Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #7 from June, 2002

Tuesday, June 11

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: At 3:45 a.m. the Muslim holy man would usually mount the prayer tower at the local mosque and sing out his call to prayer. When there was no call to prayer, I knew that Tuesday was going to be another troublesome day.

How could he give a call to prayer?  How would anyone respond and go to the mosque for early prayers if they couldn’t leave their houses? The tanks and soldiers still held Ramallah under siege.

There was no way to get to the e-mail store. Besides, there would be no one there anyway. I kept trying to reach Anna Marie by telephone. Finally I was able to contact her and assure her that I was all right even though the situation was quite tense.

Tuesday was a frustrating repeat of Monday. Nothing moved outside. No dogs barked, no voices of children, no honking of horns … only the sounds of shelling and tanks and helicopters.

About sundown the loudspeakers announced that the curfew would soon be lifted so that people could go out and get food and more water. Everyone waited but the announcement of the lifted curfew never came. It would mean another long night.

The electricity was returned, and the local television news reported that a large number of Ramallah residents had been taken captive and arrested. It apparently had been a very well planned operation to extract known terrorists. Until they got the ones after whom they had come, they would simply stay. They were obviously in no hurry to leave.

While we were just sitting inside the house waiting for something to happen and hoping that nothing would happen, I had lots of time to talk to Mohamed about what he felt it would take to bring peace and why Arafat had rejected the peace initiative of Israeli Prime Minister Barak. One of the underlying contentions held by the Palestinians was that the United Nations had no jurisdiction in the first place to disenfranchise the Palestinians and allow the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. So, the state should be dissolved and the land should revert back to the rightful Palestinian owners, who were now displaced refugees, and reparations should be paid for the past grievances.

Over the hours we had some pretty frank and insightful discussions. Meanwhile, outside there was no confusion as to who was in charge.

Wednesday, June 12

No wake-up call to early prayer by the holy man on the tower at the mosque. It was not a good sign. I jumped out of bed to see tanks still in the streets. After showering and dressing, I went to the room where Mohamed was sitting and joined him in a cup of real strong tea.

“Well,” Mohamed said with an uncertainty in his voice that questioned his own statement, “they have announced that they will lift the curfew this morning from 8 to 11 a.m. for the people to go out and buy bread and get fresh water. But the checkpoints are not allowing any delivery trucks into West Bank or particularly Ramallah, so there will not be anything for sale that is fresh anyway.”

Mohamed’s brother-in-law had agreed to come by and pick us up in his car. He wanted to go as quickly as possible to the center of Ramallah to see if anything had happened to his business during all the shelling. It would give us a good chance to see what had taken place the first three nights and two days of the siege.

It seemed to me that everyone wanted to go downtown to check on their businesses. By 9 a.m., everyone was trying to make it through the central roundabout. The army tanks had not worried much about going around the roundabout, just up and over it.

The streets were a scarred mess and the sidewalks and curbs broken. Lots of cars were smashed with tank track marks over their hoods or right up over the center of the car. Most of the side streets were blocked off with huge mounds of dirt and rocks, which had been dumped sometime within the past 60 hours. We stopped at the outdoor market, which had been quickly assembled, and bought some stale bread.

Mohamed’s brother-in-law’s business had escaped any damage, but an entire two-story building close by had been blown up and burned. “They claim al Qaeda terrorists were hiding in there and were using the building to store explosives and weapons.”

One of the saddest things happened as we passed Mohamed’s old high school. On Saturday he had pointed it out with pride and told me stories of when he had attended. Wednesday morning the walled fence had been broken down and the school lot was full of tanks and personnel carriers. “Look at that. That’s where we used to play soccer when we were boys in Ramallah. Now it’s a parking lot for the Israeli army!”

But as I listened even during the highly charged emotions of the day, I never heard any remorse for the suicide bombings or condemnation of Hamas, al Qaeda, Islamic jihad, or other terrorist groups. Rather, many referred to them as the “underground resistance” groups for the ultimate freeing of the Palestinians.

Eleven o’clock came all too quickly. We had made it home safely with a little time to spare. But some cars were still speeding back to their places of safety as the shelling started up again.

Our conversation Wednesday took a little turn. We had faced the fact earlier that we would have to scrub the idea of visiting Jenin, Nablus, or even Bethlehem. Now the problem was: “How would I catch my flight back to Toronto and on to Denver when I was in a virtual lock down in Ramallah?” We had come to the conclusion that if the tanks were not moved out and the curfew not lifted so I could freely get back to Tel Aviv by Thursday morning, then we would call the US embassy in Tel Aviv and have them come and escort me out of the West Bank.

Later Wednesday afternoon Mohamed called the minister of health’s office and asked if we could have an early meeting on Thursday morning if by any chance the curfew were to be lifted. The minister agreed. 

Next Week: Out of West Bank and into Jerusalem

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #6 Israel 2002

Monday, June 10
 

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: I guess my e-mail to Anna Marie was a little premature and positive. About 2 a.m. I stirred a bit in my bed. In a state of being mostly asleep my mind was trying to reconcile the strange noises with where I was sleeping. I was always in so many different places and so many different hotels and so many different beds that in the twilight of consciousness I had to really concentrate on where I was at that given time.

It seemed to me that I was in an old hotel room somewhere and the steam pipes to the heat register were going “bang-glub, glub, bam, bam, pock, pock, bang.” That was my murky mind trying to determine what it was that I was hearing. I had just recently been in Tbilisi, Georgia, and was thinking, “Why don’t these old Soviets ever fix their steam heaters?”

Then, suddenly, I was totally awake and up on both elbows. What I was hearing was definitely not steam banging in the pipes of some rust-riddled hotel. I was hearing cannon fire and shots from some very big caliber guns.

I jumped out of bed and opened my window to the darkness. The roar of the engines of armored military machines flooded into my room. I could see the silhouettes of men standing on their garden walls and porches atop their houses trying to see what was going on. As I watched, I saw that the streets of Ramallah had suddenly filled up with tanks and armored personnel carriers. They moved quite quickly, seemingly in groups of four units. First in line would come a very large, wide-tracked, Israeli-made tank. They handily fit within the curbs of some of the streets. When they came to a roundabout or sharp corner they would simply rev up the engines and roll over anything in their way. 

Not being too familiar with tanks, I couldn’t tell you the model or the caliber of the rotating cannon on the top, but it was huge. Following the large tank were two armored personnel carriers. They had small machine guns mounted on the front and on the very back was a vertical door where the troops entered and exited.

Behind the tracked personnel carriers was a smaller, more conventional tank. Those tanks had a large movable gun at center-top and smaller, mortar-type guns and machine guns mounted at various spots. As they sped along, I could hear their cleated tracks tearing into the asphalt and chewing up the curbs and sidewalks.

I was so fascinated with their proceedings into the city that I just stayed glued to my open window watching and listening and smelling the spent powder from the continual volleys of large and small gunfire. Overhead, guarding the entire entry were large attack helicopters, which would randomly open fire at some pre-planned target.

