Imagine living in a warzone

Recently, me, my wife and a close friend of ours were in San Francisco, CA to watch the Red Bull Air Race and the Blue Angles Air Show. Those shows are something to see live, but that is not why I am writing this blog.

We arrived on the evening of Thursday, October 6th. The next day, we walked the city as tourists do, poking our heads into shops and looking for little boutiques to carry munkiy products. As we approached the famous Pier 39, the Blue Angels started their practice runs.

We stopped walking on some street that I cannot recall the name of and watched as the six planes blazed through the sky. The planes kept the skies roaring, but at times were not to be seen. Not to be seen until they were right on top of us, rumbling everything around us and then suddenly banking turns, flashing themselves between the buildings. The action was impressive and amazing. As I watched, there was a great feeling I had knowing that these were the types of machines keeping me and my family safe.

When we returned to our hotel that night, I turned on the television and started flipping through the channels. I stopped on the news because there was an update on the War in Iraq. Of course, it was another report of some car bomb exploding. As I watched the story, I started thinking about those planes we watched earlier. It made me think about the civilians in Iraq. I tried to imagine what those civilians were going through the day as the US and allied forces began raining missiles and bombs on Iraq. I pictured those Blue Angel Jets roaring right above me, but this time, they were dropping bombs and then banking away. Yeah..impressive.....this time it was a different kind of impressive. WOW. How horrific that must have been for those people to see the buildings around them get torn apart. What would I do? Where would I go? And when those jets fly by, you don't hear them until the last second and that last second is probably too late.

I bet most people living in the US don't even bother about worrying about this type of thing happening to them. I know I didn't. But take a second to imagine you and your family living in a region of fighting. What do you think your daily routine would be when you know that your way to work is a warpath? If you have children, how worried would you be? How long would you be able to put up with the sound of sirens? How would you feel if the buildings that you looked at every morning on your way to work were no longer there? .................................When you're done taking that second, know how lucky you are to be able to read this and shrug it off.