A post by Babylon Sisiter today made me think if the story I wrote 4 years ago.

Up Close And Personal
July 11, 2003

I was sitting under the ramada with my parrot, Frank, last night. It was sunset, the end of another long, hot day in Yuma, Arizona. The high was 109 and a light breeze was beginning to waft up from the Colorado River eventually bringing the low down to 80 degrees.

Frank was chattering a way to himself. Feeling quite smug, I looked around my vibrant, green, landscaped yard with the tropical vegetatio hibiscus, bougainvillea, brilliant orange and red Mexican birds of paradise - the cool, blue swimming pool, and the air conditioned house.

I saw all of the palm trees not only in my area but all over the neighborhood. I got to thinking how similar Yuma is to Baghdad, Iraq where there is a war going on. We are about at the same latitude, the 33rd parallel. We have the same type of desert climate. The high in Baghdad was also 109 degrees, yesterday. In every TV news cast I see of the area there are palm trees, date palms mostly. I have a “datila” in my front yard that I grew from seed.

I began to wonder how I would feel if another country decided to invade my land to get rid of our President because its leader thought our leader to be a cruel and unjust man. How would I react? It would not only mean the destruction of my country and my community but an invasion of my privacy, my home, and all the things dear to me by armed strangers who do not understand my culture or speak my language. Suddenly, the war in Iraq becomes “up close and personal” to me.

My heart goes out to our military over there, the invaders, our American boys out on the streets in full military gear in the that God-awful, unrelenting, merciless heat trying to establish law and order in a sea of chaos while being attacked and killed by guerilla warriors bent on restoring their old regime and getting us out of their country.

Then, there are the common people of the city just like me who are caught in the middle. My heart goes out to them, too, the innocent victims of war. They probably lived in a community similar to mine, maybe not as lush and green but their lives were fairly stable and predictable.

Not any more. Their country has been destroyed. Cities have been leveled. Most of the areas have no water, no electricity and the people of Baghdad have very little food and no way of escaping the suffocating desert heat and the summer has just begun. Two of the Four Horsemen have already arrived War, Famine and Pestilence is at the City's gates.

What was the reason for the annihilation of this country? Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Where is Saddam Hussein? What were we ever doing in Iraq in the first place? Millions of dollars a day are being spent in trying to reconstruct a nation whose the people want us to go home while our own country is being torn apart with massive unemployment, a faltering economy with more and more of our people on the streets going hungry every day.

Another fine mess you ve gotten us into, George!