It was
my wedding they tried to blow up.
I've told this story twice before on here, going back some years though.
Qaddafi, was in his full support of terror mode and was blowing up clubs in Germany and Athens (Bobby's, I visited it after it was rebuilt, in daytime, for one quick beer) that were known for US military frequenting while off duty (to pick up the local girls). Regan got angry about it, and Operation El Dorado Canyon was launched with F-111s out of Lakenheath and Mildenhall ABs in the UK. France denied overfly, so our guys had to fly all the way around Gibraltar (refueling there and back), and we hit him hard, but missed Qaddafi, and we lost one plane tumbled at the beach. April 1986.
This happened on a Sunday night, and my wedding was already planned for the following Friday at the off-base Ankara AS Officers Open Mess (O'club). No public notice was posted and no mail sent, invites were word of mouth around the small command. If you look at a map, you see Turkey is right across the Med from Libya. Retaliation was expected, base security was increased exponentially, and Tuesday the base commander closed the club, and I was told the wedding was off, and I spent the whole day calling it off (instead planning for just a few friends at my off base apartment). But Wednesday, the two-star returned from TDY, and announced we were damn well going to have the wedding, we'd just beef up security at the club. So I spent all day Wednesday, putting it back on.
Friday, I show up for my wedding, and extra security was an understatement. There were a dozen blue bird USAF buses nose to tail in the street outside the club, we had Turk swat teams in full gear and machine guns, and Turk soldiers too. I was
then told no presents could come in the club, so they pulled two big steel poles from the ground, I backed my SS El Camino with camper in, and every gift was thrown in back, and then I had to drive it a half mile down the street in case it blew up, and hustle my ass back to my wedding, in my (borrowed) mess dress uniform. We had appx. 200 Americans and 50 Turks in attendance. Her family had to stand at the door and vouch for the Turks (except some of our civilian employee friends).
About a half hour into the ceremony, Turk secret police (in local garb on the periphery) noticed two guys walking down the street toward the club, one with a suitcase. You can't tell the difference between a Turk and a Libyan, but they probably could. They asked what was in the suitcase, a scuffle ensued, they were arrested, and the suitcase was full of Russian made large antipersonnel hand grenades. Security came in and told the general, and he and his wife left, but they told no one else. It wasn't just to not spoil the wedding. There was no way to know if there were more bad guys out there, and if the entire club emptied out onto the street (which is exactly what would have happened if it was announced), they could have been mowed down in a hail of gunfire. Bldgs in Turkey are all concrete fortresses, but there are windows.
So now the ceremony is over and the partying is under way, and I am completely whipped, and I go upstairs by myself to the empty casual bar and out on the balcony to have a smoke, and a loud explosion goes off up on the hill behind the club (Ankara sits in a valley between 6-7 mountains). I can smell cordite. I have no idea what that is about, and the music is so loud downstairs, no one else heard it. I learn later, a third guy came down with an improvised bomb behind the club, he was also caught, and SOP they ran it up the hill and set it off.
You have to stay till the end of your own wedding (even if you don't want to), so late, the people who are left are told what has happened, and the place is empty in no time. I go get my Chevy, take the bride home to my apartment, we gingerly carry all the gifts up to my 5th floor unoccupied back bedroom, and I make her leave, then play rookie EOD man on all my wedding presents. No problem there.
After my magnanimous 3-day honeymoon and return to work, the O6 chief of USAF security for Turkey calls me in his office and asks what my clearance is. Secret. That's not good enough, so he throws a small file on his desk, walks out of his cypher lock office, and tells me not to read it. It explains that CIA and Turk secret police in Istanbul knew these three Libyans the minute they landed up there (but not what their plans were). They followed them around, and followed them down to Ankara (where they got rooms at the main USAF billeting huge hotel where I lived for weeks when I arrived), but lost them in terrible traffic the day of my wedding. Clearly, none of this was told to any USAF in Ankara, including our two-star, or the wedding would have been called off.
