Lithuania

    In 1998, I was given the opportunity to visit Lithuania as part of a "Security Assistance" Team visit.  That's a fancy way of saying US military helping foreign militaries with their needs.  The purpose of our trip was to help the Lithuanians determine what Air Defense Systems they needed for their Army.  I traveled to Lithuania with two officers from the Air Defense Center at Fort Bliss and we toured Lithuania for a month.  While we were there, we got to see cultural and military sites.  We traveled from one side of the country to the other and saw every major city in Lithuania.  I also got an introduction to how the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) viewed the world shortly after their liberation from the Soviet Union. Today the Baltic States are becoming more and more integrated with the West. They are members of both the European Union and NATO.