AGE IS A STATE OF MIND – THE DHAHRAN CLIPPERS

This will appear in the Farmerville Gazette, Farmerville, Louisiana.
Last week we discussed friends and how we have a tendency to become complacent with old friendships until we finally lose touch. Some are fortunate enough to make special group friendships and over time these bonds grow into a band of brothers. It could be a military unit or a sports team or a social group as depicted in the movie St Elmoe’s Fire. Years ago one of these groups came together as a softball team that expected to last a couple of years but continued for over twenty.
ARAMCO has its corporate center in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. One major pass time in the 1970s, 80s and 90s for the families was softball. So popular was the sport that there were two seasons, spring and fall. In 1981 the Offshore Trash softball team disbanded and several players were determined to put together a team of individuals that not only had the ability to play the sport but also got along well with each other. In the spring of 1982 The 3rd Street Blues took to the field. Named for the street where the new ball field was located coupled with the hit show name Hill Street Blues, the team began play and the camaraderie was formed.
The team expanded and played in both the Dhahran league and the Al Khobar league. Many players were playing 120 games a year and the families were becoming one large family. Team cookouts occurred and there were even team Halloween parties. The player’s children were in school together and they would meet at the park with their mothers in the evenings to enjoy the ball games.

In 1983 the team flew to Bahrain and won the first Bahrain Invitational Tournament and thus international play for the team began. A year later the team was invited to participate in the Dubai tournament. The team was brought in on construction visas; tourists were not allowed then so the team was basically smuggled in and went undefeated. The next year the Dubai government allowed teams from around the Arabian Gulf to attend and the Mid-East Championship game was born. The Blues got sponsorship from Pan Am; the airline would pay for the uniforms and the team became the Dhahran Clippers. Husbands and wives would go to Dubai and enjoy the experience and many wives played on girl’s teams.

There was some amazing play on the field for the spectators to enjoy. A ball would be caught in center field and the runner tagging on third would be put out at home. Contact was allowed at home plate and on various occassions the Clipper catcher would be hit so hard that he was knocked into the back stop but never lost the ball. The pitcher had broken his neck twice playing football in high school. There were times that after a game he would walk off the mound and go straight to the local hospital for a shot of Demerol. His migraines were so intense that he was almost blind.

Players would come and go but the core team remained in place. Children grew and left for school but the games continued and the parents continued to play. The players were becoming living proof that age is more a state of mind and not solely chronologic. In 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and a whole new set of teams arrived on the scene. The average age of the Clippers was 39. Military teams proclaimed, “You guys are as old as my father. You aren’t supposed to play like this”. No one had told the Clippers this so the players never realized they were aging. The team was never defeated by the military and wins came at the hands of the Navy Seals, the 82nd Airborne Battalion Championship Team, the USS LaSalle and several other units from the Air Force and Army. Average age of the military teams was early 20s. In 93 the Clippers went to Jakarta to play in the Southeast Asian games and in the competition to race around the bases the two fastest players at the tournament were both Clippers in their 40s. A few years later a fifty year old player was selected as the MVP of the Egyptian Invitational Tournament.

This year the last Clipper left Arabia. Mark Tucker turned the lights out and left behind quit a legacy; and what a legacy it is: 50 National and International Championships, 8 second places and 7 third places.
Fortunately the players have stayed in touch and a reunion is in the works.

ISRAEL IS SERIOUS

In the late 1960s Tom Laughlan starred and produced a movie called “Billy Jack”.  Billy was half Indian, former special forces and a martial arts expert.  He also epitomized what was good in the world.  In one scene he was surrounded by thugs that worked for a crooked leader in a  Southwestern town.  The crooked boss walked into the circle of men that surrounded Bill Jack and proceeded to tell him that he was about to be beat.

Billy Jack looked at the unscrupulous man standing in front of him and he said, “There is one thing certain.  I am going to put my right foot in your left ear and nothing on this earth is going to stop it from happening.”  And that is exactly what he did.

This reminds me of the country of Israel.  They cause no trouble, they are very industrious, a leader of technology, welcome Jewish immigrants from around the world  and is the keeper of important sites in the Christian religion.  But let someone threaten them and they become Bill Jack.

In 1967 Egypt expelled UN observers in the Sinai desert that separated Egypt from Israel.  Israel didn’t wait to be attacked.  Israel launched a pre-emptive attack against Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq.  Six days later the war was over and Israel had expanded its borders. We aren’t talking about a huge country in the middle of the Middle East.   Louisiana is about six times larger than Israel.  With only eight million residents it is not a Goliath in population.

