During my first six month deployment, (Operation Desert Shield/Storm '91) after we had departed the Persian Gulf, we spent a considerable amount of time patrolling the Northern Red Sea near the Gulfs of Aqaba and Suez. During that time I had the opportunity to visit Hurghada, Egypt something like 7 times.

Now one of the first things you learn when over seas is the barter system. Third World monkeys will trade their friggin sister away for a pair of dirty socks. I'm not kidding.

One of the most sought after prizes is American porn. And not even good porn, but shit like Penthouse and Playboy. So after a few months at sea the porn mags that I had were, ummm, well used. Not being really good for anything else I decided to take them out into the repressed Egyptian society and turn them around for some touristy loot. You know little King Tut statues and shit.

So I packed all my used up mags in a backpack and me and my buddy Steve hit the beach. We were in this one shop in one of the bazaars and I was haggling with Akmed the Raghead over some shitty trinkets. A typical haggling session went something like this:

Me: How much for (fill in the blank).
Rag: $15
Me: I'll give you $3.
Rag: OK, $10.
Me: I'll give you $3.
Rag: Ok, $7.
Me: Fuck this, I'm leaving.
Rag: OK, OK my friend. $3.

And we both walk away happy. Well, I was happy, but then I knew that I didn't have to live in that shithole, but I digress.

Anyway, Steve and I leave this one shop and the owner follows us out. He starts his Arabic babbling and pointing at my friend Steve. In broken English he accuses Steve of stealing something. Now I happen to know for a fact that Steve did NOT steal anything from this man, but I also know that we are in a country where they would just love to lop the hand off of an American and the hell with due process. So we're trying to talk this guy down and let him know that we didn't steal anything.

Then the guy made a mistake. He grabbed Steve by his jacket. The next part happened like everything was in slow motion. Steve punched this guy in the mouth so friggin hard that I swear his feet came off the ground. In just a few seconds we are completely surrounded by yelling Egyptians and I am getting friggin scared. We push our way through the crowd with them yelling and pushing us. We were able to sort of almost get free and we took off running. The problem was there wasn't anyplace to run to because we were in the middle of friggin nowhere. So we are being chased by this crowd of pissed off Egyptians and some of them are gaining on us, so using my quick goat thinking, I rip open my backpack, reach in and grab a handful of old ass porn. I throw it all straight up in the air and we keep beating feet down the road.

When I looked back, I saw that the crowd had stopped chasing us and were now fighting each other over the porno. Brilliant!!!

This taxi driver had seen the crowd chasing us and had stopped to pick us up. We dove into the taxi and told him to haul ass, which he did. We explained what had happened to the taxi driver and he took us to the other side of town. We ended up paying the taxi driver double what he wanted to charge us, and I gave him a ships ballcap and bought him a drink because I am NOT ungrateful when someone saves my ass.

I am so thankful that I had all that porn with me, because I had visions of "Midnight Express" going through my mind while we were being chased. For the record, I did not return to that bazaar for the remainder of my time visiting there.