Tag Archives: Saddam Hussein

Christmas: Jeddah Saudi Arabia 1990

Other than a few hours in Mexico and a few days in Canada, I lived my entire life in the United States until December 1990.

Exactly one year before that date, I was happily living in north Georgia, working as a historic preservation planner. Then in the spring, I received a telephone call from the U.S. State Department. A position was available in a State Department’s orientation class for the U.S. Foreign Service. I had applied a couple of years before, but lawsuits within the State Department over hiring practices had put most applications on hold. I had gone on to other interests. Now hiring was beginning again.

After thinking it over a few days, I accepted and spent several months in primary training in Washington, D.C.  Then, in August, 1990, as I went into the second phase of my training, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein conquered the country of Kuwait and threatened the nearby oils fields of Saudi Arabia.

I completed my training in December as the United States considered sending troops to protect Saudi Arabia, our oil ally, and I began the journey to my first foreign assignment. I found myself wheels down in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, just as the Christmas season began back home.

I was jet lagged, had picked up the wrong luggage while exchanging planes in Riyadh, and was soon to come down with a throat infection. Nevertheless, I immediately became part of U.S. consulate Jeddah’s team. What can I say? It was physically taxing but the most marvelously exciting time of my life.

I found friends in neighborly get-to-gathers and home church services. I was tossed into adjudicating visas of those wishing to go to the U.S., my official job, but the buildup to the war effort for what would be the first Gulf war thrust me into other positions.

The consulate organized a 24-hour control center in a nearby major hotel. I worked night shifts and performed other duties, including laying out briefing materials for news people arriving from major U.S. networks. I watched senior U.S. officials welcomed in the hotel lobby.

We, the working stiffs, established rapport known only to those joining together in crisis conditions.

Unfortunately, peace efforts failed, and war would come, though quickly over as Saddam was pushed back into Iraq. Eventually, a whole new age would begin, known as the post Soviet era, with its own difficulties and shortcomings.

Nevertheless, that Christmas, thrust into instant dependence and friendship with people I had never known before, remains possibly the best Christmas I have ever had.

Pledge of Allegiance in Saudi Arabia 1991

The first Gulf War, forgotten by most Americans by now, ended when Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein were pushed out of the small country of Kuwait in February,1991. U.S. President George H. W. Bush chose not to send U.S. forces further north into Iraq but to end the war with Kuwait’s liberation.

Saddam’s forces had taken over Kuwait in August, 1990. The reason for U.S. entry into this regional conflict was fear that Saddam would continue his southern march and send his troops into Saudi Arabia’s oil fields. The Iraqi dictator would end up controlling much of the world’s oil, as well as a country we considered an ally.

I had arrived at my first diplomatic posting in December, 1990, at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The U.S. push into Kuwait began a few weeks later. To say this time was an exciting introduction to working abroad in my chosen profession is an understatement.

No one knew the outcome, of course, when I arrived in Jeddah. Understandibly, Americans, Saudis, and other nationalities greeted our victory—after a short, anxious-ridden few weeks—with jubilation.

That spring, Americans working at the consulate gathered for a Memorial Day ceremony before the consulate flag. I don’t think I’ve ever joined with fellow Americans in a more heartfelt Pledge of Allegiance.

I think about that time in our quibbling over whether some meeting or other opens with the Pledge, or whether this person or that one is patriotic enough. I see such arguments as childish quibbling. Whether one does or does not say the Pledge should be a heartfelt personal choice. We are not, I hope, some dictatorship that requires mouthing loyalty oaths.