About 4:15 a.m. all the lights in the city went out. Then, all that could be seen were the headlights and spotlights from the crawling machines and whining helicopters. The shooting increased continuously and it seemed that the shots were coming from all different directions at one time. The tanks were pretty much deployed to nearly every intersection.

Ramallah was built on a series of small mountains and valleys, which made it difficult to follow the lights of any set of tanks. Even though the tanks seemed to have an assigned intersection or area, they didn’t stay in one place very long, but instead, kept moving back and forth on the streets.

Ramallah was not my first visit to a city that was under military siege. But, the awesomeness of the incredible show of force was enough to send a shiver up my spine every once in a while. And I couldn’t help thinking about all the shots that were being continually fired. Where were the stray or ricochet bullets or bombs going? Even if a shell were shot straight up in the air it had to come down somewhere.

Another thought dancing in my head as I stood at the window was the irony of Anna Marie and me being such friends with many Israelis and actually serving on the board of the Assaf Harofeh Hospital in Tel Aviv and now, I was in the West Bank trying to take help and hope to the hurting Palestinians. Meanwhile I had gotten caught right in the middle of the crossfire of history. I could only pray that I had not bumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time.

Many times before the Israelis, I had been told, would blitz into a West Bank or Gaza city, grab the person or persons they were after and be gone by 8:30 the next morning. I felt certain that by the time I had showered and taken a cup of hot tea out on the patio under the lemon trees that things would be back to normal and we would simply carry on with our scheduled appointments in the cities of Jerusalem and Nablus. But the tanks never left and the shooting was increasing, not decreasing.

Israeli trucks crossed the streets using bullhorns to announce a total curfew. No one was to move; no one was to leave their house even for emergencies, giving birth to babies, or keeping medical appointments. The city was under total lockdown.

The hours of the day dragged on. The electricity was restored for a while but by nightfall all was dark again. 

The Jodeh family just looked at each other communicating fear and anger, and concern for other members of their family and their business dealings. When the electricity was on they gathered around the television set to learn as much as they could about what was going on. There was more coverage on the local Ramallah or Nablus stations, but, of course, the reports were in Arabic and I had to depend on Mohamed passing on any new information to me.

Monday evening Mohamed and I sat on the front veranda

and enjoyed the cool breeze after the scorching hot day. We watched as the Israeli troops were deployed to certain blocks. None of the soldiers worked alone. They were going door to door. Their walk, with their automatic weapons brandished, seemed to say, “We told you to stop the suicide bombing of innocent Israeli citizens and you did not. We told you and gave you sufficient time to rout out the known terrorists from your towns and you wouldn’t. So, now, we are here to do the job you wouldn’t do. Don’t underestimate our determination.”

The soldiers never knocked or rang the bell. They walked to the door and use the butt of their gun to pound on the door. If no one answered they would affix an explosive device on the knob or lock and take cover behind a wall or tree or another building. Soon the device would detonate and blow the door open and the soldiers would enter, sometimes shooting.

The soldiers were also deployed to barricade certain streets. We watched as they used trash dumpsters, stones, pieces of fencing, tree stumps, or anything else they could get their hands on to block the streets. Usually, three soldiers would sling their guns on their backs and work while one soldier crouched in a shooting position to protect them.

Monday night I went to sleep listening to a cacophony of gunfire. Perhaps, overnight, they would pull out.

Next Week: When will all this be over? 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #5 2002

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: There were a few Palestinian police stationed outside the military complex in half-destroyed, forty-foot shipping containers, which they had tried to make into guard shacks. We drove right in as the guards waived us through. 

As I climbed out of the car, I was struck by the awesome thoroughness of the destruction of the entire facility. The preventative security palace had been completed in 2000 with the help of millions of dollars of donations from the other Arab states. It was really the pride of Arafat and the entire Palestinian Authority. It had represented military and intelligence sophistication fitting a new Arab country, even if they were not yet recognized as such.

We walked around the large, four-floored main building. It had been a magnificent facility with fine architectural appointments. Carved marble eagles had been perched on spheres representing the world and adorned the grand glass and marble entrance to the main building. Now, everything was blown to bits. The domed glass roof on the entry atrium was mostly on the marble floor with a few remaining pieces dangling precariously from the original framework overhead.

Israeli tanks had encircled the facility and meticulously aimed their cannons at every strategic inch of the building while attack helicopters fired rockets from above.

We walked through the rubble and broken glass and marble right into the main part of the complex. Desks, office equipment, a newly framed oil painting of Arafat … all lay in ruins on the floors. Nothing in the building had been older than two years. Now everything lay in burned heaps of charred rubble.

We made our way cautiously to the grand marble stairway to the upper floors being careful not to accidentally step on any unexploded rockets or bombs. I reached down and turned over the tail fin of a high-tech “smart bomb” with all the burned wires still dangling.

The main intelligence department had been located in one corner in the upper floor. As we approached that area the texture of the ash and rubble changed. I don’t know what kind of incendiary missiles must have been shot through the thick walls of the building and into the intelligence headquarters. But the heat that was created must have been exceptional. Where the banks of computers and high-tech equipment once sat there was absolutely nothing. On the floor, however, was about six inches of very fine white ash, the only remains of the department’s contents. It was my understanding that the Israeli forces had notified the Palestinians to evacuate the buildings before the strike so that there would not be intentional loss of life.

Outside, and behind the complex, stood the remains of Arafat’s armed security vehicles. They were just like President George Bush’s armored Chevy Suburban SUVs. Bush’s were black, Arafat’s had been white. Systematically, the tanks and helicopters had blown up or totally disabled the fleet of prized vehicles. I would guess that about 100 vehicles had been destroyed. 

It was getting dark on Saturday night as we left the preventative security palace, and Mohamed’s uncle returned us to the old home place of the Jodeh family in Ramallah. It had been an incredible day of learning and emotion. The Middle East tensions and conflicts had gone on for centuries. Today, they remained complex and very serious, perhaps more complex and serious than ever before in history. There was no question that it was a literal life and death struggle.

Sunday, June 9

The Jodeh family had lived at the same location in Ramallah for over 50 years. Mohamed had grown up at the same address and had attended the local Arab schools. In subsequent years, most of the children had moved away. However, just a few years ago three of the sons decided to pay to have the family home enlarged so that they could eventually move back home. On top of the old original structure, which had been constructed of native Holy Land white stone, they built three additional levels. Each level contained a residence for each son. Mohamed’s mother was still alive; one of the single daughters now lived with and assisted her.

On the south side of the old home were two lots about one-third acre each. About fifty years earlier Mohamed’s father had started planting fruit trees and grapes on the two lots. Over the years the trees had matured and enlarged into quite an outstanding orchard and garden.

