My brother's road : an American's fateful journey to Armenia

Known at various times as "Abu Sindi", "Timothy Sean McCormick", "Saro", and "Commander Avo", Monte Melkonian was denounced in Europe as an international terrorist, while his adopted homeland of Armenia decorated him as a national hero who led a force of 4,000 men to victory in Azerbaijan. Markar Melkonian spent seven years unravelling the mystery of his brother's road: a journey which began in his ancestors' town in Turkey and led to a blood-splattered square in Tehran, the Kurdish mountains, the bomb-pocked streets of Beirut, and finally, to the windswept heights of mountainous Karabagh. Monte's life embodied the agony and the follies of the end of the Cold War and the unraveling of the Soviet Union. Yet, who was this man, really? A terrorist or a hero? __My Brother's Road__ is not just the story of a long journey and a short life, it is an attempt to understand what happens when one man decides that violent deeds speak louder than words Preface to the Paperback Edition 1 Prologue: Funeral, 1993 4 Part 1. Choosing Ancestors 14 Chapter 1. Small Town Kid 15 Chapter 2. A Riddle 22 Chapter 3. Stories of Forebears 32 Part 2. Departures 41 Chapter 4. The Open Road 43 Chapter 5. Pilgrimage 53 Chapter 6. Time of Turmoil 71 Part 3. The Secret Army 85 Chapter 7. Underground 87 Chapter 8. Terrorist Suspect 107 Chapter 9. Martyrdom 123 Part 4. “Everywhere Walls” 147 Chapter 10. Good-Doers 149 Chapter 11. Serving Time 166 Chapter 12. Wandering through Ruins 182 Part 5. Armenia at Last 191 Chapter 13. Bitter Bread 193 Chapter 14. “Call Me Avo” 205 Chapter 15. Discipline Problems 219 Part 6. Distant Mountains 233 Chapter 16. A Proper Army 235 Chapter 17. Come in, Zero-Zero 253 Chapter 18. Leave Like Water 269 Epilogue: The View from Yeraplur 289 Notes 295 Further Reading 329 Glossary 335 Acknowledgments 341 "What do 'Abu Sindi', 'Timothy Sean McCormack', 'Saro', and 'Commander Avo' all have in common? They were all aliases for Monte Melkonian. But who was Monte Melkonian? In his native California he was once a kid in cut-off jeans, playing baseball and swimming in irrigation canals. Monte turned his back on Oxford University and a promising career as an archaeologist, and headed for the working-class slums of Tehran and the bomb-shattered streets of Beirut. He joined roadside prayers in Afghanistan, stood with rebels in Kurdistan and gritted his teeth through surgery without anesthesia in a Red Brigades safe house. He organized prison strikes, spurned the emissary of President George H.W Crouching behind sandbags in the rocket-scorched lobby of an apartment building, my brother Monte gave me a quick lesson on street fighting: at the first sound of gunshots, he advised, dash for cover.