Lebanon is Burning

I thought I had finally seen peace come to the Cedar State. I remember the thrill I felt vacationing there in the late 90's and feeling the triumph of the human spirit. Bullet holes be damned! Let's party!

During the 1980’s Civil War, I was paying particular attention. The brother of my ex- boyfriend and my husband’s ex-girlfriend joined the Marines in the fall of 1982. (Hey! It was a small town! The only ethnic diversity in three counties was one Jewish family of Kosher farmers – my Maternal grandparents, rendering me the only Jew in high school after Dad retired. On a map, the next closest Jew was Tom Friedman - back then he worked for the Des Moines Register.)

Three images stick out vividly from that time period.

The first: We were on the town square on Saturday night, leaving for Tucson and Davis-Monthan AFB on Monday morning. Sunday was going to be monopolized by family, so Saturday night was goodbye to friends and the folks we both graduated high school with. In that time and place, the town square was where it all happened. Back when kids could drink a beer, squeal their tires, race their cars across the river bridge, and raise a little hell without getting a criminal record; or end up a registered sex offender for taking a leak behind a bush in the park. (Once in high school, we got particularly rowdy after winning a huge basketball game. Monday for Gym class, we cleaned up the square, in shifts. Coaches Maurer and Baumert were not amused.) Anyway, back to my story:

Mark (the brother) came over to our car and mocked a salute. "Airman" and Tom shook his head as he shook Marks hand. "Marine." then he went on - "It's been two years. I still feel like a civilian" which caused Mark to start fucking with his shoulder-length ringlets and calling him Brevet General Custer…my husband then made a smart-ass remark that he regretted for four years and that cost him a night of sleep a year later when the barracks was bombed. He said "They tell me Beirut is lovely this time of year." Mark was in Beirut within seven months and I was living with a ball of nerves and guilt who felt like an ass, like he had cursed his friend.

Then the Barracks Bombing happened. That was the second thing. My friend Linda Kovaks and I were walking into the Tucson Price Club on Speedway road, and a huge bank of discount-priced TV’s greeted shoppers as they entered. As we walked in, the "20 Minute Workout" was interrupted and every TV in the place cut to the national news desk, and the story about the barracks. Linda and I stood fast for a moment, then she moved on to do her shopping. I remained planted in one place.

She and I often disagree about politics – Israel in particular. I’m a green-line dove and she is a settlement hawk. She moved on that day because she knew she was about to lose another round in the ongoing battle over whether US intervention in Lebanon was a good idea. Linda was one of my "Townie" friends. I knew her from synagogue; she had no military connection. She is also a pro-life republican, but I love her anyway.

That day, she knew I was not going to shop, but she also knew what I went for, so she bought my purchases for me and I wrote her a check. I stood in front of the TV’s, crying and saying Hebrew Prayers. By the time Linda pulled me away, we were an inter-faith vigil. I had been joined by a Nun, a Sikh, and some garden variety Christians of varying denominations, and that being Tucson in 1983, perhaps a few atheists, Sikhs and Buddhists as well. All were cursing Reagan.

Finally, the third thing that sticks out in my mind as a bellwether moment in the Lebanese Civil War was a photo.

By this time we had been transferred to McConnell AFB on the southeast edge of Wichita, and we had two children. I worked "weekend option" for many years, meaning I worked from 1830 – 0700 on Friday and Saturday nights and in exchange, was treated as full time and got paid for 40. (This allowed us to do our own childrearing, thank you very much.) On Sunday mornings, I would stop at "The Towne Crier" and buy ten or twelve newspapers from all over the country and the world. My purchases varied by week, but always included the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, the Denver Post, the Des Moines Register, the Washington Post, The LA Times, and The Miami Herald. Then I would go to Dillon’s for coffee beans, bagels, fresh fruit, cream cheese, and pastry. Some choose to gorge on biscuits and gravy at Livingston's on their Sunday mornings in Wichita, I have always been a coffee-fruit-and-bagels kind of gal. I throw in some Danish for my English Catholic spouse.

On Saturdays, he would wear the kids out, then keep them up until midnight or later so we could have a couple of hours of peace and quiet, because I stayed up on Sundays. I didn’t do much besides read newspapers, take showers, nurse the baby, and drink coffee, but I was technically awake and thus turning my schedule back around.

He would make the coffee and we would sit in the sunroom and read newspaper after newspaper until the kids got up. And it was one of those Sundays that I laid down one publication and picked up another, and when I flipped the paper open, there on the front page, above the fold, was a photo with inset. The inset is of a beautiful, stylish, petite Lebanese Christian woman walking down the steps of church after services have ended. The second shows her holding her Prada heels in one hand, and she is throwing a rock, a look of abject, snarling, primal hatred on her face.

And now, nearly a quarter century later, everything old is new again.

Mark did his four years and returned to his hometown. He is so calm and passive and zen I hardly know him as the beer-drinking hell-raiser who bought the liquor for his little brother and me back in the day.

Linda Kovaks and I are still friends. We still disagree on many things. But with two sons in their 20’s, she has left the Bush reservation; and as an Arizonan, knows McCain way to well to trust that weasel. We have both budged some in 25 years, but I am proud to say that she has moved much farther left than I have right.

And for the last week, every time I try to sleep, I see that beautiful woman with the hideous face, and feel a despair I haven’t felt since the 80’s.