead of stopping to let him cross, the oncoming driver slammed on his brakes to bring his screeching car to a stop, and both he and our driver (as well as all the drivers of other vehicles) leaned out their windows and began to scream at this invalided guy dragging himself across the road, and it was pretty obvious Arabic invective likely saying "GET THE F**K OUT OF THE ROAD AND STOP HOLDING UP TRAFFIC YOU PIECE OF SH*T!" (at least that was what we guessed he was saying, and we were kind of horrified and embarrassed by this display of inhumanity!). To our Western minds, this was an indelible scene.

After a short ride we arrived at the compound where the Embassy Marines were quartered, it was huge walled estate with a few buildings on it and a lot of vegetation. I was fairly lit by that time, and it was dark when we got there, but I do remember walking into that place. My memory is flawed here, because I have seen it in my thoughts so many times that I have no idea if it is reality or not. I remember going through a gate in what appeared to be a 10 foot high turquoise painted, cracked concrete wall. No broken glass or barbed wire on top of the wall. Anyone could have climbed over. I remember vegetation and some walkways inside what I guess had to be a couple of acres at least, maybe even three or four. I also remember a lot of alcohol of all types flowing very freely. I thought the whole ship's company would have showed up, but I have to guess it was less than 100 people total, which was still a lot of people in that space. To be honest, it could have been 400 people in 4 acres...the logistics seemed impossible to me.

But the most memorable part of that night was when I went to the bathroom. There was this little closet sized bathroom with a porcelain toilet in the outside wall side of the room, with two dinky little beat up aqua colored shutters right over the toilet at just below eye level.

The sink was full of unmentionable things...as was the floor. Anyway, I am relieving myself, one hand on the wall to stay upright, and I hear someone talking on the other side of those little shutters. Someone is getting chewed out, and I mean, royally.

Being curious, I lazily reach over, open the shutters over the top of the toilet and peer out. There is a big, muscular black guy chewing this baby faced blond haired guy out. Heck, I am 19 or 20, and even to me that blonde kid looked like a kid. And this black guy swivels his head to look at me and says "If you don't close that window and mind your own business, you're going to be sorry." (or something to that effect)

Man, I shut those shutters quick. It was SGTMAJ Douglass, the Top. Sergeant of the Marine detachment on the JFK. (I don't know if he was SGTMAJ at that time). In 1983, he was the ranking enlisted man killed in the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.