A Change in Perspective During the summer of 2006, my mother, older sister, and I went overseas to Lebanon. I never appreciated being raised in America until that visit. War with Israel broke out in South Lebanon in the midst of our vacation. My experiences while having to evacuate the country altered my aspect of my life in America. I remember never being able to tell whether it was day or night due to the continuous bombings that would light up the country. The once hectic streets with food carts and shoe polishers were invaded by army men and tanks. Lebanon’s infrastructure was being destroyed every moment of the day. Bridges and towers were being decimated and the houses were being leveled to the ground. Polluted gases raided the
The French had control of Syria and Lebanon. France had a direct rule, meaning that they sent officials and their army to govern their mandates. The Druze revolt caused the French to separate Lebanon into a country of their own. They appointed the government as people of different religious groups, Christian, Shi’a Muslims, and Sunni Muslims. During World War Two (WWII), Syria and Lebanon tried to gain independence. In 1946 Syria and Lebanon were free. During the time of the French Mandates they made many improvements towards the roads, education, agriculture, and health; which laid the groundwork for modern Syria and
There are many things that have molded me into the person I am today such as being born into a family with four children. With three siblings, I have been forced to be able to work out problems from stealing each other’s toys to having to rush to the emergency room to get stiches because my brother chased me around the house and I tripped. My mother, father, brother, and two sisters were all born in Pennsylvania and I am the odd ball and I was born in Adrian, Michigan. From when I was a child I always loved being involved with sports because of my competitive nature. I grew up playing soccer and having success with that but then my love changed and I began playing lacrosse and football. I started playing lacrosse in middle school and played
June 25th, 1965 at 8:15pm, an event occurred that changed the streets of Saigon, Vietnam forever. Three Viet Cong terrorists had planted two bombs, one inside the floating My Canh restaurant, and the other outside of the doors of the My Canh restaurant. They strategically did this so that when the first bomb went off inside the restaurant, all of the people dining inside would run outside in panic and pandemonium, and then the second bomb would detonate. sending shrapnel in all directions. This pipe bomb/claymore style explosive caused a very bloody and messy killing. The attack killed forty-two men, women, and children, and wounded eighty-one.
My first memory was when I was three years old; I remember it was me, my brother and my parents sitting in the car and stopping at a mini-market to pick up some chips on our way to the swimming pool. I have no idea why this memory is plastered in my head because there was nothing special about that day; we used to always stop at the mini-market with my brother and parents to pick up some chips on our way to the swimming pool. Although I was born in Syria, I spent the first four years of my life in the United Arab Emirates. My father had a good job, and we lived in a nice house and had a normal life, actually it was ironic since me and my family seemed to be living the American dream in an Arabic country. Since I don’t remember much of the UAE days I cant tell u much about it, all could tell u is that any parent would wish to raise their children in the environment that I was raised in. My father went to work, my mother took care of me and my brother, and all me and my brother had to worry about was the amount of French- fries we were going to eat at the swimming pool that day.
When I was nine years old, my parents, two siblings, and uncle decided that it was time for us to move from Missouri up to chilly Massachusetts. Both my uncle and father were construction workers. There were so many projects in Massachusetts, it was sensible for us to move. Financially, this was also the solution to our money problems. All around we were all very excited for this move, all except for myself. About halfway to Massachusetts, I had a gut feeling that this was a bad decision. Upon arrival, I felt like a fish out of water and, I was. Everything was so different compared to how Missouri was.
After spending 11 years in Egypt, I moved to the United States, an environment that was completely different from the one I came from. However, Life goes on. My pare...
He reflects on how the war affected him, a mere reporter and ultimately an outsider. This chapter feels like a memoir where he was able to showcase how horrific his experience was, but at the same time, he has facts and details to support his findings. Friedman uses dates extensively to give the readers an idea of when every event occurred. He uses them intelligently in the sense that they provide a timeline of when Israel invaded Lebanon and when the Lebanese civil war begun. He also was able to provide direct quotes from Lebanese citizens especially when he described how the Lebanese were able to cope with the insanity around them.
The sounds of the helicopters hovering above persisted as we lay in bed trying to sleep on the top floor of a very old monastery in northern Iraq. Some would find it traumatizing but I call it my childhood. Growing up in a war torn country really impacted my life and how I viewed the world. Years of oppression, no one was allowed to voice their opinion, that was the country I grew up in. A childhood is something someone grows cherishing, thinking this is how he or she would want his or her future children to be raised. This fact is not true in my life, growing up in Baghdad really made me learn to mature at a very young age. With project Desert Storm embarking and the war was just in our backyard it was hard not to see the pain that our family and friends were going
In some entries of your diary you stated how different cities were getting bombed. How did your city react to this? These bombings made my city more cautious. We had alarms for when a bombs or air raids might me coming.
Summer vacation, and school ends for about three months, and then you have as much fun as you can, then back to school… right? Well I had to go to summer school, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Everything was going fine, I had a job after summer school, and that was going fine as well. They say that summer is supposed to be fun and exciting, and it usually is for me and my family. However in July my father started coughing up blood. My father usually doesn’t make it his top priority to go to the doctors, so he waited about four weeks until he really didn’t feel good.
The story about I Martranika Gross, called changing my life. It all begin with many ideals that I had in mind to become while changing my life so my daughter will fix in. First was continue my education at Strayer University and a journey to follow. Next, becoming a role model with a pathway lay out for my daughter, a showing her not to stay you can’t to become successful. Finally, overcome obstacles first you have to have faith within yourself, and the key word is knowledge.
The Lebanese civil strife of 1975 to 1990 traces its origin to the political system of the colonial period. The nation political system of consociationalism crumbled into the sectarian war in 1975. The Lebanese civil war had multidimensional facets; at one end, the war was between the Christian community and the Islamic community and at another end, the proximity of Lebanon to Israel and Syria influenced their involvement in the civil war. Some critics contend that the Lebanese civil war was part of greater Arab-Israeli conflict. The formation of the Arab league complicated the association of the Zionist nation with the Arab countries (Shiam). This aspect played critical role in defining the interests Israel and Syria in the Lebanese war.
How would I feel I someone I loved died? It is not a question that most people ask themselves frequently, but it is one that often comes up when they read or hear about a notable person that has passed or was killed, or even just a news story about a woman who lost her son. I had the unfortunate experience of discovering what that felt like firsthand.
Lebanon’s rich history has been shaped by many cultural traditions, including Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Islamic, Crusader, Ottoman Turkish, French, and recently American. The resulting culture is distinctively Lebanese, a combination of East and West, past and present.
I remember that sense of excitement, that I would be moving a whole world away to a country I knew almost nothing about. It sounded like a vacation, or maybe even an adventure, a break from school, a break from classes, a break from the dastardly english cursive lessons. That day was a good day, my mom and I could finally go visit my dad in America. Other emotions sank in though, I was moving a whole world away. I had originally thought that a few hours drive away from my relatives -only seeing them once or twice a month- was too long, but now I was so far away that I could only see them once every one or two years.