While serving as an officer (ordinary guardsmen are not permitted to marry), he met a young Italian woman, fell in love and married. While living in the Vatican in 1977, the couple had a baby girl, whom they named, in true Swiss fashion, Heidi.
Fruh now runs an executive search firm, so he is well equipped for his current duties as the guard's information and recruiting officer. In his offices, above a Turkish restaurant called Istanbul, he interviews all prospective applicants and makes a preliminary selection. The final choice is made by the guard commander in Rome.
Events that have highlighted the Vatican, like the election of the new pope and the celebrations of the jubilee year in 2000, have awakened the interest of young Swiss in the guard. Now Fruh gets as many as 90 applications for the 25 to 30 yearly openings.
"And they come better equipped," he said. "Some have studied, they speak languages." The celebrations have also been a time for the veterans to re-establish old links. About 600 of the roughly 900 veterans still living in Switzerland are active in the veterans' organization that Babey heads.
And what do they do when they get together? Like all veterans, they tell and retell old war stories. "The worst is the religious fanatic, who wants to pass a message personally to the Holy Father," Fruh said. "You cannot beat him, so you have to use other tactics."
Hence the modern guardsmen carry tear gas and pepper spray in addition to their halberds, the combination of spear and battle-ax that the guardsmen carry.
Babey, with a lighter touch, recalled his service under John XXIII during the Second Vatican Council. Babey recounted how, on the council's third day, Cardinal Nicola Canali, a conservative, reportedly told the pope, "Holy Father, the devil is roaming the floor of that council."
Pope John, he went on, was said to have replied, "But your eminence, do you think the devil would offend us by not being present?"
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