Purely anecdotal, but this was my brief Saudi Arabia experience.
In mid-1991, the ground war portion of Desert Storm had ended, and the ship I was attached to was performing visit, board, search, and seizure (VBSS) operations in the Red Sea.
In mid-1991, the ground war portion of Desert Storm had ended, and the ship I was attached to was performing visit, board, search, and seizure (VBSS) operations in the Red Sea.
Aside from short visits to Hurghada and Safaga, Egypt, there were no port visits during the ~3 months were were in the Red Sea, but we were given one opportunity to visit Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. We were given a country brief on local laws and customs.
We then signed up for a night in Jeddah with our hosts. My host was Raytheon, who had a compound near Jeddah where work was performed on Patriot missile systems. We were loaded into buses, and driven through mostly deserted streets to their fenced compound.
The home we visited was nice, our hosts very gracious, and the food was delicious. We talked about Saudi Arabia’s ban on alcohol, and one host told a story about an employee who had been killed accidentally while engaged in the manufacture of homemade liquor.
Apparently, it took a fair amount of effort to convince the Saudi authorities that the employee had been engaged in legitimate contract work when he was killed.
Eight months earlier, a drunk and belligerent Saudi national tried to climb into our van in Bahrain. Manama’s apparently a short trip for a thirsty Saudi. It’s also the place where a taxi driver yelled, “American capitalist pigs—go home!” at me while I jogged through the streets.
