SHOT AT WITHOUT RESULT

 

When I was stationed in eastern Turkey I had a friend named Huseyn Guldur who was a Master Sergeant in the Turkish Air Force. He invited me and a friend to his home in Malatya for dinner one night. We became pretty close and I made several trips to his house during the year I was stationed there. He had a wife and two children. There was a girl of about 11 and her brother was probably 8 years old. We talked and sang some of our songs and he would play traditional Turkish music on a Ute. I had a friend named Garland Atkins from North Carolina who was an excellent guitar player. For that reason we nicknamed him Chet Atkins. Chet wanted to go with me to Huseyn's house one night and we weren't allowed to travel alone off base. I was driving a ragged International Scout which had a top speed of about 50 miles per hour. The motor pool tended to give anyone not traveling on official business the worst vehicles. There was only one road from the base into town. I was driving and as we approached a village, which I was told was Kurdish, we saw two Turkish men dressed in civilan clothes standing in the middle of the road trying to block it. One had a rifle and they were signaling for us to stop.

We were used to being challenged on base by Turkish security patrols every night when we were being posted. Turkish Security carried the old Springfield bolt action rifles like our soldiers carried in WW1. They didn't go to port arms like we did when challenging someone. They pointed their rifles straight at our heads. Each night at Guardmount we would be handed a different colored disc to be placed over the bulb of our flashlight. They were the standard colors like blue, green, red and yellow. There was a different color code for each day. We experienced a few intense moments before we could turn on our flashlights and direct them at the soldiers. They would then drop their rifles and wave us on. I always wondered what would have happened if we had the wrong color code. We also saw Turkish soldiers patrolling off base but they were always in uniform. We were always warned to be on guard against terrorists or bandits when off base.

I looked over at Chet and told him I wasn't stopping and he agreed. The sun was setting and it was beginning to get dark. I pushed the gas pedal to the floor and passed around to the right of the two men. Almost immediately we heard a loud bang and I saw a muzzle flash in my rear view mirror. I looked over at Chet who was ducked down in the passenger seat. I asked him if he was okay but he looked up at me yelling "get the hell out of here". I floored it again but it seemed like it took forever to get that vehicle out of range. I don't know if they were actually trying to hit us or just trying to scare us but if it was the latter they were very successful. We couldn't find a bullet hole anywhere in the vehicle.

I was very fortunate because I never had to serve in combat like others. I served during Vietnam and Desert Storm but never had to serve in combat. Compared to what combat veterans had to experience this was nothing. I am reminded, however; of what Winston Churchill once said. "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result".