Coconut's Journey (eBook)

Christopher Anthony Chavez (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
516 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-1174-7 (ISBN)

Infos

As a child, I thought I was white; everyone around me was white. I was completely immersed in the culture. Junior high was a reeducation camp that was a torturous, racist gulag. The world I had grown up in became unfamiliar and threatening. Neither Anglos nor Mexicans saw me as one of their own. The Mexicans saw a Pocho; can't speak Spanish and too assimilated into the white culture. The Anglos saw a wetback; someone who would never be an equal. My career was filled with optimism, advancement, and success; until I found myself in the Cradle of the Confederacy, where Anglos silently smirk or laugh at our truth while blocking advancement and extinguishing careers because we have the wrong racial pedigree. Pinche gringos will never understand how we see Anglos in power; they neither believe nor accept our reality, a reality filled with concealed racism and arrogant disdain. In the end, there is no redemption, no comforting justice for us, only the quiet echo of inequality. There are many good people on this earth to whom I owe much. But there are just as many-if not more-evil, morally corrupt Peckerwoods ready to limit us to cleaning their toilets and tending their fields.

A 36-year veteran of working within the international arms transfer community, as a government program manager, a defense contractor, and as a senior advisor to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Air Force and Air Defense, Chris Chavez has held numerus positions within the international security assistance ecosystem. after leaving the Army, he spent nearly a decade supporting US combat forces in Europe and the United States as a weapon systems technical advisor. He later performed on-the-ground oversight of air and missile defense Foreign Military Sales programs in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, receiving Department of the Army recognition for fielding PATRIOT to the Royal Saudi Air Defense Forces. He later created and led a PATRIOT and THAAD contractor advisory team for the UAE for almost a decade. He founded a security assistance consulting firm-Strategic Consultants Group, Inc-after his return to the States. He and his wife live in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

---

I cannot imagine a more idyllic childhood than growing up on the California Central Coast. Rolling hills filled with one-hundred-year-old oak trees, beaches wrapped in the hot rod and surfer cultures of the time, Beach Boys music in the background, and weather like no other place on earth. Childhood summers filled with adventures that sometimes involved running through green lawns and sprinklers. Adolescence was a real life "e;American Graffiti"e; existence. But as I approached my preteen years, I was introduced to the town's dark underbelly. A blackness concealed under the Norman Rockwell veneer. My memories struggle with this paradox; a loving, beautiful place, together with sometimes overwhelming intolerance. After the Army my work took us throughout the United States, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The racism of my youth was seldom seen, until we found ourselves in the Heart of the Confederacy. I found that decades of hard work and preparation meant nothing. I was met with what amounted to the shrugging of shoulders and a raised middle finger; my government career was dead. In the end, there is no redemption, no comforting justice, only the quiet echo of inequality. I longed for the simple times and simple things of the Central Coast.

Textauszug

RESCUE
(1995)

“Men want a battle to fight, an adventure to live,
and a beauty to rescue....”

–John Eldredge

I sat in a web seat, engines droning, aircraft vibrating all around me, with constant activity in front of me. Rosa was strapped to a medical litter secured to brackets in the center of the C130 Hercules. She was being attended to by what seemed like every member of the medical air crew. I was tired. We took off in a steep climb; not exactly a tactical takeoff, but close. The Hercules flew us away from the nightmare we had been living for the last 30-days. Riyadh dropped away in the distance; its lights fading as we climbed. US Air Force medical personnel—in their battle dress uniforms—hovered near Rosa, ready to do whatever was necessary to make her comfortable. I leaned my head back against the fuselage, closed my eyes, and thanked God for these men and women. They were taking Rosa to a place where she could get well. She was in good hands. The hum of the engines was a comfortable reminder that we had successfully taken control.

...

In 1991, I had accepted a promotion to become the US Army Missile Command (MICOM) in-country field office chief for the newly-established Saudi Foreign Military Sales (FMS) PATRIOT Air and Missile Defense System Program. We had relocated from Cairo where I had been the Chief for the Air Defense Management Office, Office of Military Cooperation, at the American Embassy. Cairo was our great adventure; we lived there for almost three years. During Desert Shield / Desert Storm, the Saudi government signed an FMS case (country-to-country contract) through which MICOM would deliver the first of many firing batteries of PATRIOT to the Royal Saudi Air Defense Forces (RSADF). Other units would ultimately be delivered under subsequent FMS cases. I directed and was responsible for all activities in-Kingdom as well as having oversight of both civilian and military staff that were part of the field office in both Riyadh and Jeddah.

We lived with other US Government personnel on a very nice compound on what would have been considered—then—the outskirts of Riyadh. Within those compound walls was an American neighborhood...only better. The quality of life was exceptional. The villas (houses) were separate and large (our three-bedroom villa was probably around 4000 square feet) and had “servant quarters” for a live-in maid if desired. Amenities included swimming pools, health and fitness center, outdoor and indoor basketball courts, soccer fields, racquetball and squash courts, small supermarket, playgrounds, tennis courts, preschool, restaurants, beauty salon, coffee shops, barbeque areas, book & video libraries, and, most importantly, a Class VI store (booze). Armed Forces Radio and Television Service was satellited-in from Europe. We were supported in every way by the “deployed” US military structure. This was extensive as there was still a very large US military presence in-Kingdom. It would take a few years for the US to redeploy the massive assets they had there for Desert Storm.

