The Rock 'n Roll Kids by Liam G Clancy

Author:Liam G Clancy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2022-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

From Mingie Street, Naqoura to the Blue Note in Beirut

By the end of May, Paul Gilmore is fully settled into his staff appointment in Naqoura, South Lebanon. He is working under an excellent and highly operationally experienced French colonel in the prestigious operations cell. The UN in Lebanon is comprised of over six thousand troops from many nationalities, and his job is to write detailed assessments of the ongoing military conflict and political situation. His reports are signed by the force commander and are used as decision-making material at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Gilmore now loves his life and relishes the prospect of spending a full year enjoying fascinating office work as well as a coastal Mediterranean climate. He feels that this new, perfect situation is well deserved. His final four months in Ireland were torturous with the requirement to finish his master’s thesis, pass the university exams, pass overseas fitness tests, medical tests, inoculations as well as keep the VIP clients in the officers’ mess happy. On arrival in Lebanon, Gilmore is both physically and mentally drained. He is satisfied that no matter how tough his new job turns out to be, it will be easy, compared to his experiences of the past year.

Meanwhile, Rockingham manages to avoid the proverbial “slip twix cup and lip” and successfully travels to the tiny mountaintop Lebanese village of Ayta Zutt in the Irish peacekeeping area. He becomes a surveyor of heavy mortars, a technical, indirect fire task which he had to learn in just three weeks. However, news of his musical skill does not take long to circulate, and he quickly ends up spending a lot of his time doing gigs all over the Irish peacekeeping battalion area. In the desolate and dangerous mountains of South Lebanon, the importance of providing the troops with some form of social life, music and relaxation is a very big challenge. There is competition from the various commanders to have entertainers visit each remote outpost to help keep the troops smiling and maintain their mental well-being. Rocky knows that this was a role Piper Jim had perfected for many years as a top-class bagpipe player and Celtic traditional storyteller. Rocky immediately becomes known as the legendary Piper Jim’s son, a label that he is not overjoyed with. He relies solely on his vocal skill and a guitar. His repertoire is pop and charts which is perfect for the youthful demographic make-up of the UN mission. On an ad hoc basis, he regularly teams up with other soldiers who also have musical skills. Occasionally, he can pull together a full band for a night of superior entertainment.

As a much sought-after performer, Rocky finds himself increasingly being dragged away from his primary military task. He not only covers the entertainment needs of the Irish troops but also travels around entertaining many other UN peacekeeping nationalities. When the security situation deteriorates, he gets a break from the music as it can be too dangerous to travel. His priority then becomes his conventional military peacekeeping role with the Heavy Mortars.

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