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Aug 27 2011 Hurricane Irene, Bombs, and Baghdad

Hurricane Irene, Bombs, and Baghdad

by Nisreen, 121Contact

I can’t help it. Waiting for the storm is the worst part. I want to face it. Now. I don’t want to keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting. I hate waiting.

It is serious, I know. And it could be worse than serious. And I don’t know why I am being…there is a laugh inside me, and a surprise. How people’s lives are so precious here and how people are so worried about the days they are going to live without electricity and water.

They’re going to shut the trains, the buses…People are talking here and there, and the News is filled with live details about the hurricane; Irene the call it. I am not afraid, and I am waiting for this Irene. I want to see if it is worth that much panic and attention in the waiting moments. Is it worth that anxiety? I am waiting and each moment and every detail from the TV draws a smile inside me and reminds me of Iraq. 

I remember the hours before the bombardment of Iraq on March 20^th, 2003. We are gathering food and water. We are storing tens of cans of food afraid of hunger and starvation. Batteries and torch lights are sold out in a few minutes. Candles and gasoline lamps are sold out before you can blink and people are hurrying back and forth from home to store; each time remembering another thing forgotten.  Even medicine is being collected and stored.

We kept waiting and waiting. In our imaginations we kept seeing the bombing. Some of us were embarrassed to show fear, and some were really tense. I was one of them. I couldn’t sit. I was moving around from 2AM until 8PM my nerves were consumed. These are moments out of time. There is movement, but little thinking. Just waiting.

At two o’clock in the morning of March 20^th, I think, my family gathered, all of us, in one house to share the panic together. And maybe to share death together.  And we sit waiting in front of TVs and there is much talk and commenting. An announcer is talking about the impending invasion and my brothers suddenly have become experts. “If they come from the North then…If they come from the South…” etc. I think they are talking out of panic, and the bragging helps them feel calm. They won’t stop talking. Some of us want a quieter space and we go to listen to one of the six radios we just bought; of different sizes and colors, and different sizes of batteries now stored in the kitchen . Each room has a radio. The radio news is live reports of the strategies, the plans, the attacks…telling us moment by moment where the troops are…We now know the provinces have been bombed.

And all of a sudden we heard the sirens. The first sign was the electricity going down. So no more TV, and we ran to the radio which ran on batteries. And almost every channel was talking about the B52s that will arrive at the borders of Baghdad later that day, at 8 o’clock in the evening, and in a few seconds they will reach Baghdad, the Presidential Palace, and the most important locations in Baghdad.

 Our phone calls never stopped. We were talking to aunts, cousins, uncles.

The aunties said, “Hide under the stairs. It is the most safe.”

The uncles advised us, “No. Go to the corners of the rooms, away from the windows. Put the dressers against the windows to stop the broken glass.”

At that moment I really hated the idea of waiting. You don’t know what is coming…it is really…not unhealthy, but…it affects your spirit, your soul, your brain. It’s really…I hate it.

OK. 7:45 and we are gathering in one room. Some jokes are told. My brothers and sisters talk politics for a while before we started worrying that the children would understand, so we had to tell more jokes and stories.

 7:50 and we keep whispering, “The B52 will be here soon.”

 :57, :58, 8 o’clock and the B52 is not here yet. We are so quiet, waiting to hear the sound of the first blast. The radio is talking, “The bombardment has started. The B52s have entered the borders. Some of the provinces are being attacked.”

We are still waiting. God knows what will happen when it comes. Then, all of a sudden, we hear, far away, shooting. And the shooting comes closer and closer. We hear some far away explosions, booms that are not very close. Then we start to feel the house shaking, and I hear it. The B52. I don’t know if it is really a B52 but that is in my mind. And I can hear the planes and feel the earth shake, and it keeps going as if they are flying around and bombing some targets.

And all of a sudden  something fills my head with panic, with fear, with “what to do. It’s here.” I can’t sit still; my brother can’t sit still. The anti-aircraft artillery shooting is so loud. It is scarier than the planes. The children start asking, “What is this noise,” and then they start to cry. So we have to sing some songs and clap.

Some of us, like me and my brother, have to go out. We want to see what’s going on. Sitting in panic could kill you. And going out to see what’s going on could kill you too, but waiting in panic is unbearable.

We went into the street. My brother and I. My neighbor came out in his gray and blue pajamas and asked, “Are you celebrating? I heard clapping.”

“No,” we answered. “We were just quieting the children.”

“I feel sorry for them,” he said.

And we saw the thing we were waiting for; the thing we were bored of waiting for. We saw the blue, dark skies turn to red, orange and small yellow fragment here and there. The stars turned red.

 I am smiling now to see how the people here are waiting for Irene.

