This is a rare photo of me actually working for a living. As a gesture of friendship with the Sri Lankan government, a U.S. naval ship made a port call in Colombo during the country’s civil war. Immediately, rumors began to circulate in this conspiracy-prone country that, that despite our policy of lending no lethal military aid to the government, we had brought the ship to Colombo to blast away at the Tamil rebels. The fact that the rebels were a hundred miles inland and we’d made clear the ship was not there in any kind of combat role didn’t seem to make any difference to the rumor-mongers. So, your humble servant, trying to appear utterly casual, is at dockside explaining to a camera crew that the ship is in port for only two days and would take no role in their war. I don’t think they entirely believed us until the ship left without blasting away at much of anyone.