Before going to bed Saturday night, Mohamed asked me if I would like to get up early Sunday morning and tour the garden. Sunday morning, just as the sun was coming up we were out picking plums, apricots, almonds, figs, lemons and two different kinds of berries, which were growing on trees instead of prickly bushes. The grapes, pomegranates, and apples were not quite ripe but there were plenty of chickpeas to pull up and take to the house.

When we were finished, we sat under the shade of a beautiful lemon tree located on the patio and enjoyed a cool breeze and a cup of hot espresso coffee. It was difficult to believe that I was sitting so peacefully within the heart of one of the most explosive and strife-torn regions of the world.

Our first appointment Sunday morning was at the Red Crescent headquarters building. As we traveled by taxi across Ramallah we once again saw scores of automobiles lining the streets that had been run over by the Israeli tanks. The rules were that if an Arab car was left on the street and impeded the destination of an Israeli tank or tracked personnel carrier, the Army vehicle simply would run over the top of the vehicle. Once destroyed the vehicles were worth nothing, so they were left along the streets or pushed off onto a vacant lot.

Red Crescent’s headquarters were situated in an adequate three-story building, completely surrounded by white ambulances with the organization’s logo, a bright Red Crescent moon, on each side.

The director general, Feyeq Hussein, warmly welcomed us into his office. He had been a schoolmate with Mohamed. I explained that Project C.U.R.E. had worked closely with Red Crescent in Iraq, Senegal, Mauritania, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon, and other Muslim countries around the world. The director general told me that he was already familiar with the fine work of Project C.U.R.E. and understood that we worked with Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and others on a non-political basis. I assured him that our interest was in taking help and hope to the medically needy all over the world.

I went on to explain that in the past I had been disappointed that we had met with difficulty when we tried to deliver donated medical goods into Lebanon, West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

“I sincerely apologize to you for any occasion where your efforts were hampered when trying to deliver needed goods to the Arab communities.”

“Well, Mr. Hussein,” I shared, “I really need your help in order to successfully deliver Project C.U.R.E.’s donated medical goods into West Bank. Will you help me?”

“I will not only help you, I will guarantee that you will no longer have problems even if we have to ship the goods in through ports in Jordan instead of Israel and truck the containers to Ramallah with our own vehicles,” he replied.

We talked about the desperate needs experienced by the small hospitals and clinics in West Bank. I told him that we would like to specifically donate some of the goods to the places where we had already finished the needs assessment studies, but in the future Project C.U.R.E. would also be happy to consider donating medical supplies additionally to Red Crescent. We had tea together, and Mohamed and I left with the assurance that it was now possible for our goods to arrive in Ramallah unhindered.

The rest of the day was filled with more meetings and about 9 p.m. we were driven to the lovely home of Mohamed’s brother-in-law and sister, where we ate an absolutely incredible dinner meal of rack of lamb, rice, cooked vegetables, and desserts. Of course, you will never find any alcohol in the home of a Muslim and when one of the five daily prayer times roll around, you stop doing whatever you were doing while they get out their prayer rugs, face Mecca, and pray with their foreheads on the ground.

Following dinner Mohamed walked with me to a cyber shop where I paid to get on the Internet and send an e-mail home to Anna Marie letting her know that everything seemed very peaceful in Ramallah, West Bank.

My message was premature and way wrong!

Next Week: This isn’t Tbilisi, Georgia 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #4 June 2002

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: Our next meeting proved to be quite interesting. There were four different officials representing different groups or municipalities needing medical supplies. Dr. Mofleh Nadi of the Palestine Arab Front also represented the Palestinian National Authority’s ministry of local governments. He explained how the regional hospital of Joresh was desperately in need of everything from examination tables to forceps to autoclaves for sterilization. I told him I believed we could help him. He then presented me with a handwritten list of the most urgently needed items for his region.

Ibtisam Zeidan was a middle-aged Arab woman who attended our meeting. Somehow she had been able to obtain an American passport in the past and had spent some time in the Ohio area. She was telling me how she had also learned Hebrew and that by showing the Israeli guards her American passport and speaking the Jewish language, she was able to move about the West Bank quite freely.

Ibtisam represented the Palestinian Women’s Committee. It was really quite interesting to talk to her about what her committee was doing to influence the Arab women in the old occupied areas.

When we left that meeting Mohamed’s uncle drove us straight to Arafat’s Palestinian government headquarters compound. Mohamed’s uncle had been born in Ramallah, and since he knew nearly everyone, we just drove right through all the checkpoints and stopped very close to Arafat’s main residence building.

Just two nights earlier, in retaliation for the suicide bus-bombing incident, the Israeli tanks, attack helicopters, and troops had converged again on Arafat’s compound knowing that he was sleeping there. The devastation that had occurred just two nights earlier was just amazing. This raid wiped out several large buildings on and near the compound that had escaped destruction during the March and April retaliatory raids by the Israelis. 

The landscape looked like an earthquake had hit and leveled the area. There was not a lot of difference between what I was looking at and the flattened and demolished buildings I had viewed just weeks earlier at the epicenter of the super earthquake which had hit northwest India in Gujarat state.

There was still the fresh smell of burned gunpowder and spent explosives. It reminded me of sitting near the firing pit at a July 4th fireworks extravaganza and smelling the residue of the cannon-fired jumbo sparklers.

As we got out of the car I carried my camera in plain view and began snapping pictures. No one bothered me. I strolled right up to where the Palestinian Authority’s uniformed guards were probing around in the rubble. Scores of Palestinian Authority vehicles sat burned out or run over by Israeli tanks. I had definitely entered a war zone.

I continued to be amazed that no one seemed to be concerned that I was taking pictures and freely walking around inside the bombed-out executive compound.

Two of the main buildings were joined at the second level by an enclosed bridge way. From that bridge way there was a great view of the entire compound and of the lower end of Ramallah. That was where Arafat’s formal dining room was located. That was where he hosted the Arab country leaders when they visited. That was where Arafat held most of his interviews with BBC and CNN.

But the tanks had rumbled into the compound and successfully blown huge holes right through the middle of the swank bridge way. Mohamed’s uncle asked if I wanted to try to get an interview with Arafat. He was just inside the landing of the main building, no more than a hundred feet away from me conducting other press interviews. I declined the uncle’s suggestion saying that I did not think it appropriate nor did I feel comfortable with requesting an audience at such a tense time. 

I walked on continuing to take pictures. There were two Palestinian bulldozers trying to push around the rubble and broken buildings and clean up the mess from the previous nights.

I was just in the middle of trying to count the demolished vehicles inside and outside Arafat’s compound when Mohamed reminded me that we were about late for our next appointment.

I had not remembered from my previous visits to the West Bank that Ramallah was as large as it was. Well over 500,000 people lived there. Many of the residents traveled out of the city and out of West Bank to work every day in the Israeli areas. The Palestinians didn’t really have much industry or employment of their own. Their economics were dangerously dependent on the Israeli economy. Likewise, the Jewish economy depended heavily on the Arabs for laborers.

