Just a few random events in my life leading up to where I am, with many more-mundane things interspersed therebetween.
- Born shortly after WW2 ended.
- Grew up in New Rochelle, New York.
- Studied Russian at Defense Language Institute in Monterey, with about 1500 classroom hours (-1967).
- Went through SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) school, where we didn’t eat anythng for more than a week, were physically abused in interrogations, and at one point were placed in a small box, compressed into a painful Z-shape for about 20-30 minutes. It was fun?
- Rode as a crewmember in a USN aircraft several months before it was shot down by North Korea in 1969.
- Experienced a bit of survivor guilt by riding space-available on a US military medical evacuation flight in 1969 (the Vietnam war was raging), on which many of the “legitimate” passengers were on stretchers, some moaning and a few with missing limbs.
- Worked for about five years in a fiber optics laboratory (-1975).
- Established and ran the Japan branch of a US manufacturer until 1979.
- Took a Nobel Laureate (physics) to a tacky lunch place in Yokohama for a yakisoba lunch.
- Interpreted in countless depositions related to intellectual property litigation in the US.
- Japanese-to-English Translated hundreds of patents.
- Was greatly relieved to barely avoid having to interpret for a teen victim of incestuous sexual abuse after the accused, her father, confessed.
- Interpreted in a prison in Matsuyama for a visit to a convicted murderer.
- Interpreted the arrest and subsequent 35-plus-days of interrogations of a senior corporate executive (2018).
- Translated over 1500 pages of diverse documents from a Japanese police investigation involving a US military person (2023).
And it goes on, but lately at a bit slower pace and, I’m happy to say, with a bit less excitement.