Veteran American soldier currently living his life in Budapest

Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Panama, and now, Budapest. The journalists of Szeretlek Magyarország talked to a veteran American soldier, Gordon, who really knows what it means to be alive, and who considers the Hungarian capital one of his homes.

Here you can read the interview with Gordon by Szeretlek Magyarország.

As Szeretlek Magyarország writes, the fourty-eight-year-old veteran soldier lives in Toronto, but he often visits Europe, mainly Germany, where he has a music studio, and Budapest which he considers one of his hometowns. According to the journalists, you could see from his look and feel from his speech that he got through things that ordinary people can just guess, and that he interprets friendship, life and the importance of human relations in quite a different way.

Why do you often visit Hungary?
I was sent here to work before: I trained Hungarian soldiers at Szolnok. At weekends, I came to Budapest to look around. I made friends and I grew to like this city, so I keep coming back.

What was your first impression about our capital?
After an 18-year residence in Germany, Budapest shocked me at the first time: it seemed a little-bit old-fashioned for me. However, I discovered it, and I became fond of it, just like other European cities, Berlin, London.

What do you like so much in major European cities?
The busy city life, that there is always something happening.

As I see it, journeys to Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq did not discourage you from travelling…
Not at all. Unfortunately, I have to return to the United States in a few days, so this was only a quick trip to Budapest. I am going to miss the city. I have been visiting Hungary for five years, and have made a lot of friends. Tears come to our eyes when we meet, friendly hugs, you know.

From 1988 until 2013 you were actively serving in the army. What happened after that?
I did a lot of things, but I, mostly, just lived my everyday life, in peace. I started playing music, I also launched a music studio in Stuttgart.

I sincerely tell you that I have never talked to a veteran soldier who went the round some of the war zones. I would have so many questions… Would you answer them?
There are so many things I am not allowed to speak about, but you might not be able to ask them just like that. I am alive. This is mainly what comes to my mind when I think back.

Do you often think back, think about real situations?
Of course, I do. I have experienced thousands of situations when I almost died.

I am lucky that I am alive.

Are you religious?
I am Catholic, but I do not believe that God saved me. It was the hard training and the decisions I made that saved me. 

If you would happen to write a book about the past, your soldier life, how would you start it?

I would start with Panama. The twenty days I spent there, and the dictator’s, Noriega’s regime. These are my most interesting memories.

What would stand in the second place?
The “Desert Manoeuvre”. That was something. I saw an extremely interesting world there. It was a completely closed world with a lot of ancient stuff. You just walk there and suddenly notice something. “Can you see that? What could it be? Oh, just a ziggurat.”

Do you like dealing with the past?
If it is about a historic thing, then I do. When I first visited Europe, people were very proud of showing me fifty-year-old churches and other buildings. Of course, these are valuable, but then I discovered Ulme Münster in Germany. This is one of the highest churches, you know. And it is a thousand years old. A thousand!

It is really amazing. And what about your own past? Would you go through the same things if you could go back in time?
Well… I sometimes watch baseball players in Toronto who do not live a real sporty life, still, they earn millions of dollars, and I think to myself: “Oh well, I could have been a baseball player.”

But I regret nothing I have done. And yes, I would go through everything again. I am quite a lucky man.

What made you want to become a soldier?
I have wanted to become a soldier since I was school-aged.