For several days this summer, as in recent years, a distinguished group of foreign generals, admirals and other high-ranking military officers went off the radar in Northwest Montana.
Handpicked by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to immerse themselves for a year in the United States, they have come here to experience the American way of life.
Navy Vice Admiral and NDU President Peter A. Garvin, who accompanied the group to the Flathead Valley in late July, explains to me:
“The National Defense University’s educational program for ‘International Fellows’ features a course on American Studies to better understand our values, democracy and the many different regions and communities that make up the United States. This year—just weeks after arriving in the United States—59 International Fellows came to Montana to learn about the American West and the perspectives and priorities of Montanans in small communities like Bigfork.”
And as it has for more than three decades, the Defense Department requested that Averill’s Flathead Lake Lodge play host to the military deployment. And for good reason:
Doug Averill is Montana’s lone representative to the National Defense Orientation Conference Association (DOCA), a small circle of notable Americans who possess a special interest, knowledge and concern for this country’s national defense.
Sitting down for an interview, Averill recalls a pivotal DOCA gathering at the State Department where then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell enlightened him on an emerging foreign fellows program, in which 30 select foreign military officers were basically invited to “come and see America.”
“Powell didn’t feel that these top foreign leaders, these military leaders, were getting a true perspective of America. They’d been watching too many old Western movies—Hollywood’s version of America,” Averill describes. “And he made the comment, ‘If we’re going to shoot at each other, we might as well introduce ourselves.’
“In telling me about the program Powell indicated it wasn’t giving [the foreign contingent] the true picture of America—they mostly saw New York and Washington, DC, and visited some other [atypical] areas. And I made mention that I’ve got a ranch in Montana where we host people from all over the world and give them a real picture of true America.
“And at the end of that function this colonel came over to me and said, ‘We’re coming to Montana.’
“Man, I stuck my foot in my mouth,” Averill now laughs.
That was around 1991.
“We had [our first group] for four days, housed them at Marina Cay [in Bigfork Harbor]. It was a fabulous program,” he says. “We kept them busy from 6 in the morning until 10 at night, with educational speakers introducing them to our legal system, our law enforcement, to agriculture and politics, to our small towns and successful businesses. We gave them great exposure to what was going on in America.”
Or exposure, more importantly, through the distinctive lens of the Flathead region, its people, and singular landmarks: Glacier National Park, Flathead and Blackfoot Indian Reservations, and virtually every activity the Flathead Lake Lodge can offer a commanding officer.
“Probably the best part when we began is a lot of the ‘stan’ countries didn’t believe we were for real. They thought this was a government facility,” Doug reveals of his family’s celebrated dude ranch, founded in 1945 by “Grandpa” Les Averill upon his return from World War II.
“I was accused by some of being CIA and they thought all the happy little kids running around the lodge with smiling faces were ‘government’ [decoys]. They were so conditioned. They land in this idyllic little valley, go to this idyllic little lodge, and everything’s perfect. And they go, ‘Oh, it can’t be, it’s not for real.’
“Then we’d take them downtown [in Bigfork] to meet all the business people and try to tell them that this community is unincorporated and has no government. And they went, ‘Oh, we really know it’s not for real now.’ All through the four days we are trying to convince them we were real Americans.
“And then we came up with the idea, ‘Let’s put them in Bigfork homes for dinner and let them see a real American home.’ And that has worked beautifully [and continues to this day]. It really put a wonderful stamp of reality on everything.”
There’s also the opportunity for Fellows to sit around the campfire and get to know one another, one of several unconventional settings for the diverse leaders. Or they can climb into a horse’s saddle or whitewater raft—which as Doug points out can explain a lot about the state of the world.
“The funniest thing about the raft trips is we’d line up about six 10-man rafts and whoever’s the ranking officer—doesn’t matter if it’s army, navy, air force—he’s the captain of the ship,” he educates.
“Anyway, you give these rafts a shove and 200 feet out the Germans are yelling ‘left, right, left, right,’ and the French and Australians have control of their rafts, and then you give the Muslim raft a push and they’re all shouting at the captain and the captain is shouting back and they’re going in circles and just screaming at each other and nobody’s listening.”
How did that turn out?
“You go down the river ten miles and here come the rafts in perfect unison,” Averill answers. “But then here comes the Muslim raft, still spinning, still shouting at each other, out of control. It’s a perfect microcosm of why those countries are in a mess.”
He recalls the year that acclaimed conservationist and zookeeper Jack Hanna, who’s retired and living in Bigfork, was the featured dinner speaker, ironically at the same time that Jim Fowler of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom was a guest at the lodge.
“So here’s the two top animal guys in the world and they got up to give a presentation with a map of the world,” Averill says. “And Jack, in a very simple way, said let’s pin all the countries that have zoos. So he took blue pins and pinned all the countries with zoos. And now let’s pin all the countries that have house pets. It was same countries that had zoos, so blue pins for all these countries. And then he said let’s go around the world and pin all the countries that don’t have zoos [and family pets]. And they pinned those in black.”
Their conclusion?
“All the countries that didn’t have zoos, that didn’t care about their animals, were almost entirely the countries that were in conflict. It was such a glaring example of how impactful animals are to human behavior. And I think you see that in our [lodge] business with the therapy horses provide to people. We use them for challenged kids, terminally-ill kids, for veterans. There’s just something about these animals.”
Another telling moment was “probably 15 or 20 years ago, when India and Pakistan were threatening each other like they were here a few weeks ago. It was quite tense and their top leaders were here. We couldn’t get India and Pakistan on the same bus. They wouldn’t even talk to each other,” Doug remembers. “But after four days they became friends—that’s the whole idea of this program, putting these countries together. And they stood up at the dinner table, took a glass of wine and got everybody’s attention, and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the world, we want to announce that we have resolved our differences in Montana.’”
Additionally “at the steak fry there was an Israeli general, a general from Lebanon, and myself, just the three of us,” he continues. “And the [Lebanese officer] said, ‘You Israelis, you Americans, all you want us to do is fight your wars for you. And we could take care of Hezbollah in no time if we had bullets.’”
The general remarked that while Lebanon had ample firearms it lacked ammunition, “and he’s kind of ragging on us,” Doug says. “So this Israeli general excused himself—they all have satellite phones—and stepped behind the chuckwagon. And the Israeli finally comes back and says, ‘General … you have bullets.’ He got a hold of Israel and said send some bullets over to Lebanon. That’s the kind of [impact] of these functions.”
Thirty-four functions to date in the Flathead, with each agenda designed for the most part by Averill. They’ve proven so popular that several thousand NDU alumni ranked them “as the best international relations experience in the U.S.” for the last 19 years.
“Even years after graduating,” says Vice Admiral Garvin, “many International Fellows identify their experiences with the Bigfork community members as one of the memories they treasure most from their time in the United States. I am most grateful to Doug and Maureen Averill, who for more than three decades have welcomed [the officers].”
So what is it about this place that creates opportunities for connection, cultivating understanding and respect, and bringing opposites together in friendship?
As one former NDU president observed: “Montana is the only place in the world where you’ll see 60 countries [70 today] that don’t all particularly like each other holding hands at a peace dance [while] dancing in a circle with an Indian warrior.”
Or as Averill is convinced, “A little Montana hospitality may go a long way in easing tensions around the world.”
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.