YOUR SPACE: After a life of action, Springs can be ‘too quiet'

Rudy Garcia has a lot of baggage. Some is displayed in his Monument home. Most is stored in memory. The retired U.S. Foreign Service specialist has trekked in, worked in or lived in about 85 countries since he was born in the Philippines 58 years ago. These days, a typical expedition is to the nearby Home Depot. He lingers at airports every chance he gets. "I like to listen to people speaking in foreign languages. When I was overseas, the airport was my bus station," he says.

About 12,000 Foreign Service workers staff some 265 posts worldwide as support to diplomats, ambassadors and consuls.

Garcia's role: "Everything to do with diplomatic communications," he says, "except the kitchen sink."

Example: "I was an African rover, filling in staffing gaps in telegraph, radio, satellites. It was a lot of fun and adventure. It was scary."

Now, he's looking for a part-time job, stocking shelves or front desk clerking, anything but the front-line stuff of his past. "Nothing stressful."

Foreign service was a natural fit for Garcia, who grew up a global child. The family joined his engineer dad on jobs in Iran, Switzerland, England, then the U.S.

The Foreign Service was Garcia's ticket to more travel. He chose twoyear tours in places deemed "hardship" because of living conditions, danger and limited social life.

That changed in 1990 in Belgium, when he fell in love with a friend's sister, Kathleen. "It was because she wanted to watch the movie ‘The Fly.' I had it on laser disc," he says.

After marriage and two children, he reached his 7,000-pound baggage maximum for the first time in his career. He took safer beats, like South Korea, Thailand and Nicaragua. His family went with him until settling here in 2006.

Why Colorado?

Maybe it was the heat of the African Sahara desert. "When I was in Nouakchott, Mauritania, in 1983, I saw an ad in the back of Time magazine for ranches. I sent a check and said, ‘Give me two lots.'"

Garcia later discovered the juniperstrewn land in Fort Garland wasn't the blue spruce haven in the ad. "It didn't look too much like the picture."

It was also too far from civilization. "I said, ‘I'll wait until they build more houses and bring in electricity and water.' So I waited like 20 years. I'm still waiting."

Driving to the land, he passed through Colorado Springs and liked the area.

His only complaint: "It's too quiet."

He's used to action.

On one stint, he was charged by an "old she-elephant," he says. "In Khartoum, not only was it dangerous, the temperature averaged 137-140 degrees."

In 1984, in Sudan, a co-worker was seriously injured. "He was driving to buy a cake with his girlfriend and was followed and shot in the head."

It goes with the job. "We get shot at and we don't have guns," he says. "It's not for everybody."

Still, it has perks. "If you don't like your boss, you'll have a new one in two years."

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