When we finished our other appointments, we stopped by the headquarters of Red Crescent, the Muslims’ counterpart to the West’s Red Cross. There we registered our confirmation for our meeting with the director general for the next morning.

Apparently, my interest in photographing the remains of Arafat’s governmental compound caught the attention of Mohamed’s uncle who was driving us around Ramallah. “How would you like to go look at Arafat’s preventative security palace, which the Israeli army destroyed about 60 days ago? I think I can drive there.”

“Yes,” I answered, “I would very much like to go and see it. Are you sure you can get me in to see it? Isn’t that where the elite Palestinian guards and intelligence forces are stationed?”

“Yes,” Mohamed’s uncle answered, “but no one is even there anymore. It is completely destroyed.”

Next Week: The Arab’s Preventative Security Palace in ashes 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #3 from June 2002

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: The bus had barely stopped burning when Sharon retaliated by sending in Israeli attack helicopters and tanks into the suicide bomber’s hometown of Jenin and into Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah. Earlier, the Israelis had devastated the headquarters compound of Yasser Arafat, but the soldiers found plenty of new targets to blow up, including shooting high-caliber shells into where Arafat slept and ate. The exercise was not intended to kill or capture Arafat but the message was once again made very clear that if Arafat could not control the violence of his people against Israel then the Israelis would once again come in and capture and punish the terrorist perpetrators.

In fact, just the day before the bus bombing, George Tenet, the head of the US CIA had told Arafat that if he did not prevent attacks, he would stand alone in facing Israeli reprisals, an apparent threat that the United States would give Sharon a freer hand in retaliating.

Well, that was the Ramallah and West Bank into which I entered to do the needs assessment studies on Friday, June 7, 2002.

Our taxi van took Mohamed and me to the front gate of the Jodeh family home. It was a handsome, four-storied structure made of traditional, native, tan, Holy Land stone. The parents had lived on the main floor, and then in subsequent years they built three more floors hoping to accommodate three additional sons and their wives when they retired and moved back to Ramallah.

The Jodeh home was built on a hillside. Directly up the hill and across the street, Arafat had built his Palestinian Authority Hospital. Arafat’s government headquarters compound, the fancy new preventative security palace (housing his elite security forces and new intelligence technology), and the new hospital were the three symbols of pride and joy for the strutting Palestinian authority. They were badges of identity. 

After a fine Arab dinner, it was time to actually lie down and try to sleep after the two straight days and nights of constant travel.

Saturday, June 8

Mohamed had done an excellent job of setting our itinerary for the days of my visit. We would spend Saturday and Sunday in Ramallah. Monday we would travel to Jerusalem and possibly Bethlehem and perform needs assessments and meet key Palestinian health officials. Tuesday we would travel to Nablus in the north. Wednesday would be spent in the hotbed of most recent radicalism, the town of Jenin, then, back to Jerusalem for meetings before taking a taxi from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv for the midnight flight back to Toronto.

Our first meeting Sunday morning was with Friends of Patients Rehabilitation and Therapy Hospital. Steve Socabe, with whom I had worked before in Gaza Strip, West Bank, and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, was associated with Rehabilitation Hospital in Ramallah. Ninety-four percent of the patients of that facility were there with war-related injuries. They handled a lot of cases of spinal cord injuries resulting from gunshot wounds or shrapnel fragment wounds resulting from the Palestinian-Israeli conflicts. The hospital served as a referral hospital for patients from all over the West Bank. Within just the past 60 days there had been 10,700 wounded Palestinians in the region, resulting in 1,500 patients with permanent disabilities requiring rehabilitation. Forty percent of all injuries happened to kids under age 18. 

Dr. Bitawi Ahmed was the medical director of the facility. He was a very qualified orthopedic surgeon and along with the chairman of the board of the center, gave us a very thorough tour of the institution and helped us with our needs assessment questions.

During the tour of the recovery rooms in the hospital, I was impressed with the number of young boys, in their teens and early 20s, who had been disabled by gunshot wounds or explosions. Many of them were permanently paralyzed either from their neck or waist down. I spent a little time with a tall thirteen-year-old boy and his father who was attending the boy’s bedside. The boy was a sharp, bright-eyed fellow with curly hair and a quick smile. A bomb explosion had severed the spinal cord in his lower back. He would not have use of his lower body for the rest of his life. His father really appreciated my taking an interest in his son. He could hardly believe that an American would travel to Ramallah to try to help them with their medical situation.

Dr. Ahmed shared with me his big dream. As an orthopedic surgeon he was pushing for a new orthopedic operating theater at the facility. At the time of our assessment, he was in the practice of going to another Ramallah hospital to perform patients’ surgeries. They were then moved to the rehabilitation center. The board of directors had already given him permission to extend the size of the main building for the surgical room, but none of them had any idea of how they would get the needed pieces of operating equipment or supplies for the new project. You could only imagine how excited he was when he learned that it might be possible to get Project C.U.R.E. to help in supplying the necessary pieces of medical equipment, surgical supplies, and orthopedic devices.

Before we left the facility, Dr. Ahmed compiled a very extensive list of items needed and presented it to me in hopes that Project C.U.R.E. could be of assistance in the future.

We then traveled across the city of Ramallah for an interesting meeting with an organization called “Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees.” Dr. Jihad Mashal, the director general, explained how their organization tried to represent the needs of a large number of facilities within the West Bank and Gaza. Their primary concern was with the rural clinics and small town hospitals where it was extremely difficult to arrange for any medical assistance from the outside. The health ministry was stretched in their capacity to serve the larger hospitals in the major cities of Nablus, Jenin, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Hebron. Most of the secondary hospitals and clinics had to go begging for assistance.

The mayor of one of the smaller towns presented me with a list of desperately needed medical goods for the Qabuan municipality. His hospital and his clinics were trying to do their best but had no way to access basic medical goods to meet the general needs of the people. 

Once more we climbed into the small car driven by Mohamed’s uncle and re-crossed the city of Ramallah to our next appointment. As we drove, I remarked about the many buildings that had been damaged or destroyed by what appeared to be bombs or tank fire. Many of the streets and curbs had been torn up by tracked vehicles traveling through the city of Ramallah.

Mohamed asked, “When we are finished with the next appointment would you like to take a little tour and get a better look at the damage to our city?”

“Yes, of course,” I answered.

Next Week: Personally observing Arafat in his bombed out headquarters and home 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #2 from June, 2002

(continued): Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: Peace seemed unattainable and the world opinion seemed to shift to accept the growing fear that Arafat didn’t really want peace at all, that he had more to gain by seeing how close he could come to a final accord then slipping away from the table. It was feared that the other Arab states would continue to financially support the arrangement in place when the Arab refugees were contained in camps rather than being integrated into a new state or into the borders of the other areas of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, etc.

The fear that seemed to startle the outside world was that the Arab and Palestinian forces would never be satisfied with any concession other than the dissolution and disappearance of an Israeli state in the Middle East and a return to a status prior to 1917.