In 1973 Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel.  I remember loading the 782 gear as our small SeaBee unit at Memphis readied to deploy.  It never happened and twenty days after the war began it was over.  Egypt had enough and became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty and recognize Israel as a country.

A raid that is surely as impressive as the Navy Seals attack of Bin Laden was the Israeli raid to free hostages in Entebee Uganda.  There was only one commando killed and it was the commanding officer.  He was the brother of the current Prime Minister of Israel.  This raid was so impressive that a made for television movie was made as was a major documentary.

Then in 1981 Iran and Iraq were at war.  Saudi Arabia was supportive of  Iraq as Iran threatened the countries of the western Persian Gulf.   Saudi allowed the United States to fly special electronic surveillance aircraft, AWACS, from bases in its border.  Iraq was building a nuclear reactor with the intent of building a nuclear bomb.  On June 7^th jets took off from bases deep in Israel, flew across southern Saudi Arabia and bombed the reactor site.  It is said that the AWACS were tracking the planes before they left the ground and Saudi knew it but of course denied any knowledge.

The point is, Israel does respond when threatened and it is threatened today.  Iran is dedicated to Israel’s destruction and it is working overtime developing the nuclear bomb.  This week the ambassador to Israel made it very clear that they will not tolerate Iran with the bomb.  Secretively, Saudi Arabia and other countries of the Gulf area will secretly welcome the time when the reactors disappear. It is not a matter of if they hit Iran it is a matter of when.  The Israeli  Ambassador to the United States said that it is time for the United States to stop speaking softly and begin using its big stick.  The next year should be quit interesting.

THE FIRST TOURISTS TO DUBAI

Dubai is today the Gem of the Middle East.  Indoor snow skiing, man made islands and international commerce define the countries image.  It has not all ways been this way.

Dubai has oil but nothing to the extent of its neighbors Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait and Iraq.  Instead it built its wealth on trading and commerce.  In the fifties citizens in fishing boats called dhows would smuggle gold to India to be used as dowries for rich Indians.  Gold was illegal to be imported to India at that time.

Dubai originally fell under British rule.  American norms dictate that American companies will respect the local customs and traditions and restrict changing another countries customs.  England had a different thought process and what is known as cultural eccentricism  prevailed in countries that it occupied.  This means that English traditions overcame the local Dubai cultures and activities such as alcohol and females driving cars were allowed while these changes were never tolerated in Saudi Arabia. Neither Dubai nor Saudi Arabia allowed foreigners into the country unless they had work permits.  Tourism was not allowed.

In the seventies a major industry for Dubai was J Ray McDermott, a Louisiana based offshore construction contractor that had facilities in Dubai.  The country was progressive and very clean.  The Emir of Dubai let the convicts out every morning to scour the streets and pick up garbage.  The InterContinental Hotel at the air port was listed as one of the top ten in the world.  The one thing that was missing was tourists.

Many of the offshore oil facilities that were constructed by McDermott were for the Saudi Arabian oil fields.  Members or the ARAMCO Offshore Projects department would visit Dubai and inspect the platforms that were under construction.  During our visits we marveled about the beauty and potential the country held.

In the early eighties I played softball for a team called the Dhahran Clippers.  We obtained the name from Pan Am Airways and the famous Pan Am Clippers, the large planes that crossed the globe in the 1930s.  Pan  Am was our early sponsor.  One of our players, our short stop and player coach,  was a teacher named Joe Morris.  He was teaching in ARAMCO and had taught in Dubai at the Embassy school.  One night after practice he told the team that we had been invited to play in the Dubai league tournament.  He explained that Leroy Austin with McDermott had arranged for us to be provided with Construction Visas that would allow us to enter Dubai.  We were basically being smuggled into Dubai to play softball.

We did go and in the round robin tournament we defeated every team in Dubai.  That night we departed and our visas had been returned.  I was sure that we had seen the last of any future tournaments.  I was wrong.  The next year we invited and returned and discovered there were other teams from the United Arab Emirates.   Again we won and again we returned the following year to find teams from Bahrain, Kuwait plus a few other Saudi Arabian Teams.  Dubai had been discovered and at about that same time the Dubai Ministry of Tourism was formed.  Dubai built its own national airline.  By the early 90s Russia was sending flights continually into the emirate.  Dubai was booming and the rest is history.

By the late 80s we were playing twice a year at the multi-storied International Hotel complete with ball fields outside the back door.  Last week a friend wrote and said he went to Dubai on business and was told that the hotel had been sold and would soon be demolished to make way for a new 1,600 room complex.   Such is the cost of success.

Loren Schoenholtz eventually took over the command of the team.  The team continued to play for over two decades and became one of the most successfull international traveling softball teams in the world.

