From around the world and all walks of life, people found the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East a highly personal affair. If they didn`t have a loved one or know someone stationed in the Persian Gulf, they saw the war as something that would affect their lives in one way or another eventually.
Some were shocked, some were not. Some were deeply moved. Some took the news stoically and told how it would affect the world economically and politically. Here is how some of them reacted, as quoted by Tribune correspondents around the globe:
Charles Wilson, associate professor of history and Southern studies at the University of Mississippi in Oxford: ”It`s so compelling in a frightening sort of way. It`s going to be a different kind of war, where we watch everything and know everything. I think psychologically I`m going to be like everybody else-I`m going to feel the immediacy of this war.”
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At the elegant Restaurant St. Michel in Coral Gables, Fla., Jorge Carrasco, 38, a busboy, fluttered his hands over his heart. ”I`m feeling very bad,” he said. ”This war is a big pain for me, for the United States.”
A native of Chile who has lived in the U.S. for 18 years, Carrasco is the divorced father of two sons. He worries that war could cost him his job.
”Business is very slow already,” he said, scanning the half-empty dining room. ”People are scared to spend money. Now they will be more scared.”
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Lt. Jerry L. Griffin, 46, a watch commander at the Atlanta Police Department: ”I don`t know why we`re taking the lead in something that`s happening way over in the Middle East.”
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Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan, whose older brother, Ronnie, is stationed in Germany: ”If they need him, they said they`re going to call him, but that`s his job and I respect that. He enlisted to represent our country and if they call him, he`s going to have to go over there to do his job. It`s pretty shocking that we`re in war while we`re playing the game of basketball. It`s not what you`d expect. We were hoping it would pass and things would get settled without a war. It`s very shocking to see a war.”
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Darlene Dowd of Clarksville, Tenn., whose husband left for the Persian Gulf in August: ”It`s scary. It`s seems like a dream. I was hoping it wouldn`t happen, but he wanted to get it over with so he could come home.”
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Bob Vint, 44, president of Buckner State Bank in Dallas: ”On balance I personally feel our action is justified. The only effect, at least over the short run of one to three months, is an acceleration of a reticence by people to make financial commitments or decisions.”
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Rev. William Bryan, pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Dallas:
”Generally, I have a feeling of sadness, not fear. The things we`ve forgotten, like faith and hope and comradeship, we`ve forgtten where we`ve put them.”
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Paul Mittlestadt, a St. Louis real estate broker: ”I`m just sitting here shaking. I just can`t imagine that war can be brought to us so immediately.” – – –
Bob Kozuszek, a farmer in southern Illinois: ”I really don`t think we should be ruler of the world, but I don`t know. At the same time you`ve got to teach a man a lesson.”
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Ross Richardson, an engineer for Southwestern Bell Co. in St. Louis: ”If the war is short, the impact on the economy may be insignificant. If it`s long, everything could change. If the entire economy is mobilized to fight for a long war, I suspect that most of my current work will be de-emphasized.”
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Sandra Killingsworth-Finley, 40, president of the public relations firm, 5100 Communications in Chicago: ”I`m very angry and unhappy to know that when it really counts, the notion of diplomatic relations leading us to the other side of conflict does not work.”
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Ingrid Wallace, president of the League of Black Women and president of Ingrid Wallace Presents, a professional image consulting firm in Chicago:
”Most black people in today`s Army are there because of the educational opportunities that we as a group have not been able to get through the normal channels because of the economic barriers. And to have gone in for these alleged opportunities and to end up on the front lines is like being barter for these people sitting in the (corridors of power) far from the action.”
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Dean Buntrock, chief executive and chairman of Waste Management Inc. in Oak Brook: ”I`m very saddened that we have to be in this kind of a confrontation. . . . I very strongly support the action the president took. If a free world is to exist, we cannot be intimidated by strong military machines and the irresponsible leaders managing them, Saddam Hussein.”
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Cuban President Fidel Castro: ”The responsibility of this war is essentially on the U.S. It was bent on war when the solution could have become a political solution.”
