When the US Army pilot William Carl Buyan first visited Lithuania soon after it regained independence from the Soviet Union, he could hardly imagine that he would forever be linked to this faraway country. But this is where he met “the love of his life”, developed businesses, and is now happily spending his retirement.
As a young US Army officer, Buyan took part in major military missions at the time. After coming back from Operation Desert Storm in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, he soon learned about his new assignment – in Lithuania.
The man first came to Lithuania in 1993 on a mission to “assist the country with its transition to NATO”. According to him, the Americans knew little about Lithuania at the time, and the first impression of the country was that of the “wild, wild East”.
“In American films, we have the wild, wild West. And to me, this was the wild, wild East,” he says. “It was very exciting as an American in Lithuania during a post-Soviet era of transitioning to democracy and capitalism to see the remains of Soviet-era statues, old Russian cars, and architecture.”
“It was very interesting because the Soviet Union was our enemy during the Cold War for all these years,” he adds.
The Americans were also wary of the possible Russian influence in post-Soviet Lithuania, Buyan recalls.
“We stayed in the Draugystė Hotel (now Crowne Plaza) in Vilnius. It was a Soviet-style hotel. We were even warned not to talk too much because we were afraid there might still be bugs inside the hotel and Russians listening to us,” he laughs.
However, he stresses that having grown up in the US, he “understood that Lithuania was part of Europe and not part of the Soviet Union”.
“Our maps in the US still recognised Lithuania as a sovereign country. It would show the Soviet Union map, but you would see a dotted line where Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania were,” he says.
NATO mission
In 1993, just a couple of years after the three Baltic states regained independence, the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia announced their aspiration to join NATO. As such, the US mission of assisting the Baltics on their road to the alliance was established.
“Our mission was to provide military equipment and training to the Lithuanian military because they had to meet the requirements to join NATO. We were mostly bringing the military equipment from Germany, the US, and other NATO countries to Klaipėda,” Buyan recalls.
He came to Lithuania several times for periods between three and six months from 1993 until 2004 when Lithuania officially joined NATO.
“Our mission was accomplished in 2004. As a US Army officer and pilot, I’m very proud of my small part – and it’s a small part – in helping this beautiful country and its people,” the man says.
“Now, Lithuania is an excellent NATO partner and friend of the United States. [...] You helped us in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and other places around the world. So, you’re a very good NATO partner, and I really enjoy working with Lithuanians,” he adds.
Even as a retired officer, Buyan still contributes to Lithuania’s military development as a volunteer instructor and adviser for the Riflemen’s Union, a state-supported volunteer paramilitary organisation.
“I’m teaching them how to call in close air support, how to call the aircraft to do a fire mission. So I’m teaching them how to use the air assets of the United States military to combat an aggressor. This is like a fun retirement project for me,” he explains.
Love and business
But the American might not have had such a close and long-lasting relationship with Lithuania if it was not for his wife Jūratė. When Buyan starts to talk about her, his voice breaks, and his eyes fill with tears.
“She was the love of my life, and I lost her to an incurable neurological disease – Huntington’s,” he shares.
William and Jūratė met at the Tourist Information Centre in Klaipėda, where she worked as a director. In 2003, their son was born in Lithuania, and the couple soon married and moved to the US.
Now, their son also serves in the US Army where he is a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) crewman. He has recently completed an eight-month mission in Germany where he was teaching Ukrainian soldiers to operate HIMARS.
After his military service, Buyan, together with his wife, returned to Lithuania frequently for the business of “exporting American automobiles, jeeps, boats, and aircraft from the US to Klaipėda”.
“I ended up shipping around 500 different vehicles. It was really good business. And it was just by listening to Lithuanians saying, we need this or that from the US,” the man notes. “I even shipped the whole container of used blue jeans from the US to Lithuania and sold them at the Gariūnai market.”
“Overall, the military missions and the business missions were both successful. But the most successful part was friendships that I had with Lithuanian people,” he adds.
Lithuania’s transition
Now, Buyan has a visa to live and work in Lithuania. He says he plans to spend his retirement between Lithuania and the US.
“I plan to live and work in Lithuania from April to October when the weather is nice here and then in the US from November to March. I plan to enjoy nice weather, travel, fish, hike, and play the guitar,” the man says.
He has recently captured his Lithuanian experiences in a music video called the Baltic Blues.
“It’s a comical song about a young US Army officer-pilot who comes to post-Soviet Lithuania and his first impressions of the country. The song pokes fun at the Soviet system in a nice way,” he says.
Buyan stresses, however, that in 30 years since his first visit to Lithuania, he has witnessed the country “transition from a sad, grey, gloomy post-Soviet state to a bright, happy, prosperous, modern European country”.
According to him, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February last year has made him once again see the importance of his earlier NATO mission in Lithuania.
“Lithuania is now secure, and Mr Putin understands that loud and clear,” he notes.
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