Accompanying the growing fear emerged a new frustration. Arafat didn’t seem capable of controlling the violent acts of terror carried out by his groups of Hamas and other Islamic jihad organizations. World opinion raised the question as to whether Arafat was the one to be at the negotiating table at all.

Prior to our traveling to West Bank the terrorist situation had escalated to an almost unbelievable level. Nearly two years had seen the second round of intifada produce numbers of suicide bombers, where Palestinian individuals with belts or backpacks stuffed with explosives would walk into a crowded establishment where Jews had gathered and trigger a detonator to blow up themselves and everyone else in the crowded area. Young teens and even schoolgirls were being recruited as lethal human bombs. Other Arab countries would even pay the children’s families large sums of money for their “brave acts of martyrdom.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared that if Arafat could not call in the terrorists, then the Israeli military would go back into the West Bank cities and root out the pockets of terrorists. His tanks and helicopter gunships went into Ramallah and completely destroyed Arafat’s newly built and equipped preventative security palace of his elite guard. Following another suicide bombing where many Israelis were killed, Sharon sent his tanks and helicopters right into Arafat’s headquarters compound and destroyed a large percentage of the facility while Arafat was in residence. Then Sharon left his troops there and confined Arafat to the shelled out headquarters for nearly four months. Arafat finally agreed to verbally condemn the suicide bombings and Israel let him go free.

Thursday, June 6

Thursday morning Anna Marie took me to the airport to board Air Canada #582 to Toronto, Canada. My flight would take me to Toronto, and then I had a non-stop flight Air Canada #886 right into Tel Aviv. Mohamed had already flown into Tel Aviv and it was agreed that he would meet me at the airport when I arrived.

Friday, June 7

Per our agreement, Mohamed met me at the Ben Gurion airport. He had hired a van with the correct color of license plate on it to transport us into the West Bank. Our trip from Tel Aviv to Ramallah was not as complicated as it could have been. At the military checkpoints I simply showed my American passport, told them I was a visitor and humanitarian and the Israeli guards waived me through.

The night that I was traveling, Sharon gave orders to the Israeli military to retaliate for the latest suicide bombing. The incident by the Hamas had taken Arab terrorism to a strange new level.

In the early days of intifada the Islamic jihad groups like the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine used cars packed full of explosives. They would park the cars near the targets to be blown up or along the street where the intended victim would be traveling and detonate the car bomb by timer devices or remote control detonators. Those bombs were effective in blowing up the intended targets but also struck fear in the hearts of the Israelis. 

But the car bombs advanced to more lethal and more frightening methods of terror. People who were radically active in the Palestinian cause were recruited to be trained on how to use their bodies to deliver the deadly explosives. The terrorist group of Hamas became very brazen and prolific at selling, especially young people in their teens and early twenties, on the glories of suicide martyrdom. The young suicide bombers were very difficult to detect and quick and eager to take risks. They took on the mission knowing, but probably not fully understanding, that they wouldn’t be coming back to receive accolades after their daring mission.

About 8 a.m. Thursday, as I was in Denver preparing to leave for Israel, the Islamic jihad ratcheted their insidious terrorist methods up one more notch. Never before had they employed the use of a young teenager to drive a small van totally packed with explosives into another moving object. A suicide bomber driving his bomb into a moving bus was unthinkable.

The Israeli bus had left Tel Aviv at 5:50 a.m. full of sleepy passengers headed for Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee. Many of the fares were military passengers headed for their assignments. As the bus passed through the town of Megiddo (Hebrew for Armageddon) a sixteen-year-old boy pulled alongside the back portion of the bus and detonated enough explosives to lift the bus and flip it over twice before coming to rest totally engulfed in deadly flames.

At least 17 people died immediately. Thirteen of those incinerated were Israeli soldiers. Many more were taken to the hospital in critical condition. “It was timed to mark the 35th anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War when Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” said the spokesman of Islamic jihad, which quietly claimed credit for the bombing.

Next Week: Community health needs . . . plus war-related injuries 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #1 from June 2002

(Note: There are so many more episodes to be shared from the saga of North Korea and my many trips into the unique country. Perhaps we can return to more journal excerpts in the near future. Please be assured that all of my field journals for over the past nearly twenty-five years will be included in the multi-volume Roads I Have Traveled . . . Delivering Help and Hope series soon to be published by Winston-Crown Publishing House. But now, I want to share a bit of excitement surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Project C.U.R.E.’s unique involvement.)

Israel, West Bank, Ramallah: June 6-14, 2002: It seemed like the right thing to do. The dates of June 6-14 opened nearly miraculously, allowing me to commit to traveling to the Middle East. I had planned to be in Republic of Guinea in West Africa on those dates with Seko Diallo. He had even traveled to Colorado and viewed all our facilities. He was so impressed that Project C.U.R.E. could make such a huge difference in the healthcare system of Republic of Guinea. All his paperwork was filed with our office and our flight plans had been made.

Then, on May 15, Seko Diallo called me. He was in a panic. He had just been informed by the US immigration department that he would be allowed to leave the US to host me on the trip to Republic of Guinea but that he would not be allowed to re-enter our country. He could stay here but not go out and then back in on the visa he held. He was beside himself. (I think that’s OK, being “beside himself,” at least he knew his own location).

In his call he begged me, “Dr. Jackson, could we please delay our trip until my attorney can plead my case to the government? I really want to go with you to my country.”

On the very next day, May 16, I received a phone call and eventually met with Mohamed Jodeh, Denver’s main Islamic leader and head of the Islamic mosque.

“Dr. Jackson, the Muslims of Colorado and the Jews of Colorado under the leadership of Rabbi Steve Foster want to do something special together to ease the suffering of the people in the West Bank and Gaza. We need Project C.U.R.E. to join our efforts by donating a considerable amount of emergency medical goods and by being the neutral catalyst for our coalition. Can you help?” I reminded Mohamed of our policy to perform a needs assessment of the institutions prior to our sending any medical goods, but that Project C.U.R.E. would be happy to join the efforts if the details could be worked out.

“Okay,” Mohamed replied, “how about going with me to the Holy Land on the dates, June 6-14?”

I stuttered a little and said, “That’s interesting that you called and more interesting that you would pick those dates. Had you called two days ago my answer would have been ‘no,’ but as of today I can commit those dates to you.”

I had visited Gaza and also the West Bank towns of Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, and Bethlehem before. I had also visited Beirut, Lebanon, and all the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon on previous trips. It had not been safe at all to visit even then. But, now, the classification had moved from “not safe at all” to “downright dangerous.” The political situation had grown a great deal more complicated and hundreds of people, both Israeli and Palestinian, had been murdered.

The West Bank was situated west of the Jordan River between the state of Israel and the country of Jordan, and also bordered the Dead Sea. I knew the twelve disciples wouldn’t like me to say this, but it’s really quite ugly in the West Bank as compared even to North Korea. The temperatures can easily exceed 100 degrees in the summer; it’s rocky and dry and doesn’t have a lot in the way of natural resources. 

