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Los Angeles Times Valley Edition | Glendale News-Press | 2004 October 4
No matter how far and how long ago
BY PATRICK AZADIAN
This is the second of two parts
Greg pushed forward the slender tires on his wheelchair as he sped out of his apartment on Louise Street. His prosthetic legs had gone in for repair the day before. It would be a few weeks before he would have them back. It was a good opportunity for him to get his arms back in shape; he'd been slacking off at the gym.
He turned the corner quickly onto Glenoaks Boulevard, feeling the centrifugal forces pushing him away from the seat. As he came out of the sharp curve, his upper body aligned back again with the wheelchair. He and his ride were headed in the same direction once more.
It was 0800 on a Friday. Greg's humble breakfast was awaiting him at Vaspurakan Pastry on the corner of Jackson Street and Glenoaks. It was owned by his longtime friends, the Petrossians. He had met the middle-aged couple, Sahak and Carmella, during his Marine assignment in Baghdad.
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Just that morning, Greg had heard the news on his radio about the last of the American forces evacuating Baghdad on board the C-17 Globemaster III Air Force transport aircrafts. No one, not even the most outspoken anti-war activists, had thought the conflict in Iraq would last through 2008. The Iraqi Islamic Liberation Front had hoisted the new green-and-black flag on what remained of the Presidential Palace. With the help of the newly rejuvenated Russian Federation, the neighboring fundamentalists in Iran as well as the Mukhabarat (secret service) in Syria, they had been able to declare the south of Iraq a "Unified Islamic Republic." Shiite and Sunni militants had become allies in a rare show of solidarity. And that's perhaps what the term "unified" referred to.
Recent history was full of state names with contradicting adjectives. As in the word "democratic" in the now defunct German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the terms "people's and democratic" in the name "People's Democratic Republic of Korea" (North Korea), or the ornamental titles of "union, socialist and republics" of the late Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, what the new "Unified Republic" lacked most was unity.
In the north, Iraqi Kurds, with the help of the freshly restructured Turkish Federal Republic (TFR), had declared "Northern Mesopotamia" a member state of the Turkish "federal" state. Here too, "federal" was an afterthought aimed at legitimizing the annexation of northern Iraq as well as northern Cyprus.
It was time to bring the American youngsters back home to their families.
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Greg arrived at Vaspurakan Pastry; he knocked on the glass window and enthusiastically waved at Sahak. Greg avoided going in; it was a bit of a hassle to maneuver around the tightly packed tables and chairs.
"Good morning! My usual, please?"
Sahak gave Greg his customary informal military salute by raising his right hand to his forehead; Greg knew he'd been acknowledged.
"Carmella, Greguh hos eh." ("Carmella, Greg is here." in Armenian).
Within the 10 minute mark, Carmella was on her way out with a tray carrying Greg's favorite morning goodies, the coffee and the sweet pagharj, a type of pastry from the southeast corner of Asia Minor.
As Carmella left the pastry shop's grounds and entered into the sidewalk, a low flying Raven 44 IV news helicopter appeared in the Glendale skies. The chopper's noise had effortlessly drowned the sounds of the early morning traffic.
"plplplplplpplplplplpl....."
While Greg turned his wheelchair around to look up in the sky, another set of sounds interrupted the chopper. Metal and glass had suddenly come into contact with the concrete sidewalk.
Carmella had dropped the tray. Her jittery nerves had been stunned. She was on her knees; her ears were covered with her hands.
"It's OK, Mrs. Carmella; it's OK. It's over; the war is really over. It's just a news chopper."
Carmella continued to keep her ears protected and began shaking her head.
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It was the evening of July 5. The hazel-eyed Mary had just moved into her beautiful house in the Glendale hills.
She was upstairs in the master bedroom folding the kids' laundry. Her therapeutic folding routine was enriched by a view of the backyard wildlife. A young deer had been paying them unannounced visits. Mary had a delicate smile on her face. It was at times like this she knew she had finally found peace. Beirut's St. George neighborhood seemed so far away now, so did the years of civil war.
Her two children were playing video games and her husband was absorbed in the History Channel.
Meanwhile, the neighbor's kids were busy smuggling a few unexploded firecrackers out to the street for a belated finale to Independence Day.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The backyard's fragile guest ran back up to the hills in a swift turnaround and getaway. Simultaneously, Mary rushed down the steps in a frenzy and grabbed ahold her children tightly.
"Are you OK, tsakoogs (children)."
"Mommy, are you crying?"
"No. No. I'm not. You can have tears in your eyes when you are happy too, you know."
"Why are you happy, Mommy. It looks like you are crying."
"No baibees (my child), I am happy. I am happy I have you two..."
Copyright 2004 Glendale News Press
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