Mareks

(left to right: Kaspars, me, Mareks in Riga, Latvia, September 2005. Date on photo is wrong.)

Mareks Skangalis. Mareks. Latvian Army, warrant officer (between and officer and an NCO). Another great guy. He was our IT guy. When the Army security folks came by for an inspection one day, they freaked: “A foreigner, FROM THE FORMER SOVIET UNION, in charge of your communications?” they asked. We said, “fine, we’ll just tell Colonel Edwards and his bosses that we can no longer operate by email because one of our coalition partners filled a request by us to fill a shortage”. They dropped the matter. Mareks was a true Latvian patriot. He’s from a village out in the country. At the age of 12, his father took him into Riga, the capital, during the height of the Baltic States uprising against the “reformer” Gorbachev. Mareks was manning a barricade against Soviet tanks in 1990 as a boy of 12. In school, he refused to join the Young Pioneers, the Soviet version of the Boy Scouts. As soon as he was old enough, he joined the Latvian Army. If the Russians ever come back, he’ll be ready. He was an IT genius. He took over from Crockett and we had flawless IT. He also taught computer classes to Iraqis with Kenny. I visited Mareks and Kaspars (his replacement) in Latvia in 2005. I was there as part on my annual reserve training. Mareks and his fiancée Sonita took me around the eastern part of the country and I spent a weekend at this parent’s house. His father is Latvian, but his mother is Belorussian. Beautiful country cottage. Garden. Greenhouse. Summer kitchen. Sauna! I was invited to use the sauna, and fortunately the culture in Latvia is that you sauna privately or with family. In some countries, like Germany or Sweden, it’s “ally ally in free!” I was dreading the prospect of being naked with Mom and Dad and Mareks and Sonita. Whew! Mareks is now an officer in the Latvian Army and their foremost IT expert. In fact, he mounted an Army server on Sonita’s apartment building in a small town out in the sticks. So Sonita gets wireless internet. I fully expect Mareks to be either a millionaire or future Prime Minister of Latvia.