From Where I Sit TROUBLES IN NABOO
	SEPTEMBER 2005

by Richard Koscher, Publisher

Last July I journeyed back to the village of my birth. The preparation for the transition between East County and Klagenfurt in Carinthia, Austria is always hectic, with annoying last minute tasks involving cameras, traveling bags, passports, and credit cards. This year the experience was much more chaotic since I was traveling with my 10-month old daughter, Ella. That infant seemed to require as much baggage as her two parents combined.

However, when we arrived at the house of my parents, the light in my dad’s eye as he gazed upon his granddaughter for the first time made all the bother and annoyance vanish into thin air. Grandchild and grandpa seemed to bond with each other in a single instant! As I watched the loving care my dad showed to my daughter, I had a sudden flashback to times the two of us shared when I was small. I can close my eyes and recall his presence so full of comfort and kindness.

Americans call Europe “the old country” and, in fact, I once again saw a lot of things that were already old long before John Marsh built the famous house that Kathy Leighton writes about in this issue. Some things are changing in Europe, however, including the town where I grew up. Klagenfurt reminds me of Brentwood, with tracts of new homes springing up left and right. Houses now crowd each other on tracts of land that were weed-strewn fields when I was a schoolboy.

On one memorable day we ascended an alpine summit that lifted its head above my county. We stood in reverence before sunlit snow-crowned mountains, that reared themselves like irregular white gems on some giant necklace dropped by God upon the earth. The massive peaks stretched away one after the other until they faded from view over the shoulder of the earth and into the blue distance.

I stood there recalling the Star Wars scene in which Princess Amidala gazed upon the mountains and valleys of her home planet, Naboo. That’s the way I felt on top of that mountain. “This magnificent Austria is my personal Naboo!”

“Naboo” is a much better word than “paradise” to describe my feelings about my Austrian home. Just as Princess Amidala had moved on to bigger and better things, I had found my destiny in another place. I have feelings of affection for Austria but my real life and calling is in the United States.

Our trip was my first time to travel through Europe as an American citizen with a US Passport, and I have to admit that it was a great experience. Roman citizens traveling through the provinces in the first century A.D. must have had the same sense of empowerment as Americans experience traveling in foreign countries. I was carrying on conversations in German and yet I was holding a US Passport. It was great!

I was two hours away from London on July 7 when the terrorists struck with such evil intent and such deadly force. TV coverage blanketed Europe without pause for 24 hours. People on the streets of England displayed the dogged determination that British citizens are noted for. Some of them said that the IRA attacks had hardened them to this kind of attack. And, of course, the longest British memories stretch back to their “finest hour” when they stood without flinching against the worst that Luftwaffe bombers could do in over eight months of almost constant attack.

Americans are envied by the rest of the world, but not always admired. Too many Europeans are saying that America is responsible for the current terrorism in the world, in general, and responsible for the attacks on the streets of England, in particular. I quickly grew weary of listening to those accusations that seemed mindless to me.

I’m amazed that nobody is blaming us for the Asian Tsunami. America took a lot of things without flinching including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the bombing of the cobalt towers, the attack on the USS Cole, the suicide bombing of the barracks in Lebanon that killed over 200 U.S. servicemen, the bombings of the two African embassies, the announcement of war by Osama Bin Laden, and the blast in Bali that killed hundreds of innocent tourists.

America endured all of these humiliations without striking back. Finally, 9/11 snapped the back of America’s reticence to strike back and we finally started going after those guys.

The visit to my personal Naboo was wonderful and refreshing. It really isn’t paradise, however, and Europeans are not, in the main, a bunch of angels. I’m proud to be an American. It felt good when I got back home to America!