 

April 22, 2004 PIECE IS THE BEST END

Here are two young adults who quickly come to know essential, peaceful truths about each other. There is no political analysis here; only the clear-eyed vision of youth. And there is something else: a yearning to be listened to, to be understood, and to be liked.
Bruce
 

July 31, 2004 MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

Mightier than the sword

By Bruce Wallace and Mark Wallace                                                         First Published:July 31 2004

On September 11 2001, my nephew Mitch Wallace, a Supreme Court Officer attached to a Manhattan fire company, was taking wounded people out of the subway station beneath the World Trade Center When the South Tower collapsed. Two days later my brother and I took our place in the incredibly long line of people outside an armory in Manhattan where they were collating the lists of all the injured. Mitch's name wasn't on any of the lists. Months later, they found his badge and his gun. It was all that was ever recovered. He was 34. Mitch's death brought our family a lot of grief, a lot of anger, and a lot of frustration. Part of my frustration was wondering what I could do. Mitch was a very peaceful person: he hated violence. He loved helping people. So when we went to war in Iraq, I was totally confused.

Iraq seemed to have nothing to do with Mitch. Then I found that there was something I could do that might help bring about a more peaceful tomorrow. I am

9/11 GROUND ZERO

091101 Tuesday

It is hell, I guess.

Mar was in the shower and I was working at my desk. I heard a plane, large, slow, and way too low, and then the unmistakable crash. "A plane crashed. I heard it. I'm going out to see". I grabbed my camera and ran out of the house. I stood at Chambers and Greenwich, 5 blocks North of the
World Trade Center, and watched the fire spread. I called Mar on the cell phone and told her I was all right. I saw the second plane hit. Terrorists.

 
People were starting to stream by me, heading North. A crowd began to gather, with silence broken by screams as people resolved the slowly floating objects, dolls, sheets, paper airplanes, dolls, dolls, silently drifting down, down, people.

 
I stood there pinned by the horror. I had been taking pictures until I realized that the last shot had captured the image of people leaping from the highest floors of the tower. A woman in a white dress; slowly spiraling down. My stomach rose. I thought, "I'm not working for UPI. What the hell am I doing taking these pictures?" There was an urge to go and help but my feet didn’t move. I got a cell-message from Jeremy, "Get the fuck off the street," but still did not move.

 
P. S. 234 is on the corner of Greenwich and Chambers. There was an initial panic quickly quelled by staff. Parents and nannies were streaming to the school. Parents were taking their children out. Kate (the 5^th floor neighbor I hardly know) had her two kids in tow. She could hardly speak, and I was speechless. Tears were not streaming down all our faces. I couldn't look at the children, who were in shock, I guess, quiet, heads bowed. She dragged the kids along toward home. They could hardly move.

 
Marilyn came down into the street and pulled me away.

We threw passports and a couple of things into a pack and walked over to the East Side to Jeremy's apartment. As we walked we heard a roar; people gasped and screamed; we turned to see a space where the towers had been. "It’s not buildings. It's people".

 
Marilyn, Jeremy, Megan (his friend visiting from Zimbabwe) and I walked, subwayed, and walked to Mark's house in Brooklyn. I am glad the four of us are in the same city, are safe, can hug. I am glad the four of us are safe. I am glad Megan is safe.

 
After a bit of sitting at Mark's, looking at TV, and sitting in shock we move to volunteer somehow. Mark is adamant about not leaving Mar alone in his apartment. His alert sensitivity shames me into seeing how my selfish wish to help pushed my consideration for my family aside. Megan stayed with Marilyn and my sons and I head for the local hospital.

 
We volunteer as drivers at the local hospital. We do nothing. There are not many injured. This is a second tier hospital in the emergency hierarchy. It is meant to take the overflow. There is no overflow. There are not many wounded. "What does that mean?"

 
That night Jeremy and Megan stay with friends and Mar and I go to the Orlow's. Mark goes back to the hospital with a friend.

 
My first call is to my brother, Ken, runs his business from an office on Broadway, one block from the WTC. He is OK. He was on the street when the first plane hit. He went back to the office when the second plane hit to tell everyone to leave. He leaves, sees the chaos, and goes back to make sure his people are all out of there. The first collapse happens when he is back upstairs. The sky turns black, then a rain of particles begins to fall. They all leave and head to their various homes. But there is more news.

 
Mitchel, my brother's son, is missing. He is a court officer at the NY Supreme Court on the East side of downtown. He was walking to work with a colleague when he heard the first plane hit He is a trained and twice decorated Emergency Medical Technician. He's got a couple of saved lives under his belt. He immediately started running to the site, yelling over his shoulder, "I gotta go". He goes, of course, to ground zero and gets assigned to a fire company's emergency crew. They do runs into the underground passages beneath Borders Books to pull out the injured. He was last seen going back into the passageway just before the collapse. At the end of the day we don’t know for sure what happened to Mitch. This picture was taken just moments before he was last seen going down to get another victim.
 
Ben's friend who was in WTC 2 at an 8:30 A.M.meeting heard the first attack and ran out with her co-workers. They all agreed that they would soon be evacuated and so started back to gather their things when second plane hit. They are OK. There are lots of stories like this. Near misses.

 
Rachelle was one of the first to email. I sent a short reply but was unable to express anything beyond our being OK. I am sending one-liners to all who write, and speaking one-liners to most who call. It is only once in a while that I get to touch anything real inside of me, and then there are tears. Sleep is strange. David and Anita have opened their home to us, we are in a comfortable place in a comfortable bed, but it is not home. "Is home caught in a fire-storm? What about all those people?" I have a few nightmares about the boys volunteering for something and getting in trouble.