Remembering Bodo Norway
I have posted this before, but it is a good story…
Remembering some of my previous jaunts around the world, I just happened to think about the stuff I lost while in Norway….
One day while I was hard at work, solving crime, at the Army Criminal Investigation office in Hanau, Germany, I received a call about a trip to Bodo Norway. I had not been to Norway so it sounded like a good deal to me.
The call was from one of my buddies on the Protective Services detail at CID Second Region Headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. I was one of fifteen Army CID Special Agents chosen to fly to Norway to assist in the protection of the then (1970’s) Secretary of Defense (Mr. Brown) while he attended a NATO conference.
I arrived in Oslo Norway where I met up with the other fourteen Agents. We cleared Norwegian customs with the assistance of the U.S. Department of State. We had handguns, ammunition, and high tech radio equipment with us that might have drawn a little attention if the Norwegian customs guys saw them.
It was kind of neat, as we approached the customs area to get our bags; the Department of State people waved us through to a special counter area. The customs guys checked out Red Official Pass Ports and matched them against the names on the list that State had provided them. We then walked right through the Oslo Airport to the waiting State vehicles, with our bags, without having to open one bag. We then were driven to our hotel to stay the night and have some fun.
I must say we did not get any sleep that night and saw a lot of Oslo. We managed to make it to five bars that were out of this world and we had loads of fun dancing and drinking. We drank coffee all night while we were in Oslo and only watched the sexy Norwegian women dance. Yea right.
The next day we were up and out and back to the Oslo airport for our flight to Bodo, Norway. Again we passed through Norwegian customs without a hitch and were on our way to Bodo.
When we arrived at Bodo we landed at a very large military airport. We left the plane expecting to find this large metropolis only to find a large fishing village, or so it seemed, with a military airport and military harbor. This city was nice just not very large.
Our hotel was the Radisson SAS Hotel located near the military airport and the military harbor. We immediately drove to the Radisson to set up our control room (security area for our protective service detail) on the floor reserved for the Secretary of Defense and his staff.
It was while we were setting up the radio gear and planing our trip routes to the various locations in Bodo that we learned there was no room in the hotel for us! We then learned we would be sleeping on a Norwegian Supply ship in the harbor when we were not protecting the Secretary of Defense and his staff.
As it turned out this was not a bad deal. The Norwegian Navy treated us like royalty and our rooms/cabins were great. We ate lunch on the Supply Ship, put our bags in our assigned rooms/cabins, and got a tour of the ship.
This tour revealed our supply ship was actually a tender for 25 Norwegian Patrols Boats. The supply ship acted as a supply ship for the patrol boats and had accommodations for the patrol boat officers. We did not get to spend much time in the rooms/cabins on the supply ship, but it was nice that we had them. We had to work 12 hours on duty and then play at least 6 hours or more off duty.
Our team was busy protecting the Secretary of Defense and his staff while he was in the Hotel and at the NATO conference. This was no easy task, but we had a great time doing the job. We also accompanied the Secretary of Defense and his staff to all the fun places they visited while in Bodo.
Then when we were not on duty we got a chance to go out side of the hotel to the bars in town. While we were in Bodo it was during the six months of daylight so it was not easy to sleep, so we didn’t. We had fun at all the bars and saw all the tourist sites there were to see. Funny I can not remember the names of the tourist sites we saw.
One day a false NATO alarm was given and all the aircraft and ships in Bodo left the area to protect NATO against a false attack on NATO. I was in the control room looking out the window as all the aircraft and ships left. The ships and aircraft leaving the area looked just like a scene from a war movie.
Several hours after the NATO alert we learned that we would all be staying in the hotel, two rooms for all of us, since the ships were gone. It was then we also learned our luggage left with the ships. None of the official military gear was on the ships, just our suitcases and clothing.
We never did get our bags or clothes back. We were able to buy what we needed in the way of clothing and other items at the hotel for the rest of the assignment (7 days total) and charged it to Uncle Sam.
<div style=”line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt”>The NATO conference was fun and we had a great two days in the town of Bodo after all the Department of State people were gone.
We then flew from Bodo on a military aircraft and did not have to deal with any customs officials at all. In fact our military aircraft flew us direct to Frankfurt, Germany from Bodo, Norway.
Our wild Norwegian protective services trip ended after 9 days and nights and we all headed back to our regular job at various CID offices in Europe.