Changing Allegiances, Traditions Unchanged

TBILISI, Georgia -- Like his grandfather, his father and both his uncles before him, Paata Vakhtangishvili is a pilot. But whereas the elder Vakhtangishvilis served in the Red Army and swore their allegiance to Moscow, Paata is part of independent Georgia's armed forces.

"It makes me proud to be able to serve my own country," Paata shouts above the noise of a helicopter taking off behind us at the Alexeyevka air base just outside Tbilisi. "The trouble is our army isn't very good."

All that is changing. Two years ago, Paata joined 29 other budding pilots from Georgia at a boot camp in Alabama as part of a military aid program sponsored by the United States.

"We spent 10 months learning English and eight months learning how to fly American helicopters," he said. Last month the United States donated eight Iroquois helicopters to Georgia to supplement its aging Soviet stock.

When Paata left school, his friends thought he was crazy to want to join the air force. Now, five years later, most of them are only just managing to scrape together a living, and Paata says they are sorry they didn't think of the air force themselves.