I went twice, the 2nd time around being just a short followup. But that first week in Albania with Mr. O’Rourke was quite an eye opener. The Wing at Mildenhall got a State Department tasking to do some sort of sponsored military assistance mission for a systems install in the Tirana MOD. MSgt Cheek said they weren’t really sure what anybody wanted, just do a tech solution and they’ll sort it out after I get back. So off we went. Not sure who I pissed off to pull that one, but it ended up being fun anyway. The one bad part was an enduring view into the world’s most poverty-stricken country.
I’m not going into the bad part(s) except to say seeing a young woman with an infant sitting begging next to a frozen sidewalk mud puddle on your morning walk to work is a thing, to me at least. I (stupidly) took hikes around the city in the evening a couple times, and it just got worse from there. But at least we were able to get their Defense Ministry headed in the digital direction.
After meeting and greeting everyone on the team including our Albanian counterparts, next formality was seeing the Big Guy – their Minister of Defense. They were after all, giving me free reign to roam the premises. The length and breadth of this big technological step soon seemed literally profound to me, from a purely technical perspective. Once again, I was in waaaay over my head.
O’Rourke (RAF Mildenhall comm Chief), our handler and me waited in an outer office for a few minutes until a gaggle came out, then we went inside a much larger room where some more people gathered around the front talking Albanian while we continued waiting in the back. There was a long table along the back wall about the size of two 8′ party folders end-to-end with around thirty telephones of somewhat varying makes and models neatly arranged clear across it. I asked Colonel ForgotAndNeverCouldPronounceHisName why so many phones? He replied “In case the Minister needs to make a call at least one might work.”
Everything went pretty smooth while I spent most of the week crawling around a 3-story medieval castle-like compound about the size of a small baseball stadium taking measurements of things like 3-foot-thick stone walls thinking things like “it’s gonna be fun cabling this shyt.” I could almost envision the firing squads that must’ve taken place in that central courtyard. We got it done and went back for a visit a year later to check on progress. They ended up going with something different than what we recommended. Maybe that was the part MSgt Cheek was talking about. It looked good though, so I guess Albanian tech contracting is what it is.