DESERT STORM – 21 YEARS LATER; THE STORY CONTINUES

There are times in our lives that we look at a calendar or some reminder from the past jogs a memory and we utter to ourselves, “Where has all the time gone. It seems like yesterday when this happened. The memory is so vivid.” This is exactly what happened to me twenty-one years ago.

At 12:30 on the morning of January 17^th I laid down in my bed in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia. It was 3:30 in the afternoon of January 16^th in Farmerville. I had eaten supper in the International Hotel in Al Khobar and had enjoyed walking around the hotel and observing the press core. All the news agencies were housed there and they would broadcast the war from the hotel. I stopped into the Kuwaiti information center and befriended a member of the Public Relations team hired by Kuwait to help get the countries story told. That is when I learned that we would be at war the next day.

Exhausted I laid in the dark and for the first time in six months I finally had knowledge of what was coming and when. As I closed my eyes I thought of all the excitement and anticipation that had built up to this night. Saddam had invaded Kuwait on August 2^nd and I awoke to hear about it from BBC radio. Then for days there was no official response from the government nor the company. I had my escape route identified and if I drove out I would cross the border in the south and make my way to Dubai. A week after the invasion the 82^nd Airborne arrived. Our softball team sponsored the SEALs into the camp every week. Winds of war finally led to a mass exodus of the expatriate families as planes continually left with wives and children.

By November the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia was swarming with American and other troops from around the world. Russia backed the coalition but the Saudis disdain of Communism would make Russia’s as well as other Eastern Block countries military involvement an impossible option.

I saw Wayne Patterson from Spearsville at a fireworks stand in Ruston. It was our first encounter since we were lieutenants in the 528^th Combat Engineers thirteen years earlier. He had become the XO of the 527 Engineers and was preparing to take his battalion to Saudi. Wayne exemplified himself and eventually became General Wayne Patterson. Ronny Savage and Andy Roan and other residents of our area had arrived in Arabia and prepared for the inevitable.

When I closed my eyes to go to sleep everyone and everything was in place an I knew that I would get a full nights sleep and await for something to happen the next day.

Two hours later the phone rang. “Hello” I said in a groggy voice.

“Tommy it’s Lou Stroble. It’s started. Planes are blasting out of here like bats out of Hades. They have been flying out of here as fast as they can get off the ground for fifteen minutes. Listen to the sirens going off. We’re at war.”

America took the lead in Desert Storm and regained the role of world supremacy. Russia sat in shock as they watched the armaments they had sold to Iraq get turned into scrap metal. It is important for us to realize that a strong military is the best deterrent for tyranny.

Where has all the time gone. It seems like yesterday when all this happened. The memory is so vivid.

DESERT STORM 21 YEARS AGO – THANKSGIVING

The Navy SEALS had been playing the Dhahran Clippers every Wednesday for the last two months.  Following the game teh players were treated to a meal by the Clippers.  Curt, the senior SEAL NCO approached Loren Schoenholts, manager fo the Clippers and asked if they could sponsor all the SEALS to Thanksgiving. The Clippers and families all over Dhahrana and Al Khobar welcomed members of the SEAL team into their homes for a home cooked meal.  Tom Fields, Clipper Catcher, discovered that a fellow football player at Navy Memphis had graduated from Annapolis with the SEALS Lt Commander that had brought the first detachment into Arabia in August.   Captain Ray Smith took picture of Fields and Rich Hunter cutting up the Turkey.  “No one in the States would ever believe we spent Thanksgiving like this.”  Over 85 SEALS were fed following a softball game.  About 20 went to Jubail to see President Bush who had flown in to spend the Holiday with the troops.  Additional food was sent back to Half Moon Bay to feed the guards that could not attend.  Smith went back to the states after Desert Storm, was promoted to Admiral and became the head of all SEALS.  While the Clippers were feeding the SEALS other families around the Eastern Province were bringing families into their homes to give a semblance of peace prior to  the inevitable.

BEAT THE RUSH AND ORDER BOOKS FOR THE HISTORY BUFF

Monroe, Louisiana, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) November 24, 2011 — Thomas T, Fields has two books that will appeal to the History Buff for Christmas. “I Called Him Grand Dad, The Lost Political Papers of Harvey G Fields” and “Desert Burning” are available at Amazon.

“I Called Him Grand Dad” covers the tumultous political history of Louisiana and the Nation from the turn of the century thorugh the early 1960s. Individuals identified in the book include Huey and Earl Long, Franklin Roosevelt, Jim Farley, Richard Leche, Semour Weiss, William Jennings Bryant, Robert Jackson and many more. Over 100 private political letters are included.

