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Letter from Bahrain
A Redondo reservist writes home
Capt. Jeff Cameron of the Redondo Police Department is a naval reserve officer who was called to serve in early November. Easy Readerwill publish his occasional dispatches.
15 December 2001
Dear Family and Friends:
The "fresh cut" Christmas trees arrived at the Ship's Store (base exchange) on November 28. I am not sure where they came from, perhaps the USA, but they look like I felt after the trip here.
So Christmas is in full swing at NSA Bahrain. The base is decorated, albeit desert style, with plastic candy canes lining walkways and ornaments in the palm trees. From time-to-time a Marine guard can be seen in full gear, M16 or better -- peace on earth? Not this year. Regardless, Santa and his camel visited a couple of weeks ago.
Even some of the buildings in town (Manama) are decked out in Christmas lights. Our hotel, owned by the Royal Family, is decorated (sans a Christmas tree). All of this is kind of weird to see in an Arab world. But then again, Bahrain is perhaps the most liberal of Islamic states (government-wise anyway; more on that later) and they cater to visitors, i.e. make a dinar (buck) on tourism.
The Miami Dolphin cheerleaders were here too, attracting more attention than Santa and his camel. Jim and I bumped into a few of them at the souq (large shopping area). The very attractive, obviously American, ladies were sightseeing and shopping while sporting their Miami Dolphin T-shirts. That was a visual contrast in cultures.
And my friend from the Naval War College, LCDR Bill Alex, called on my day off a couple of weeks ago. Bill was in transit back to his ship. We had a nice dinner and a couple of beers. It was good to see Bill.
The three US forward locations for Central Command in the region are Saudi Arabia for air, Kuwait for ground troops and Navy from Bahrain. The Fifth Fleet is headquartered here.
Let's see, what else might be of interest to you? A couple of commercial ships pulled into port and tied-up next to our pier. One, a huge ship, carried 6,000 new cars. The other, the Al-Kuwait, transports live sheep throughout the Gulf -- 125,000 live sheep doing what live sheep do on eight open air decks (above the main deck). With the weather being warm and humid, it gave a whole new meaning to STINK. They dropped off about 20,000 sheep here in trucks carrying 200 each. A sheep ship pulls in every couple of weeks. The human population in Bahrain is 650,000. I am doing the math...
Jim and I recently visited the archaeological site of the Bahrain Fort, a fascinating example of a fortress complex. The site is considered one of the most important relics in the Arabian Gulf as it contains ruins of Dilmun Civilization city settlements, dating back to the period falling between 2800 BC and 450 BC.
Back to the religious, geo-political discussion. The political scientists must be having a field day. Competing interests are clearly visible in this part of the world. On one hand we see the activities of militant Islamic extremists. On the other we witness democratic reforms in countries such as Bahrain. Headline in the Bahrain Tribune Monday, December 3, 2001 (Ramadhan 18, 1422): "5 municipal councils formed", and "Voting rights for women, resident GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) nationals." On the next page is an article hailing His Highness (H.H) the Amir, Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, as among the foremost reform leaders in the Gulf and Arab world. "The democratic development he initiated was unparalleled in the 1990s" according to a book recently published in Cairo.
But you need not go far for a different experience. One of my fellow agents, assigned with a team in Qatar for a few days, was pulled over by police and yanked out of the car for what I will call DWW - driving while a woman. Competing interests -- talk about managing in turbulent times!
Well, enough of that. As the line in the movie "Bull Durham" goes, "I am just glad to be here, happy to make a contribution to the team and God willing everything will work out all right."
I guess I have written about all you can take in one email. I sincerely wish you a very Merry Christmas. Thank you so much for your continuing support - we need it.
KWTF — Jeff
(Commander Cameron as of 01DEC01)