LIFE DURING A WAR
The war in Ukraine is going on, with no end in sight. Russians and their friends are happy about their impending victory. The supporters of Ukraine are sad and angry. However, hearing the sirens and sounds of explosions, the horrible fears of women and children who have nothing to do with this war are difficult to grasp.
In 1984 when I graduated from school and went back to Tehran, the Iran-Iraq war was at its peak. The local people had tasted the venom of the war, I was new to it. In the beginning there were no real problems close to Tehran. The real war was far away. I just had to deal with adopting to the side effects of war: Shortages, inflation, black market and nauseating propaganda from both sides.
One night when I was in bed I heard a loud noise, it was so load that I thought the air condition has fallen off the roof or something. Then I heard my mother screaming "it is an air raid", my sisters went downstairs, and they hid under the stairs and places that they knew. They had turned off the cities electricity to make it difficult for Iraqi planes to aim.
I did not care, but because I was the only man in the house and the oldest kid. I was worried for the family, I followed them and tried to calm down. This group of women and children were terrified. Then the sound of transistor radio declared that the air raid was over. After a while I went back to bed. I was mad at our own government for not having the competence to prevent these events. Getting bombed by Iraqi air force was insulting.
The next day was a kind of funny those genius pilots had missed the entire city and hit the mountains. I guess it was more humiliating than anything else.
Gradually these air raids increased, but I refused to get out of the bed. Statistically, it was very unlikely to hit our house and if they did there was no difference between a bedroom and a basement.
One afternoon I was alone in the house when sirens went off again. This time I went up on the roof to see this event with my own eyes. It was very close to sunset, suddenly the anti-aircraft batteries of southern half of the city began to shoot. It was an incredible picture. Imagine the biggest Fourth of July fireworks that you have seen in your life and multiply it by a thousand. The entire noise of the city had totally stopped the only thing you could hear was the sound of explosion of antiaircraft battery's shooting into the air. Then northern part of city began to shoot their guns.
Then there were a couple of loud noises which was their planes rockets hitting the city. I felt a kind of a relief that they did not get me, but immediately was a guilt that I was happy to survive but a bunch of women and children were dead.
These types of events kept on occurring for a while, until it was time for me to leave the country.
I know that several people on opednews are happy about Putin's act of barbarism but try to remember that there are real human beings under those bombs and rockets.
These days will pass, people of Ukraine will get it together and kick Russians out, but again there will be women and children who have to go through a similar experience.
(Article changed on Feb 25, 2022 at 9:41 PM EST)