The Romans were the ones who gave the area the name of “Palestine.” But before that even the West Bank was part of the Hebrew kingdom established and ruled by King David and his descendants. Following conquests by the Babylonians, Assyrians, later the Persians, and finally the Greeks and Romans, Palestine was taken over by the Arabs in about 600 AD. In the 1500s the Ottoman Turks ruled until after the First World War when Palestine was declared a British mandate. During that time the Balfour Declaration of 1917 pledged British support, setting up a national home for the Jews in Palestine, but oddly enough it also insisted that the civil and religious rights of the non-Jews be protected in the area. That represented the same fuzzyheaded thinking that the Brits displayed in partitioning India and Pakistan and leaving Kashmir dangling for folks to later sort out.

In 1949 the newly formed United Nations voted to partition the area into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with Jerusalem maintaining an even different status of its own. When Israel actually became an independent nation in 1948, the Arab states that chose to oppose the UN action declared war on Israel, which they did again in 1956, 1967, and 1973. Israel’s victory in 1967 was so decisive that it moved to occupy the West Bank (which had belonged to Jordan), Syria’s Golan Heights and Egypt’s Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula. East Jerusalem was also taken over and occupied by Israel.

At the 1979 Camp David Accords, the Sinai Peninsula was given back to Egypt and the status of West Bank and Gaza was placed on the table for later negotiations. But peace negotiations during the 1980s really went nowhere, which led a frustrated Arab side to declare an independent state of Palestine in 1987. The uprisings known or referred to as “intifada” became clashes of greater and greater severity. The West Bank and Gaza became flash points of violence between the Arabs and the Israeli forces of occupation.

A peace conference between Palestine and Israel took place in 1991 and finally resulted in the Oslo, Norway, agreements of 1994. The agreements called for an end of the 17 years of occupation by the Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza. It also allowed for eventual self-rule in Gaza and the city of Jericho in the West Bank.

As the Israeli soldiers withdrew, the Palestinians had to replace them with their own policeman. In 1994 Yasser Arafat, chairman of the activist Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.), was elected head of the Palestine National Authority. Additionally, an 88-member Palestinian council was elected.

Expectations were high on both sides, and the West Bank and Gaza economics started to sputter into a higher gear and Arabs from around the world started to build homes and businesses in the West Bank and Gaza. 

However, Israelis started their own expansion program of building settlements throughout the West Bank. The hopes of accord fostered by the Oslo agreements soon soured and violent terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and even previously unaffected areas like Netanya, escalated the feelings of betrayal and distrust. Peace seemed a long way away.

In 1999, Israeli Prime Minister Ehad Barak went further than any Israeli leader before him in offering concessions to the Palestinians in order to reach peace. The outside world was surprised at the extent to which Barak had gone with his offer. Surely the Arabs would all agree to practically returning to the borders prior to 1967, where 94% of Gaza and West Bank would become the basis for a new separate Palestinian state, along with a joint rule agreement for jurisdiction over Jerusalem. 

But, the world was to be even more surprised at Arafat’s flat refusal of the proposition. What in the world was Arafat thinking?

Next Week: Arafat unable to control Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations. 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #5 from September 1995

(cont: North Korea)  On our way to breakfast, they informed us that as soon as we finished, the cars would be waiting for us to go to Nampho. Again, I could hardly believe my ears. Nampho was their strategic port city, and for reasons of security and defense, I don’t believe any other American had ever been allowed to visit the spot.

We headed west through Pyongyang and a little south toward Nampho. Nampho is about sixty-five or seventy miles out of Pyongyang. We passed the tight security checkpoint line that encircled the city, about ten miles out. The checkpoint ensured that no one would wander outside the city, but more important, if you were just a worker, you could not have access into the city. You could only go into the great city if you were requested, and then only with an official pass. You had to be the best little street sweeper, or the best crew worker before you were privileged to go into the city. Travel, even across town, was never encouraged, and if for some reason you needed to meet with other family members who lived in the city, those members would, more than likely, have to travel outside the great city to meet with you. (And they say that Socialism is classless!)

The farther we got from the city, the more we saw the ox carts carrying loads and the oxen pulling the plows in the field. In preparation for winter, the villagers were spreading their kernels of corn on the concrete road to dry them in the September sun. The display reminded me of a huge yellow quilt bedspread.

We passed the famed North Korean iron-ore mountains and steel mills. I was shocked at the deferred maintenance everywhere. They had the plants operating with bellowing smoke, but the metal buildings and structures were badly rusting, the machinery was out of the 1950s, and the crawler tractors were probably left over from the Korean War. And everywhere I looked, things were old and unpainted and in bad disrepair.

Driving through Nampho, I saw the docks where our cargo container of medical goods would be unloaded. It would have been fun to be there the day of its arrival. 

We drove on west and out of Nampho along the Taedong River toward the sea. As we approached the sea, there were several miles of partitioned salt fields between the road and the sea where they were processing their own salt. As we came around a small mountain and past an old, rusted-out concrete batch plant, there loomed two more giant marble gateways that formed an arch effect across the road. The huge statues that faced each other were of workers being led by Great Leader Kim Il-Sung, depicting the conquering of the sea and the victory of the Worker’s Army. 

In 1981 the government decided to build a sea barrage some eight miles long to span the mouth of the Taedong River. The idea was to not only make a land bridge to connect the northern province to the southern province and eliminate the long trip inland around the wide mouth of the river, but also to separate the seawater from the fresh river water. High tides on the sea would send damaging waves back up river and wash out crops and dwellings. By building the sea barrage, it also allowed the separated freshwater to be stored at a designated level and pumped back up the river as far as needed for irrigation. But the sea barrage did not allow the ships to move up and down the wide river, so a series of four sets of locks was designed to handle the boat traffic. The sea barrage was wide enough to accommodate not only a highway but also a rail line. Estimates were that it would take a minimum of ten years to accomplish the construction. But one advantage of being a dictator was the option Kim Il-Sung would have to throw as many of his twenty-seven million workers as possible at any project he might choose. Thirty thousand workers and five years later, the job was completed. It had become one of the strategic developments of the recent past. However, one of the weaknesses of the Socialist’s division of labor was that when you take rice farmers and have them build huge concrete structures, you may have a problem with quality control. The structure in just this short time already showed signs of flaws and was in need of repair.

We got lots of good pictures of the project and were even shown a chronicled video of the process. (It was surprising, but this time our overseers had not been so fussy about our picture taking. Last time they hadn’t wanted me to take pictures of buildings, common people, or vehicles, and especially not anything that had to do with the military or the Korean People’s Army.)