“Desert Burning” is a historical novel that covers a period that starts 1 month before Iraq invaded Kuwait and ends a month after Desert Storm ended. The author was living in Saudi Arabia during this time and he captures the period and looks at the war from the lives of the civilians that kept the oil flowing during the war.

Both books are available from Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and XLIBRIS.com.

DESERT STORM 21 YEARS LATER – NOV. 1ST

Desert Storm 21 Years Later:  The world was in a war frenzy.  News stations continually carried the stories of the preparation for war.  National Guard units were being mobilized.  The 527^th  Combat Engineers was being readied for mobilization.  Work continued in Saudi Arabia.  The 82^nd Airborne Championship Softball Team called Dhahran and challenged the Dhahran Clippers to a game.  The Division’s band performed from the stands and one of the largest crowds to witnesses a softball game in Dhahran showed up.  Average age:  82^nd Airborne early 20s.  Dhahran Clippers 39.  Clippers won by 6 after moving the outfield to play in the infield and the infield moved to the outfield for an inning in te middle of the game.  The 82^nd Players were treated to a steak supper at the home of Loren Schoenholtz, Clipper’s pitcher and co-founder.  As a note:  The 82^nd “B” team defeated the Dhahran “B” league representative.   

DESERT SORM – 21 YEARS LATER OCT 16

Desert Storm – Twenty One Years Later: The Dhahran Clipper softball team hosted the Navy SEALS to a softball game and supper.  Prior to the game the Senior NCO, Curt, was told that regardless of the outcome of the game the Clippers would not accept a challenge in water polo.  Final score, Dhahran Clippers 18 Navy SEALS 2.  Dave Larson sponsored a Mexican food night for the warriors before they departed for Half Moon Bay.  This started a close friendship between the team and the Navy unit that would last the entire war.  Every Wednesday the Clippers would host the SEALS until they finally deployed north.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM SWORN ENEMIES

 

In a previous article I introduced you to Tom O’Rourke who I worked with inSaudi Arabia.  I had also noted that it takes a certain type of individual to not just go to the Middle East but live and enjoy the experience.  There are two unique individuals that I would like to introduce to you that definitely fit this mold. 

When I first arrived inArabiain 1978 I was assigned to the Dhahran Construction Organization.  Our purpose in life was to take design packages and write contracts and go to the field to construct what the design required.  My Senior Project Manager was named Louie Rotter.  He was a large raw boned very knowledgeable hard working but extremely friendly and outgoing individual from England.   He had been inArabiafor many years and was well liked through out the community. 

 When we needed surveying work performed in the field we would use a survey company that had offices provided by ARAMCO.   These were located next to the offices Louie and I worked in.  The leader for the surveying contractor was a German named Hans Kozinski.  Hans was short, quiet and in accordance to the German work ethic, was very detailed oriented.  He too was very pleasant and was intellectually inclined.  He lived inCairowith his Egyptian wife.  He was the epitome of the true expatriate that Hemmingway wrote about so many times.  Hans, like Rotter, had been inArabiafor many years and enjoyed the work.

 When we needed survey work, Hans always came through with the layout and he and Louie worked very well together as would be expected of a successful team.  Then one day I heard a very unique story about the two.  I had spent four years in the Navy and then two years in the Army National Guard and Hans enjoyed talking to me abut my military experiences.  Finally I understood why.

 Louie was not a native of the United Kingdom.  He was from Hungary and had escaped from there when the Nazis invaded his country.  Louie made his way to England where he joined the military and became a pilot in the RAF, the Royal Air Force.  He was sent to the island of Maltain the Mediterranean where he was assigned to photographic intelligence with the mission to take pictures of the German forces  in Italy.  Hans was a pilot for the Luftwaffe.  When Germany moved into Italy he was sent to the north of the country with a German photographic intelligence unit and was assigned to take pictures of the British forces on the island of Malta.  They were taking pictures of each other.

 Now here is the parallel I would like to make.  If two sworn enemies that were doing everything to destroy each other can sit down and find a common ground to work from and finally become friends, can’t our rival political parties come together to rebuild the economy of our great nation.

 

DESERT STORM 21 YEARS LATER – SEPT 13

Operation Desert Strom:  21 Years Later.  ARAMCO had evacuated all family members that wanted to leave.  It was a sad experience to see busses from all three ARAMCO communities converge at the Kings Road complex and wait to convoy to the Dhahran Air Port.  Wives and children sat quietly, many with tears in their eyes as they were being  taken out of harms way.  The situation handled was very professionally and I stood as fathers said good by to their families while no one knew what was coming.  The numerous Greyhound sized busses finally roared to life and departed leaving many a male worker alone for the first time in his marriage.