Day 128 - Warren Curtis Stewart

JFK airport image by saaby, via Flickr

Warren Curtis Stewart, a man with three first names that also are three last names, came into my life abruptly and remained there only briefly. Introducing him now is a good transition from my Iran days to my Romania days.

I met Curt in New York's JFK airport when I was on my way to Romania, my first trip entirely on my own. There was no one telling me what to do or where to be. I had to figure everything out for myself. I had picked out a matching set of luggage that included a piece advertised as "fits in overhead compartments on most airlines" which I therefore chose as my carry on bag. I also had a purse, a coat, and a hat which I had learned always to wear when traveling in order to get just a tiny bit more respect from the flight attendants than my hatless self seemed to get.  Luggage in those days didn't come with wheels, and I don't recall if I had discovered those collapsible trolleys for luggage. I suspect I was carrying all that stuff around with me from one part of the airport to another, filling in my time between flights.

I dropped something in the middle of a wide corridor and that is when Curt appeared. He stopped and asked if I could use some help. He was in a military uniform, Air Force, I think. It was 1977, not long  after Vietnam ended. And after having lived in Berkeley and San Francisco for nearly six years, my comfort level with the military was pretty low. But he seemed kind and he offered to have me join him in the first class lounge while I waited for my flight. He was the first person I could recall meeting who joined the military during the Vietnam War days and then stayed on beyond his initial enlistment. I had relatives who had joined the military in peace time and stayed in for a career, but that was different. For the most part, I had been surrounded by boys and men my own age who were exploring how to avoid the military, or at least how to avoid combat zones. In response to my question of why he was in the military (a pretty cheeky question I thought) he said he would have been drafted so he enlisted and then decided to make it a career. I don't recall much of our conversation, a likely indication that Curt asked the questions and I happily told him all about how exciting it was to be heading off to Romania, especially after spending the past two years in Iran.

Curt was on his way to Turkey, but I understood it was the military equivalent of a business trip, not an assignment.  With the 20/20 hindsight that many years of working with military members at embassies overseas brings, I wouldn't be surprised now to learn that Curt was in intelligence or military sales, although it was somewhat unusual that he wasn't surrounded by the support entourage in those cases. Military offices at embassies have a minimum of three staffers - the principal, the deputy, and the admin guy (usually) who did all the support work. Even TDY (temporary duty) military members never arrived alone. They were always in pairs or triplets. Maybe Curt was just enjoying the excuse that running into me offered to get away from his traveling companions.

At the end of the wait, he asked if I would write to him because he was curious how I would find Romania. We corresponded for that year, following the same pattern in every letter. We would pose one question to the other in each letter and we would include our own answer to the question in the letter.

When I returned to the U.S. from Romania, he called several times to give me encouragement as I looked for a teaching job. He told me that he had gotten married since we met at the airport in New York. I never saw him again. And when I wrote letters to everyone I knew when I received the offer to join the Foreign Service, my letter to him was one of two that were returned as not being deliverable.