The KGB (Part 1)

Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopastnosti
(Committee of State Security)

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” - A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

The Cold War is like 9/11. You had to live through it if you want to know how passionately we misunderstood it. It was like A Tale of Two Cities. America was at its best. America was at its worst. We were holding back Communism - a menace more deadly than Nazism, with a stated aim of world revolution. We were conducting witch hunts for the “Communist under every rock” - trampling everything we believed in while doing it. I could go on; but I would be supported by half the people who lived through it, and damned for a liar by the other half. I’ve already said enough to incite violence at some college campuses.  

Most of this isn’t related to the fact that I joined the Army after I graduated from the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 1985. With a shiny new degree in English Literature that had been intended to get me into seminary, but was not likely to get me into anything else, I had some figuring to do. I had been married about a year, and needed to work somewhere other than the convenience store if I was going to support a wife. Seminary, I had decided, was for people who were much more certain about going into the ministry than I was. I knew I was going to need some time and space to think about my decision, and I was going to need money to pay for whatever schooling I needed to get the next degree - the hopefully employable one. 

So I joined the Army. They were willing to give me a reasonable paycheck, a signing bonus, Russian language training, and the GI College Bill in exchange for four years of my life. That sounded like just the ticket! I would have time to think things over, and I would have the next school paid for. It was just what I needed. 

I probably should have told Sandra first; but she was a good sport about it, as she has been about all my insanities.

Anyway, that’s how I ended up working in military intelligence with a Top Secret security clearance and a Russian language qualifier on my title: I needed a job and some space. A year in Monterey, California learning Russian did me no end of good. Working with the Soviet defectors and refugees gave me a clear idea of who we were dealing with. They all had stories, and none of them were good. Next time, I’ll tell one - the story of Elena Viktorovna Petrenko, my teacher. She was the sweetest, kindest grandmother you could ever meet. You would never guess that she had survived war, deportation, slavery, and genocide.