On the return trip to Pyongyang, I had time to do some reflecting. I had now been in so many of the developing countries, which for the past fifty years had tried every variation of Socialism imaginable—Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Romania, Russia, Mexico, Cuba, China, Germany, Austria, Israel, Denmark, Belgium, India, and others, and even in some measure Ireland, Canada, England, and the USA—and all had gotten caught up in social projects, wealth redistribution, reversal agendas, and welfare markets. In their feverish pitch to create a brand-new world of absolute dreams, they had all neglected one thing: the power and basic principles of economics. And now, once the wealth of previously created establishments had all been redistributed and they had discovered that you couldn’t keep dividing up nothing, the grand and glorious revolutionary dreams were coming unraveled, and to greater or lesser degrees, the experiments were now falling apart while the drivers tried to double their futile efforts to keep the ungreased wagon wheels from falling off the wagons. 

I watched hundreds of North Koreans on my way back to Pyongyang walking along the roads or sitting along sides of the fields, or in groups under trees—not a car or a bus in sight, not a shovel or a hoe in their hands, no place to go, and absolutely no motivation to get there if they could go. And really, why should they be motivated? Their group leaders gave them food, government clothes, a house, parades and dances, signs with slogans of hope, and the assurance that they had it better than anyone else in the world. It is true, in one sense, that there is no unemployment. But the other side is equally true: There is no employment either. 

Pyongyang is a gorgeous propaganda city with no graffiti and very little crime, but outside the city, it’s ox carts, candles, and cholera. Oops! Sorry for the musing … back to work! 

When we returned to the hotel, my good friend Chun Song Gap, the senior man at the Department of Disarmament and Peace, was there. It was so good to talk with him. He had already received the transcripts of the Los Angeles summit I had attended, and we talked in detail about the positions taken by the DPRK as well as the US State Department. We talked about the embargo and the need for Project C.U.R.E. to continue to ship the terribly needed medical supplies. He related to me some incidents indicating that his government was now very serious about getting the liaison offices set up in Pyongyang for the US, and Washington, D.C., for the DPRK as the next step for lifting the embargo. 

He said, “We are very much looking to you to help build those bridges of friendship.”  

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #4 September 1995

(continued) Pyongyang, North Korea: September 8, 1995: Mr. Ri Su Kil, the deputy vice minister of the ministry of health had been with us every minute since we had arrived. He was ultimately in charge of all four thousand clinics. So we had no problem with full access when he gave the word to let us inspect them. The facilities were all very clean, orderly, and well organized, and the staff members all wore whites and even “chef hats,” as Jay called them. Yes, the facilities were tidy … but, wow, were they ever third-world. In all my travels, I had not seen more outdated equipment. I guessed that most of the equipment was reclaimed pieces from the Korean War in the 1950s. That included the diagnostic equipment, operating-room equipment … everything. 

I didn’t know if their pride could handle it, but Project C.U.R.E. would probably have to bring doctors and technicians over to train some of their people to go out and train the rest of the medical staff in the four thousand clinics how to use instruments we take for granted. The process would have to be slow and gentle, because these folks had believed the Juche idea for so long that they really thought they had the best health-care system in the world right now. The borders had been so tightly closed and information kept out so successfully that it was not going to be easy for them to adjust to reality. There were two or three informational generations totally missing. My heart really hurt for the people and their future. How would they handle it? 

When we pulled away from the facility, it started to dawn on me how unusually rare this trip had been. Jay’s and my eyes had already seen more than could have been expected, and I was reminded of the Bible verse, “To whom much has been given, much will be required” (NRSV). There was a scary amount of responsibility that accompanied that privilege of being the first. 

Back out through the town we went once again … back up the beautiful canyon, back over the road washed out by the high floodwaters, back past the Buddhist monastery, back past the Palace of Gifts, right on up the winding road that grew narrower and steeper with each mile. We pulled off the road where there were a few houses clustered and a stone building with the ever-smiling face of Great Leader Kim Il-Sung plastered on the front. The driver honked the car’s horn, and a girl in her early twenties popped out of nowhere and got into the second car. The girl was to be our guide, and we were headed to Manpoktong Mountain. The girl had grown up in the mountains, there along the river, had passed the entrance tests and gone to the university, and was assigned to go back to her home and act as guide for people privileged enough to be able to climb the mountain. 

Manpoktong means “ten thousand waterfalls.” The mountain was gorgeous, with white and light-gray granite, and where there was topsoil, it was covered with heavy undergrowth and trees. 

After pushing our way up a very narrow and steep concrete road, our driver brought the car to a halt in a small, paved cul-de-sac. It had just started to rain lightly, so each of us was given an umbrella and a walking stick, and our guide told us, through Mr. Rim, that it was going to be very slippery and especially muddy and slick where the rains had washed away the trail. 

The mountain rose 9,909 meters, nearly straight up. Our first trek would take us more than 500 meters up in rapid elevation. The girl had to take us on several detours but always got us back to the trail. I asked her when she had first climbed the mountain. She said she was too young to remember. 

All the time we were climbing, we could hear the crashing of the waterfalls. Our first stop delivered to us an astounding site. She told us that if we thought that was great … just wait. Kim Jong Il had visited the site and had instructed the workers to carve steps in the granite face in some places and install chain handrails to make it easier and safer for the people to climb. 

When we reached the concrete pavilion about two hundred meters from the top, it had really set in to rain. The heavy clouds moved in, and we were enshrouded by rain and fog. We decided to wait there for it to clear so we could take some pictures. 

I eagerly admit that I had seen few sights that rivaled the ten thousand waterfalls of Manpoktong. When the clouds passed and the sun came out, the view was the best of all possible dreams. I had seen Niagara Falls and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, but for rare beauty of an undisturbed nature, this was special. Of course, as a disrespectful entrepreneurial American, my first statement to Jay was, “Man, if we could relocate this thing between Denver and Colorado Springs or Denver and Idaho Springs and develop the twenty thousand acres around it, we would be set!” 

There was one more steep climb above the pavilion of some one hundred meters to a footbridge that went across the falls just below the primary cascade. Our trip down the mountain was more precarious than the one up. When we reached the cul-de-sac, the cars were there and so were a couple of other people. They were the waiter and waitress from the hotel dining room. Mr. Jong had arranged for a picnic lunch to be brought to us at the foot of the mountain. However, it was again raining hard enough that they all made the decision to go back down toward the river and see if we could find a dry spot. 

They picked a spot under a high bridge, where previously they had a docking spot for riverboats. All of that was washed away, but there still was a sandy, dry area with the high bridge as a roof. 

I need to tell you … that was no ordinary holiday picnic. They had brought along two charcoal burners and all the trimmings. Soon the chosen spot was transformed into a beautiful linen banquet setting. White tablecloths were spread on the sand. Dishes, cups, glasses, and even sterling-silver chopsticks. When the fires were ready, we all gathered and sat on marble slabs they had rounded up. I had no idea of the names of all the different oriental dishes that were prepared for us. I was afraid to even ask about the meat dishes, but I did recognize several types of fish, beef, and calamari. 

Mr. Jong said that the head minister of foreign affairs had already called him a couple of times since we had arrived there by train, making sure everything was going all right and that the Jacksons were happy. He said that it seemed that word had gotten around the Pyongyang officials regarding the gift and the Jacksons’ work for reunification, and they were declaring Mr. Jackson an “honored patriot.” 

