Those Were the Days

Thank you for visiting this site,  which is dedicated to Preston Hughes,  author of:   Those Were the Days    (Hey Gidi Gunler Hey) Preston Hughes began writing this book several years after retiring from the US Army in 1992, and spend over a decade drafting his memoirs--wrapped in commentary on his experiences while serving in Turkey. His love for this country and its people is clear, and is highlighted in his discussion of the military and political development of Turkey during the 1970s to early 2000s. Readers will enjoy the personal stories from his career and life in Turkey, and find the connections he made with high-ranking Turkish military personnel intriguing.  This blog is laid out as a supplemental text to his book, which will be available in English and Turkish in 2021. Photos from his career and personal life are included in this blog, corresponding to each chapter of the book.  For more information on th...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Preston Hughes grew up in the central Mississippi town of Kosciusko (pop. approx. 7,000). He graduated from Kosciusko High School in 1961 and entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, in July of that same year.   In June 1965, he graduated from the Military Academy and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery. During the next five years Hughes completed Airborne and Ranger Schools, served two years with the artillery in Vietnam and two more years at the Field Artillery School and Training Center at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In 1970, he was accepted into the Army’s Foreign Area Specialist Training (FAST) Program.   (This program was later renamed the Foreign Area Officer (FAO) Program.) He was assigned Turkey as his primary focus of specialization, with Greece and Cyprus as extended areas of interest. Between the years 1970 and 1973 he completed the training phase of the program, which included a year of Turkish...

Translating for Lt Gen Yamak (just promoted to 4 stars), 1984.  At a dinner in honor of Major General Marine (3). In late September 1972, three US Army officers—Major Robert F. Hervey, Captain F. Paul Butler and I—dressed in the Army Green uniform, walked up the steep cobblestone road leading to the almost century-old buildings of Yıldız Palace in Istanbul, Turkey. (Situated on a ridge high above the shimmering Bosporus, Yıldız Palace was built in the late 1800s by the last consequential Ottoman sultan, Abdulhamit II.) We were on our way to report in to the Turkish Army General Staff Officer Course ( Kara Harp Akademisi ) for a year of study with an elite group of Turkish Army captains and majors who had already completed the first year of the two-year course. [1] As the first American Army officers to attend this course for over a decade, we were the advance guard for American officers who would follow us—one or two per year, in most years—in attending this prestigious in...

                                   Above:  Hughes at his office in the Embassy, Ankara, 1977                                                      Livin' the life of an attaché :)                                                              The kids with friends                                                           I believe that's Orhan with Jonathan: Trip to the Black Sea: Carol Orhan and Aysun:                  ...

 Preston with General Evren at West Point, 1979 (p.139)                                                                                            Preston, at home in Georgia:

                                                  

A few excerpts from Chapter I: My Life Before Turkey NOTE:   This chapter on my life before Turkey is included so that the reader may have an idea of the experiences that influenced me during the first three decades of my life, experiences which in turn influenced my reactions to, as well as my observations concerning the Turkish people in general and especially the Turkish officer corps (particularly general staff [kurmay] officers), the Turkish political system and other things Turkey-related. Childhood Mary Kate & Preston Hughes, 1942   I was born on March 27, 1943, at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, DC.   My father, Preston Lyttle Hughes, was the son of a Virginia farmer. When I was born my father was a 40-year-old Army sergeant, assigned to the newly opened Pentagon to be a driver and enlisted aide for senior Army officers.   My mother, Mary Kate McNeel, was the 27-year-old daughter of a Mississippi politician who had bee...

Hughes, along with Captain Paul Butler and Major Bob Hervey arrived in Turkey in July of 1972 to begin the third part of the  FAST (Foreign Area Specialist Training/FAO) program: --in-country training-- at the Turkish General Staff Officer Course Life on the Bosporus (Ann and Jonathan), Nov. 1972 Exploring the City Walls Jonathan, our first apartment in Istanbul Entertaining Turkish classmates at the apartment: With Infantry Captain Orhan Coskun ("Uncle Orhan"):   With a Turkish WWI veteran: The neighbor's wedding celebration (p.58-59)) Kate Hughes came to visit (p.61): at TROY   (Jonathan and Ann) (Kate Hughes) at Paul's well in Tarsus: Biking to Cappadocia with Paul Butler (p.63--65): Preston on his bike (not exactly road-worthy!)                                                          ...