Anyone that’s ever been to West Africa knows there is a saying, “WAWA.” It means “West Africa Wins Again.” If my experiences in that part of the world are any indication, I think there’s a lot of truth to it.
One of the most interesting experiences I had in that part of the world was on one of my first trips to Africa.
It was the location of a relay facility — most communications back in those days were accomplished via High Frequency radio. The purpose of the relay facility was to relay messages from various locations back to the U.S. It consisted of a transmitter site and a receiver site and each site was located several miles outside the city in opposite directions. I was staying a hotel downtown. One night I loaded the trunk of the car that was assigned to me with a number of cases of U.S. Army “C” rations. It’s commonplace for U.S. government facilities to stock these supplies in case of emergency situations. If you’ve ever had to rely on “C” rations you know it’s not the most appetizing “food.”
But anyhow, I was heading to the transmitter site the next morning, so I was taking a fresh supply of “C” rations to replace those that had long outlived their expiration date.
Now on with the story…. about 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, I woke up to a very loud explosion and lots of automatic weapons fire. I went to the balcony of my room and it looked like smoke was coming from the vicinity of the Presidential Palace. About that time my radio came to life and I was told to get to the transmitter site as quick as I could, and lock myself inside until further notice. Turns out we were in the early stages of a coup.
I went down to my car and headed to the transmitter site — there were lots of explosions and gunfire coming from the Palace. I was a bit surprised that the streets were deserted — I pretty much had the road to myself. As I approached the transmitter site, a tank was parked in the middle of the road — no traffic could pass. Behind the tank, there was a very long line of buses, cars, motorcycles, trucks and lots of people on foot. As I came to a stop, the tank commander walked up to the car and said I couldn’t pass. I showed him my identification and pointed to the building just off to the right of the tank. I told him I was an American and I had to go to work there. He told me he had been ordered not to let anyone pass. I used all the charm and threats I could muster up, but he said I had to go back. Finally I started to turn my car around when he came back and asked if I had anything to eat. I remembered the “C” rations in the trunk and said that I did have food with me. I got out of the car and opened the trunk. “What is this?” he asked. I explained to him what it was. He looked more than a little skeptical. I told him that it was very good food that came from the United States. I even told him that it was so good that our army issued it to American soldiers. I was thinking maybe I had convinced him and he asked me to give him a few cases for himself and his crew. I told him that I had been ordered not to lose any of it. After a bit of a discussion and some of my best bargaining, we agreed that if I gave him two cases of the rations, he’d let me pass. I gave him the rations and he removed a barricade from the side of the road, and I drove in to the transmitter site.
I was inside the transmitter building for at least 12 hours — I ventured outside and the tank hadn’t moved and neither had any of the traffic been allowed to pass. I had received no news about the coup taking place in the capital. Finally the next morning I was relieved by a technician assigned to the embassy. I asked him if he had trouble getting by the tank — he said they were very nice and mentioned that “the other American man” had given them some very fine food!!
It only took a few days for the coup to end and the regime was overthrown, the tank by the transmitter site departed and the city returned to “normal.” I finished what I had originally been sent there to do and as I boarded the plane to depart I decided that my first coup had actually been kind of fun….
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