One of the most personally significant things that happened on the whole trip took place around those charcoal pots at that picnic setting. Mr. Ri Su Kil began to relax and unload his emotional basket. He kept saying, maybe four or five different times, how when he heard that the Americans were coming to Pyongyang, and since he was representing the health ministry, he would have to be with us and just didn’t know if he could personally handle it. 

Then, as if he couldn’t keep the emotion bottled up anymore, he said through Mr. Rim, the interpreter, “I just didn’t know if I could be with Americans, because the Americans are my enemies. I am now fifty-three years old, and the Americans killed my father and all my family in 1952. It is the Americans who have their troops in South Korea today, and that is the only thing that is keeping the two halves of my country from coming back together. The Americans have been my enemy all my life. And now Mr. Jackson comes and spends these days with us, and I like him. Today he has become a brother to me, and he is an American. Please, Mr. James W. Jackson, do not only bring to us the greatly needed medical supplies but also bring something more important to us. Please talk to someone about taking the American army out of South Korea so that we can be one country again.” 

I assured Mr. Ri that I would continue to do all I could to bring that dream to pass, because indeed he was my brother and my friend. I proposed a toast to our friendship and told Mr. Ri that when the day of reunification came, I wanted to have him come to my home in the mountains of Colorado and meet a lot more wonderful Americans. I toasted him with a glass of mineral water, and he told me jokingly that he would not even consider it if all I offered to him when he got there was mineral water. 

Well, the US State Department had wanted me to build bridges of friendship between the USA and North Korea. It was my humble opinion that we were making headway.

 © Dr. James W. Jackson    

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #3 DPRK from September 1995

(continued) Pyongyang, North Korea: September 8, 1995: At 4:15 a.m., the lights in my room came on. That was the North Korean version of a wake-up call. It seemed like it was awfully early, since I had stayed up past midnight trying to keep up with my journal writing. No hot water had been turned into the pipes, again, so the ice-cold shampoo and shower helped to wake me up quite completely. 

At a little after 5:00 a.m., a knock came on the door, and Mr. Rim said they were ready to take us to the train station. As I indicated before, no American to my knowledge had been allowed to go outside Pyongyang city. But we had found favor enough now for them to invite us to go on a train for a nearly four-hour trip north to the Mount Myohyang area in the county of Hyangsan. I was thrilled beyond belief. I had seen trains pull out of the downtown station when I had visited Pyongyang before and wondered what it would be like to ride on one of them. In fact, on that trip I had inquired if anywhere in their country they still might have steam locomotives in operation, and Mr. Chun had said that there were steam trains up in the northern part of the country. But at that time I never even dreamed I would ever leave Pyongyang, except by air to Beijing. 

The station was very neat and clean and mostly directed by military women in the station and out on the platform. We passed up the general open-seating cars and were directed to board the last passenger car, which was old but a nicely complemented wooden coach with private compartments. It was still dark outside, but the first rays of sunshine were beginning to crack through in the east. There were four berths in each compartment of the passenger car, two upper and two lower, with a small table set for tea located under the window and between the two lower berths. The beds were made up for sleeping, but at that hour we chose to sit. 

It was really strange. Jay and I had come to the station in separate Mercedes cars, and we were shown to two separate compartments. There was no effort to keep us apart once we were on the train, but it just kept pushing my paranoia when it was not clear whether the gesture was for their safety or for our comfort and as a compliment to us.

The train pulled out of the station on time, of course, and my eyes were kept busy drinking in the sights seen by so very few in the past fifty years. The sunrise was beautiful, but Jay and I had picked up the feeling that it would be frowned upon if we were observed taking a lot of pictures. We passed the port at Nampho, where the container would arrive, and about one hour into the trip. I looked out the train window and then turned to Jay and pointed to him and quietly told him to quickly grab the camera. About a half mile from the train tracks was a whole hilltop covered with antiaircraft guns, missile launchers, and other weapons. The missiles were in a defensive position pointed south, and I presumed they were protecting something on ahead to the north. Sure enough, up the track about five miles was a large chemical plant and refinery. It made sense that they would be defending the installation in case of an attack from the south. 

Having personally owned a real live steam locomotive and consist (all the passenger cars, the Pullman cars, the caboose cars, and additional rolling stock) that we used to lease to Hollywood movie makers, and still owning a small narrow-gauge steam train that today is on loan to the Forney Museum of Transportation in Denver, I had a great interest in locations where steam locomotives were still used. I was keeping my eyes and ears wide open in hope that I might catch a glimpse of some live steam power or the shrill sound of a steam whistle. 

Jackson on MGM movie set with Jackson Brother’s steam train, staring William Holden, Vince Edwards, Cliff Robertson and pictured here with actor Claude Akins. Train was featured in movies such as Cat Ballou, The Professionals, and The Devil’s Brigade.


 I kept moving from my compartment window out into the narrow-windowed hallway of the coach looking for telltale signs of steam power. As the train slowed, approaching one of the village stops, I thought I spotted an overhead water facility with a pipe and spigot about four inches in diameter. That has to be for filling a boiler, I thought. I couldn’t spot any live steam, but as the train slowed down, what I did see burned a hole in my memory. There on a siding was a passenger train that had pulled off onto the siding to let our fast train past. It consisted of about ten very old-style wooden coaches. The windows and doors were all open, and the people who were aboard were headed into Pyongyang for the national holiday celebrations. Most were clutching small colorful flower arrangements, which they were taking to place before the huge bronze statue of Kim Il-Sung situated in the city square. 

The people were so packed on that train that literally they were hanging out the windows and sitting on the steps of the coach entrance, hanging on to the handrails so as not to fall out. But what was so riveting was the looks on their faces—the sadness, the emptiness, almost as though they were confused or abandoned; no smiles, no chatter. As we slowly passed the many windows and doorways of the coaches and I studied the eyes and body language of the passengers, I myself felt drained. Then the train, once past the siding, picked up speed and raced on north. 

Just before we entered the next village, I spotted them! Yes, indeed, there they were … two old locomotives under a full head of steam sitting on sidings attached to a consist of freight cars. Steam was coming from the turbine generators on the top and hissing from around the main driver pistons in the front. It appeared to me that they were hand-stoked coal engines of either a 2-8-0 or 2-6-0 configuration. By the time I grabbed my camera to capture them on film, we were past them. 

Jay came out of his compartment and excitedly hollered, “Did you see that?”
I said, “Yeah … rats … I didn’t get a picture!”

Later he told me that he spotted another in a switching yard while I was out talking to Mr. Ri Su Kil and Mr. Rim Tong Won. Actually, Mr. Rim had asked me where I was born, and I told him Idaho. And he said, “Oh yes, I rike berry mush the story of Idenhoe; good story.” I didn’t have the heart to correct him, so I just smiled.

Next Week: North Korea (continued)

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House