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At the UPS sort center, Louisville, KY, Friday, 1999-06-04 02:00 local (Z-4)
So how many “maybe last” messages will I have. I don't know. Just when I'm ready to stop things are getting a little interesting...and sad.
The Kosovo refugee flight was interesting, enlightening, sobering, and very sad. Three hundred eighty-six people, all ages, both sexes, no smiles, a few heavily bandaged, many with small bandages. Flight attendants told me that almost all of them had badly scratched and bruised legs and arms. I had to remind myself that if the shoe were on the other foot, if these people were in the driver's seat rather than the Serbs, there were those on the airplane that would be more than willing to do to the Serbs what the Serbs have been doing to them. However, that doesn't remove the fact that “ethnic cleansing”, which ever direction it takes, is a crime against humanity.
Usually on a flight I try to walk the length of the cabin at least once unless it's something short like JFK to Miami. This time I did it four times, asking frequently if anyone spoke English. I found only two men who could, and they not very well. They asked if I knew where they were being taken. I had to say that I did not know, that we would get them to JFK but that I didn't know what the plans were after that.
On my first walk through the main deck, as I approached the aft end, I smelled the worst stench I've ever experienced before or since. I asked a flight attendant what in the world it was. The reply was, “gangrene.”
Actually, I didn't even know our exact destination until just shortly before takeoff. We were told our flight plan was being held up until that decision was made. I knew, of course, that the destination would be someplace in the U.S., probably either McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey or JFK. I okayed the loading of 300,000 pounds of fuel to minimize the delay when the flight plan came. You don't know the final fuel load necessary until you see the flight plan. When it came, it called for 304,000 required. We loaded that last little bit, programmed the INSs, and—in Tower's vernacular—blew that popsicle stand.
All of the passengers were Muslim. None had passports. They were dressed in inexpensive, worn Western clothing except for a few elderly women who were attired in what I would describe as peasant-like clothing, and they wore head scarves.
Three Macedonian doctors, employed by some relief organization, were aboard. They had reasonable English. Interestingly, they didn't speak Albanian. Their native Macedonian language is apparently nothing like Albanian. Communicating with a patient was a matter of getting another person to bridge the gap with a third language. For example, if the patient spoke only Albanian, which I gathered was the predominant situation, he or she would talk to somebody who knew Albanian and, say, Russian, which one of the doctors knew. Lots of pointing and shouting, of course, and complicated by the fact that the doctors were Greek Orthodox insofar as religion is concerned, and Greek Orthodox and Muslim have problems getting along. Frankly, I am becoming more and more convinced that the greatest single source of intolerance in this world is religion. And, believe me, Christianity has been and is one of the worst, if not THE worst, of all, especially that of the fundamentalist variety. I am deeply ashamed of the fact and regret terribly that when I was young I was part of that particular intolerance.
Ten and one-half hours after lift off at Athens, we blocked in at JFK. Was that my last 747 leg? Who knows? In one way I hope not. I flew the leg, and my landing was definitely not a greaser. At least there was no question as to our exact moment of arrival. Oh, well, you can't win them all, and you need a landing like that every once in awhile to keep you humble, but I hate being razzed by flight attendants. <g>
For those of you wondering how my liver biopsy came out—as described to me by one of the gastroenterologist's staff—that on a scale of one to ten, with one being no problems and ten being imminent death, I am a three. Specifically, I have fibrosis of the liver, an initial stage of cirrhosis. So, at my age, barring the unusual, and assuming I take very good care of myself, I can reasonably expect to die of something else.
Hopefully, on retirement I will take very good care of myself and my energy will return.
Has anybody been naked in the sun since my last message? I have. Can you die of skin cancer or is it merely disfiguring? <g>
Terry
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