Yemen 1995 The Gun Sook
Yemen 1995
The Gun Sook
Hopefully, enough time has passed this true story won’t get anyone into trouble. Especially me.
In June 1995, I went to Sana’a Yemen for a six week work assignment. As with most overseas assignments to developing countries, the work population was made up of three categories of people: ex-pats from developed countries, technical persons from labor intensive countries like The Philippines and India, and local persons. I knew some from all three categories from company coworkers that had transferred and persons I had worked with during a previous visit in 1993. One thing I noticed when visiting the apartments of a couple of ex-pats were the beautiful antique muzzle-loading rifles decorating the walls. I had been through the Sook at Babel Yemen dozens of times and never saw anything resembling an antique firearm for sale. Although, as I’ve commented on during both trips, I was often the only unarmed person in a sizeable crowd, so firearms were for sale somewhere. So I asked and eventually heard that there was a gun sook in a village a several hours east of Sana’a. I kept dropping hints that I sure would like to visit this place. Several persons in the apartment complex where I was staying were perpetually interested and finally on one Friday, our only full day off, we formed a convoy of two Toyota Land Cruisers and a half-dozen ex-pats including yours truly.
First, when traveling outside of Sana’a, there were safety concerns. So each Land Cruiser had a local driver and a local guard riding shotgun. Only instead of a shotgun, he was armed with a fully tricked-out AK-47 with all the accessories. Like bullets. Lots of bullets. Packed in several clips. After a short time, we entered the seemingly endless desert east of Sana’a and drove 2-3 hours until we reached a small village with adobe-type buildings and a few dozen metal shipping containers, aka Connex, standing haphazardly about the village; some lined up and some stuck between buildings. We had left Sana’a early and arrived around 9:00 am. The Yemeni merchants were just opening up and displaying their wares. Most of the Connex had a crude table or desk out of plywood across the front preventing anyone from easily walking in. Lined up along the walls and hanging from hooks and ropes strung across behind the desks were thousands of guns. And not old muskets, but mostly AK-47s or other automatic or semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and pistols.
One thing I noticed stacked on the floor of some were the wooden soft drink cases that use to be standard in the States to hold Coca-Colas, RC Colas, Dr Pepper or other soft drinks. Only I realized these bottle slots were filled with grenades and stacked 3-4 feet tall. I saw the both smooth sided grenades and the pineapple-grid grenade. I even saw a few of the old German type grenades I had seen in WWII movies – the ones with a stick coming out of a cylinder to activate the grenade timer and provide a handle for throwing. A Kraut would twist the stick, then have a few seconds to dispose of it toward an enemy. I’ve heard WWII veterans refer to these type grenades as potato-mashers. One merchant appeared to have a few thick Frisbees. Until I realized I was probably looking at land mines.
One container had about 20 Yemeni standing around watching while one of their number was checking out an AK-47. He would swing it up, and across a field of fire that included most of his buds while he checked the heft and aim. No one appeared upset at the appearance of the muzzle in their face as he evaluated the firearm. One short Connex had two boys, about 7 and 5 with no adult present, wrestling on a mattress in the corner. In addition to maybe 50 firearms, I estimated over 100 hand grenades within 10 feet of the wrestling boys. Evidently, there is no word for safety in Arabic, or at least in Yemeni Arabic.
At one shop, I observed a pistol that appeared vintage. It was a German Luger with a 1912 manufacture date. The old Lugers weren’t designed with a slide to eject and load. Instead the return on top folded up and in half to allow the spent cartridge to eject and the new one to be loaded into the chamber from the clip. What a piece of history – probably survived both World Wars! As I held the gun examining it, the merchant handed me two 9mm cartridges. He didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Arabic, but through yelling and leaning out of his Connex and pointing down the street, this is the message I got: “Try it out – here are two bullets. Shoot down the street, but over the house at the end. Those people get really mad if you shoot their house!” So, when in Rome…er..Yemen, I loaded the two bullets in the clip, ran the action to load and shot over the house at the end of the street. I tried to shoot a second time, but the gun was so dirty it jammed. Other than grime, the pistol was in mint condition and I kept staring at it. The price was the equivalent of $130, but it was worth much, much more in historical value. I knew I was probably going to resign from the company at some point in the near future. I had completed my degree and got my CPA while working there a few years earlier and my salary couldn’t catch up to the market or my current position. This realization meant this was likely my last trip to Yemen and getting this gun home would be wrought with significant challenges that would take time and possibly a second trip that just wasn’t in the works.
Wayne, a friend from the Dallas office that was on temporary assignment to evaluate a permanent assignment in Yemen, stepped over to me. He said he didn’t want to rush or influence me, but the buzzards were circling: i.e., everyone that came with us had looked up when I shot the pistol and realized what I held. He asked that if I didn’t want to buy the gun, to please not put it down, but hand it to him before anyone else could buy it. I finally resolved there was no way I could get the Luger back home in my limited time left at the company, so I reluctantly handed it over to him. He promptly paid the merchant to the dismay of the other ex-pats in attendance.
The haul that morning was pretty significant. In our group, one person bought a beautiful 1930’s-era Thompson Submachine gun for the equivalent of $33. The only thing missing was the circular clip always seen in the gangster movies. Another bought a US machine gun with a clip sticking out sideways for $20. Both of these were 45 caliber, a cartridge not widely available in Yemen, so virtually worthless to the Yemeni that didn’t buy guns for collections, only to resolve disputes and reduce enemy numbers. My Dad, who was in Korea just after the ceasefire in ’52 said the sergeants and officers that were assigned machine guns didn’t like the side clip because it got in the way and made the gun harder to carry and to handle on patrol or in fighting. Since impracticality never stopped the US Military from purchasing weapons, these guns were eventually assigned to the motor pool. Vehicles were routinely changed out with the front lines for maintenance and the drivers would carry these machine guns with them for protection and to deter vehicle hijacking by the North Koreans. So the rank and file referred to this type machine gun carried by the mechanics as a grease gun.
