It was the day after Thanksgiving and I received a call from a friend of mine, later business partner, Byron Morgan and he asked me a simple question.."Where is the last place you'd want to be right now ?" The hostages had been taken in Iraq 30 days earlier so I naturally said, "Iraq". He then asked me if I wanted to go....to Iraq. I asked "What for " ? He told me that a group from Japan and the U.S were going to try to recover the Hostages and they needed a photographer to document the journey. I asked him an obviously question, Who's paying for it ? He relied, "The Japanese". I asked " When do we leave ", he replied," Tomorrow, from los Angles." I honestly had the devil on my left shoulder saying, "DON"T GO !!" and an Angel on my right saying GO..GO,,,.I answered "Book it.....
I called American Airline and booked a flight from Tulsa to L.A. that night and he met me at the airport and we went to his apartment. His son John was going also. In my haste I had forgotten that Mom had invited me for dinner that evening so the next morning before we left for Tokyo I called her and told her that I was on the West coast doing commercial photography for one of my accounts. It had come up unexpectantly and apologized. I also called my sister and filled her in on what was going on and that if I wasn't back in a week the body was in Baghdad. Our cover was the we were the American Olympic Basketball team playing in the International Sports and Music Festival for Peace. Huessin put on the event to rid himself to the Hostages as they were a liability for him as the world as going after him because of the hostage crisis. Many countries were playing in many sporting events to get heir hostages. Diplomatically we wouldn't ask for the Americans so we asked for the Japanese and likewise for the Japanese, they asked of the Americans. We played Basketball, and volleyball losing to the cheating Iraqis.
The next evening we had the Music Festival and our closing song was Amazing Grace which brought the house down. We then retired to the Japanese Embassy, ate and enjoyed the rest of the evening mixing with the Japanese athletes. Some Americans that were not taken hostage joined us in our room and were voicing their concern about their future and we didn't know what to say but we were trying to do as much as we could. But we had no word on the Japanese hostages. The next morning still no hostages, and after boarding the plane, engines started, all of the Japanese hostages and the uncultured Americans boarded the plane and we took off. Senator Inoki was not with us...he was the man from Japan that put the deal together and he stayed behind.
Arriving in Tokyo we met a man selling sake from a cart in front of our hotel and it resulted in him probably having the best sales in one evening because of us. Still no Inoki or American Hostages.
We met with the Japanese Parliament the next morning and they gave us all a Sammari Helmet and a proclamation thanking us for our bravery and commitment. Still no Americans...I sort of had the feeling we failed half of our mission. Just before arriving in Los Angeles the pilot alerted us that Inoki was in the air with the rest of the AMERICANS all of them ! The first war started thirty days later.......what was I thinking...