What I will remember most from my time in NATO is meeting children in the countries where I've gone to, to Moscow and to Kiev, I've met school children.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My own kids were with me in Berlin when Germany was reunited, and they were with me in Moscow when the Soviet Union collapsed. We talked about these things at the dinner table, at their schools, with their friends.
NATO has been a thread throughout my life.
I had a minor in Russian history, and this was at the time when the big Cold War was going on.
Some of my favorite memories happened in the 'Boy Meets World' classroom.
My mother would take groups of students to different countries and always brought us along, so by the time I was 10, I had been to Russia, China, Nicaragua and several other countries.
I was very much a child of the Cold War.
I went to a number of foreign countries, and during whenever I went, I would try to go to an orphanage or a home for children. And I was seeing thousands of kids around the world that needed homes.
I enjoy meeting not only contemporary children, but yesterday's children as well. It's nice to talk about the experiences we shared, they tell me, 'You were a good friend.' That's the warmest part.
We were fortunate to have the Russians as our childhood enemies. We practiced hiding under our desks in case they had the temerity to drop a nuclear weapon.
My father was a Foreign Service officer, a diplomat and an Arabist who spent virtually all his career in the Near East, as it was called in the State Department. So I spent most of my childhood among the Israelis and the Arabs of Palestine, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
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