I bought several AK-47 bayonets to give as gifts to male relatives since there were no restrictions on bringing knives into the USA, as long as they were in checked luggage. These were actually pretty cool – the scabbard was metal and could be fitted to the blade in one manner to make a hammer/hatchet combo or in another way to form wire cutters. Plus they could be had for the equivalent of $1.75. At least one ex-pat encouraged me to buy some grenades and they would stop in the desert on the way back to Sana’a to let me throw them. Obviously these were vintage (nice word meaning “old”) grenades and not newly manufactured. I had no desire to pull a pin on a 50 year-old grenade and hope the timing mechanism was in working order. This same ex-pat said on one previous trip, someone had bought a tripod mortar launcher and a couple of mortars and they launched those in the desert for fun. Setting off explosions in the desert seemed like a good way to start a battle, or possibly a war, in a country where guns, grenades, and other weapons were so readily available!
As we approached Sana’a, we had to stop and arrange all firearms under the floor mat in the backseat where we were sitting. On the outskirts of Sana’a there was a military roadblock. They stopped all vehicles coming in from the desert and examined them for weapons. Soldiers opened all the doors and looked in, but when they saw three ex-pats in the backseat, they just gave us a cursory glance, not noting the huge bulges under the floor mats.
While I was in Yemen on this trip, there was an assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Yemen was accused of supplying weapons to the insurgents. Really?! Just where would Yemen come up with weapons? As a result, the Yemen Government cracked down and started searching for weapons leaving the country at ports of departure, including airports. The AK-47 bayonets I purchased were in danger of being confiscated. My company had a Head of Security that was a retired general in the Yemen Army, so I asked him about the bayonets. He checked with the appropriate authorities and reported that one or two bayonets were considered souvenirs, but more than two were considered weapon stock and would be confiscated. So I asked Wayne and Jim, another Dallas coworker on temporary assignment in Yemen, if they would mind bringing two knives each back at some point in the future. I got the two knives from Wayne a few weeks after my return, but I resigned from the company before Jim ever came back. I later learned he had also resigned a short time after me.
Roll forward three years and one of my first assignments at PwC was a three week engagement in Qatar. Before my departure, I ran into a coworker in downtown Dallas from my previous company who asked what I was up to since leaving and I commented on my upcoming Qatar trip. He asked if I knew Jim had joined a major oil company and was now an ex-pat in Qatar. So during a free moment in Doha, I dialed up Jim’s new company, and asked for him. To my surprise they put me immediately through. When I said who I was, he started laughing and said “I knew you were cheap Shuffler, but I didn’t think you’d search across the Middle East for three years until you found me and asked for those bayonets you left in my care!” “Hey” I responded, “I had nearly $4 invested in those knives!” To dissuade his very accurate opinion of me, I spared no expense on dinner the following weekend with Jim where he handed over the knives discreetly in an unmarked bag. I was just like a drug deal going down. And since I worked for PwC, a major consulting firm always begging or bribing for business, and Jim worked for a major oil company, I expensed that dinner for full reimbursement.
So, you’d think this would be the end of the story, right? As Paul Harvey use to say on his daily broadcasts in the previous century, “Now, the REST of the story…”
Seven years and three jobs later, the drilling company I was employed at merged, and my family and I ended up relocating to Houston. At some point around 2003, I decided to restart dental care that I had neglected since my relocation. I got an appointment for routine cleaning at the dentist my Bride and daughters had been using. Margie, the hygienist I would use for the next 20 years until her retirement, started the small talk as she set up asking where I worked, what I did, etc. Then as she started cleaning my teeth, she commented on my work for a drilling company and my travel and said she had brother that did similar work. She started talking about her brother getting divorce and getting a chance to start over with an ex-pat assignment in Yemen. As she talked about her brother, his two daughters, meeting a Filipino flight attendant and getting remarried, I realized she was talking about Wayne, my friend I spent time with in Yemen in 1995!
When Margie stopped to tell me to rinse and spit, I asked her if Wayne still had the 1912 German Luger. She said yes, then started to say more when she realized she hadn’t mentioned Wayne’s name or anything about a gun. Her eyes grew large and concerning on how I knew this. I laughed and explained I had worked with Wayne at the company in Dallas and we had both went to Yemen in the summer of 1995. He for an eventual permanent assignment, me for a six week audit. I said I had found the gun at the gun sook and didn’t think I could get home and I was the one that handed it to him. From that point on, when I would go in for my dental visits, Margie would provide updates on Wayne. Small world!
And now for the rest of the rest of the story…
In 2018, I attended the funeral and gave part of the eulogy of a favorite uncle in the tiny town of Patillo, Texas. I spent the happiest times of my childhood on my Grandparent’s farm in Patillo, located about 50 miles west of Fort Worth. I made a point of speaking to most in attendance during the meal before and at the gravesite afterwards. One couple introduced themselves as my uncle’s sister-in-law (aunt’s sister) and her husband. I found out they were from Houston and I said I lived in the Houston area, but just outside the small town of Tomball. They replied that their son was a dentist in Tomball and mentioned the street where his office was located. Their son was my dentist! Nearly 300 miles away, I had again run into another random connection to my dentist’s office! Again, a small world. But it somehow seems to revolve around a dentist office in Tomball Texas. Sadly, during my next cleaning when I reported to my dentist that we were indirectly related, it didn’t result in any discounts or free floss and toothpase.