...

In March 1995, Rosa woke up one morning in excruciating pain in her chest. After several hours of cycling—good-to-bad-to-good-to-bad-again—I took her to the local American medical clinic that supported us. And so began one of the most stressful journeys of our life. It turned-out that Rosa had experienced a “spontaneous pneumothorax”; a collapsed lung. For something as serious as this, the local US support facility could not handle it; so, we had to rely on the Saudi Ministry of Defense hospital for care. And that was our entrance to the abyss. The area of the hospital Rosa ultimately ended up in was the best money could buy; rooms with marble floors, superior facilities, 1st class appearances throughout. But unfortunately, the staff’s medical skill-level was several decades behind Western medicine. They had 1st class facilities, but their staff was neither trained to Western standards, nor did their doctors have state-of-the-art skills. But before we got to that place in our journey, we had to pass through a purgatory-like tunnel.

...

At the hospital emergency room, doctors inserted a chest tube that removed air from the chest cavity which allowed her lung to reinflate. A hole was cut in her chest with no anesthetic. The chest tube was connected to a closed chest drainage system, which allows for air or fluid to be drained, and prevents air or fluid from entering and accumulating in the chest cavity. Most people who have a collapsed lung generally heal without major treatment. This was not the case with Rosa. At first, they placed Rosa in an area of the hospital where it looked as though the local nomad population was cared for. The small room had 7 other patients. It was unkept, shabby, and crowded. It was absolutely what you would expect in a third world country; a horror show.

Rosa and I looked at each other and thought; what the fuck? This is going to be a nightmare. After some serious discussion with the staff, and some phone calls, they moved Rosa to the “VIP” building. For a moment, we felt relief. This was short-lived once we learned both the doctors and nursing staff skill levels did not match the opulent new surroundings. We soon learned the nurses were unfamiliar with how to properly monitor and maintain the chest tube drainage system. I quickly educated myself on how the system operated and how it was maintained. Each day I would monitor the system, observing the amount, color, and consistency of drainage, ensuring the system remained closed and below chest level. Checking for air leaks, and maintaining the water levels in the water-seal and suction chambers was a constant process. It seemed like I was the only one that checked the tube insertion site to ensure it was clean and dry, and the tubing was secure and didn’t have kinks. My constant stress level centered on my not being able to be there twenty-four hours a day. I didn’t trust the hospital staff to ensure things were operating properly.

...

The month Rosa was in that place was unbelievably nerve-wracking; it was the first time in our twenty-five years of marriage that I thought I might lose her. It took its toll on Jessica and I. Between getting Jess off to school each morning, me trying to run to the hospital before work, then getting home before Jess got home, then going to visit Rosa in the evening, we rested and ate very little. We would sometimes stop at KFC on the way home; that was always our best meal throughout that dark time. Complicating things was the MICOM Commander was in town visiting various US and Saudi military. Since I was the senior MICOM guy in-country, I had to shepherd the general around to meetings, dinners, and other social events while making time to see Rosa in the hospital. During this period, I think I lost somewhere around 20 pounds. I do not have the words to adequately describe the anxiety the entire family was under.

As mentioned earlier, most people with a collapsed lung generally heal without major treatment. Issues like this are quickly resolved through non-invasive procedures. But that was in the Western world. Remember, we were in a middle east medical Twilight Zone. After a month of sitting in a hospital bed with a hose sticking out of her chest, with little to no routine communication from the doctors, we were told the doctors wanted to crack her chest to repair the lung. Rosa and I looked at each other and knew the balloon had gone up, it was time to bug out, to get out of Dodge, to bale, to pull the plug, to hit the bricks, to do whatever it took to get the hell out of there. We were going to “embrace the suck” no longer. After feeling and being helpless for so long, I decided I needed to get aggressive in the control department.

...

At the time, Tina—our oldest—lived in Maryland near Baltimore. She had a connection that put me in touch with the Chief of Thoracic Surgery at John Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Yang cast a bright, warm light into an otherwise very dark pit we were living in. After a long telephone conversation late one night, he explained the greatest danger facing Rosa was the unprecedented time they kept that tube in her chest. The tube was keeping her lung inflated, and she could live like that for a very long time. But the associated danger was infection. This presented the greatest threat to her health. Infection within the chest cavity could become very serious very quickly. Since the 1960s, cracking a chest was something almost never done in the West for this type problem. The bottom line; she needed to get the fuck out of there. Although Dr. Yang did not give me a specific recommendation, I did ask what if this were on of his loved ones, what would he do; he said he would get them out of there as fast as he could. Roger that. He guaranteed John Hopkins would accept her as a patient if I chose to bring her there.

...

The military doctor assigned to the US Military Training Mission (USMTM) to Saudi Arabia carried the responsibility of looking after the health of those military and civilians—and their families—operating as advisors in-kingdom. Although we were under their operational control, he had never visited Rosa in the hospital or, to our knowledge, never reviewed the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.9.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-1174-7 / 9798317811747