WAR.
I ran to the door and looked out. Something furious and fast rammed a tower a few hundred yards away and burst , few bodies arched in the air and flew backwards and slammed into the overhang on the side of a building, splaterring body parts in all directions. Then another monster streaked in with an ear splitting whine and slammed behind a row of buildings nearby . A resounding crash followed, and an instant later,flying debris pierced the air ,a cumulous orange fire ball spread and expanded rapidly and from within huge tongues of flame of yellow blue and green leapt high into the sky . In the distance more flares lit up the night sky and brilliant points of light from crashing bombs flashed against the horizon . Elsewhere, in the wake of dying fires,greyblack smoke spread and descended and soon the sky was black.
Kuwait was being pounded into submission by Saddam Hussein.
AUGUST 2 , 1990, before mid night .I do not have the ability ,nor the language or the prose to describe how I felt in those moments. Dosteovhisky could have, but whatever ,it was beyond any emotion I had ever experienced. It was not just fear, it was a giving up on life,a kind of submission coupled with selfpity and sadness of unfathomable depth. I didn't know whether I was crying , but my throat gripped as images of sorrow of my mother and sisters on my death flashed in the deep reccesses of the mind. Suddenly my mind shut and blackness spread.
I felt something cold on my face and water dripped into my eyes . I looked around and saw the egyptian crawling away from me. He looked back and motioned me like wise. Glass splinters lay strewn on the floor and I cut myself badly as I crawled rapidly towards the back of the room.There we slouched and descended the stairs to the basement at the rear of the builing where the air conditioning plant and power lines lay and hid ourselves.The egyptian smelt of raw shit.
The war took us by surprise though the war itself was not. Saddam had been massing troops on the border and he had serious issues with Kuwait,
especially regarding it's soveriegnity, debts, cross drilling,price of oil and a host of other grievances which Saddam felt was legitimate. Though the reigning Sheik of Kuwait was wary of Iraq, he had counted that American influence in the region would avert war.
