@StevenBeschloss I think Fiona Hill mentioned a team having debriefed the interpreter in her book There's Nothing for You Here. If that's right, someone has insight into that conversation, no?

Fun fact: interpreters I know who work globally don't take notes as linear strings of words. They use a series of marks or shorthand symbols they've developed for themselves, which are designed to be useful contemporaneously and not beyond.

@adam_y @marcdavenant @AbandonedAmerica I really appreciate that you're documenting these.

These structures were foundational to so many people's sense of place, feeling of home, pride of purpose, and individual identity—overlooking the physical ills some the work itself imposed. I suspect the psychological losses have been almost mythic.

@meltedcheese @AbandonedAmerica So, so exquisitely put. There are still accessible worlds and lives in all of those places.

Thanks to both of you for keeping them alive (with a shout out to the painter Tom Birkner, who did the same on canvas for decades, and to whom I owe my earlier times crawling through and around a lot of them.)