I also learn the Turks took these assholes downtown, hooked them up to 220 and told them they had a right to scream,
but we will know everything you know, and in short order, they did. Including that the grenades and explosives came to the Libyan embassy in diplomatic pouches. And Moe, Larry and Curly picked them up there on the way to the Club. I never did find out how they found out about and decided to target my wedding at the club, but it clearly was the softest target available.
Turk newspapers are very very National Inquirer-like, and this incident was widely covered, with a great deal of indignity that a fellow Muslim nation would conduct terror in another (remember, this is back in 1986), and they were made to look like fools with funny as hell cartoons. It just so happened my apartment, was only one block away, on the same street as the Libyan embassy, and I was very worried that psycho Momar would order them to find and kill me and the new wife (or worse) to make up for the blunder and the humiliating press.
I went to command and asked for a firearm (just an old model 15 Smith 38 or something), and was laughed out of the room.
What do you want, an international incident? As it was, my El Camino parked on the street stood out like a sore thumb, and every morning at O dark thirty, I could be found carefully playing rookie EOD man again checking for wires and bombs, and under the hood, and gas tank. My Turk immediate neighbors knew the story, and knew what I was doing, and they liked to laugh and joke about it (from across the street), but when I invited them to start my car, they declined.
I did buy about 50 feet of quality rope and two pair of leather gloves, and tied it to a drain pipe on my balcony (5th floor), and explained to my very fit wife, if the Libyans come in the front door, we were going over the side of the building. I also shortly got sent to Germany, and brought back two big switchblades through Turk customs (one for each of us). The only firearm I could legally buy over there was a custom made over and under shotgun for about $800, and it cost me nearly everything I had to get married.
This incident did not get major coverage in world or US press because no one got blown up, and a lot of other terror incidents were ongoing around the world at this time. I don't recall it being mentioned in our own
Stars and Stripes newspaper. Of course, Qaddafi did get even in 1991, with the Lockerbie bombing. And BTW, the two guys with the grenades got 2-year sentences.
The raid on Libya:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_United_States_bombing_of_Libyahttps://newspaperarchive.com/salina-journal-apr-29-1986-p-5/If you scroll down far enough, you will read:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WL9111/S00007/cablegate-libyan-officials-indicted-for-bombing-pan-103.htm IN ADDITION, TWO LIBYANS WERE APPREHENDED ON 18 APRIL 1986 AS THEY ATTEMPTED TO ATTACK THE US OFFICERS CLUB IN ANKARA WITH GRENADES OBTAINED FROM THE LIBYAN PEOPLE'S BUREAU THERE. THE LIBYANS CONFESSED THAT THEY WERE ORDERED TO CAUSE THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CAUSALITIES, PARTICULARLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
Other articles (below) say 4 were arrested. I'm pretty sure it was three.
Also mentioned here:
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/173662831/(way down)
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1990/JRL.htmSome years ago, I found an article written by a former CIA operator that briefly referred to their part in IDing the Libyans in Istanbul, headed to Ankara in April 1986, but no joy just now.
https://books.google.com/books?id=UIBzCC0c2McC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=april+1986+ankara+turkey+officers+club+bombing&source=bl&ots=AmPWkBQCDS&sig=pOaewPB2QkvfmYRYgVRCr-BSY84&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6wuCG5bjZAhXPnOAKHdWxDTMQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=april%201986%20ankara%20turkey%20officers%20club%20bombing&f=falsehttps://books.google.com/books?id=bekED50mOJAC&pg=PA653&lpg=PA653&dq=april+1986+ankara+turkey+officers+club+bombing&source=bl&ots=pFS2GIElah&sig=70_Lvk6-tc6ZlMKoz7k4mx65sIc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigrYfL5bjZAhWENd8KHajTDgEQ6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=april%201986%20ankara%20turkey%20officers%20club%20bombing&f=false I put these links here, because it is my experience that many like to expand on the events of their military service.
You can see that the Libyan's chances of success that evening were not very good, and they were indeed captured (right outside the club). However, for me (and the wife) this event was not over that evening. Qaddafi was a known lunatic who liked to get even with people, and the risk and worry continued for some weeks after that evening. He might not be able to have much luck getting onto a highly secure military installation, but getting to two people in a downtown apartment (a block from their embassy) would not have been hard at all.
