The Not-So-Sick Man of Europe Does Matter

As a teenager, I had the opportunity to spend two years (1975-1977) in Turkey, where my father, an active-duty Air Force officer, served as part of the Joint United States Military Assistance Advisory Team in the capital of Ankara. It was an exciting time for a number of reasons. First and foremost, experiencing a foreign culture firsthand (we lived among the Turks, not on a military base) was the opportunity of a lifetime. But what made it even more of an experience was the moment in history that these years represented.