Life During Wartime -- Janine Di Giovanni, New York Times
WHAT does it feel like when a war begins? When does life as you know it implode? How do you know when it is time to pack up your home and your family and leave your country? Or if you decide not to, why?
For ordinary people, war starts with a jolt: one day you are busy with dentist appointments or arranging ballet lessons for your daughter, and then the curtain drops. One moment the daily routine grinds on; A.T.M.’s work and cellphones function. Then, suddenly, everything stops.
Barricades go up. Soldiers are recruited and neighbors work to form their own defense. Ministers are assassinated and the country falls into chaos. Fathers disappear. The banks close and money and culture and life as people knew it vanishes. In Damascus, this moment has come.
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My Comment: My father's experience is the one that I know of personally. One evening he is at a party celebrating the successful end of his first year in university .... crashes at a park because he was too drunk to get home .... and gets waken up in the morning by bombs exploding in the center of the city. Rushes to the center of the city (Kiev), and he sees devastated building and bodies on the street. Rushes home and hears on the radio that everyone must listen to a special bulletin in a few hours.
Barricades go up. Soldiers are recruited and neighbors work to form their own defense. Ministers are assassinated and the country falls into chaos. Fathers disappear. The banks close and money and culture and life as people knew it vanishes. In Damascus, this moment has come.
Read more ....
My Comment: My father's experience is the one that I know of personally. One evening he is at a party celebrating the successful end of his first year in university .... crashes at a park because he was too drunk to get home .... and gets waken up in the morning by bombs exploding in the center of the city. Rushes to the center of the city (Kiev), and he sees devastated building and bodies on the street. Rushes home and hears on the radio that everyone must listen to a special bulletin in a few hours. A few hours later he learns of Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, and is told to go to the military. A few weeks later he is involved in a gun battle with deserters who do not want to join the Soviet military .... and his best friend gets killed. And after that .... he leaves home for the last time (it is destroyed in the war), and is shipped to the Far East for more training. He sees combat for the first time in the Battle of Stalingrad, and continuous combat until the end of the war.
Yup .... war and the life that you knew could be over just like that.
Read more ....
My Comment: My father's experience is the one that I know of personally. One evening he is at a party celebrating the successful end of his first year in university .... crashes at a park because he was too drunk to get home .... and gets waken up in the morning by bombs exploding in the center of the city. Rushes to the center of the city (Kiev), and he sees devastated building and bodies on the street. Rushes home and hears on the radio that everyone must listen to a special bulletin in a few hours. A few hours later he learns of Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, and is told to go to the military. A few weeks later he is involved in a gun battle with deserters who do not want to join the Soviet military .... and his best friend gets killed. And after that .... he leaves home for the last time (it is destroyed in the war), and is shipped to the Far East for more training. He sees combat for the first time in the Battle of Stalingrad, and continuous combat until the end of the war.
Yup .... war and the life that you knew could be over just like that.