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Mike Singletary of the Bears: ”I don`t have a brother over there; I don`t have a sister or a father. But I know that in a sense I do have brothers over there. Lives are going to be taken over there for greed, for stubbornness, and the bottom line is pride.”
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Bears secondary coach Zaven Yaralian: ”I had butterflies in my stomach. It`s the apprehension like just before a game, just before kickoff. But, this is the big kickoff.”
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Joseph Bauer of Falls Church, Va., a senior financial analyst for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.: ”I wish there was a way to let the sanctions work longer. We`re in a suicidal situation with the people on both sides of the line.”
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Washington attorney Mary Crouter, a litigator with a large law firm:
”Now that it`s real, I find it very frightening, even though it won`t affect my day-to-day life.”
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Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of First Albany Bank of New York:
”Everything turns on whether it`s a short war or a long war. . . . A short war would be very good for the banking industry. A long war would be very bad for the banking industry because it would aggravate an already dismal economic picture.”
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Abdul Alwan, professor of business at De Paul University: ”I am watching TV and I am extremely mad and irritated. It is just unbelievable. I`ve had a number of calls from other Iraqis and everyone is shaking. There was no justification whatsover. It is really just for the egos of Saddam Hussein and George Bush. Innocent people are being killed for no reason.”
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Guy Carbonneau, 30, center-captain of the Montreal Canadiens: ”My wife is really scared. It`s the first time most of the players and most of the people I know have ever seen a war. The war is over there, but if it gets bigger, it could come over here. I think the players will have fear everytime we travel, everytime we get on a plane, especially to the U.S.”
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Alain Jacques, 39, tower chief at Dorval International Airport in Montreal: ”I`m stuck to my TV set. . . . As far as work, there`s always the threat of terrorism that bugs me. We took some measures in the last couple of weeks to secure the working environment. We`re concerned with what possibly could happen to our working environment in regard to Iraqis who are living in Montreal and might be sympathetic to Saddam Hussein.”
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Mike Shahin, 25, a graduate student at Concordia University School of Journalism in Montreal: ”It`s incredible. I was sitting there watching the television and there were air raid sirens and a reporter said journalists were told to put on gas masks. I started to cry. It`s unbelievable for me to even comprehend that`s there`s a war starting. It`s very scary. I feel almost in shock. My parents are from Baghdad, but we`re Jews. I asked my parents how they feel, but they have absolutely no ties. It`s not their country anymore. They feel closer to Israel.”
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For the last few days, unemployed farmworker Victor Maldonado has been preparing for the impact a distant war would have on the tiny farming community of Woodlake in California`s San Joaquin Valley.
Maldonado, like many of the farmworkers who live in Woodlake, has been out of work since an arctic freeze devastated the oranges that he picks for a living. Fearing that war will jack up food and gasoline prices, Maldonado has spent what little he had saved on cheap canned food.
”With the war, things are going to get worse,” said Maldonado, who lives with his wife and three children. ”We have almost no money left.”
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Tom Hayden, a state assemblyman in California and a prominent protester during the Vietnam War: ”Twenty-five years ago, it affected me as a student when I opposed the Vietnam War and lost the support of my parents and their generation. Today I`m the parent of a 17-year-old and I can`t stand the thought of sacrificing the innocent lives of so many young Americans for the not-so-innocent cause of oil. What I`m ashamed of is that we asked them to risk their necks so we can be the most energy-wasteful nation in the world.” – – –
News of the war stirred a range of intense feelings among Chicago-area residents. Not only shock, but sadness and fear, patriotism and outrage, concern for the fate of U.S. soldiers and concern about the impact of a war on the already weak U.S. economy.
Dennis Burr, 39, who is charge of the Navy`s recruiting office in Chicago: ”I was amazed by it. I didn`t think anything like that would happen. I figured they`d work it out.” He was ”somewhat” saddened, he said,
”because it`s loss of lives, but it`s for the good of more.”
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Manuel Fernandez, 51, a worker at the Ford stamping plant in Chicago Heights: ”This is going to hurt the auto industry tremendously. There definitely will be layoffs at the plant. Right now there aren`t people around to buy cars. This isn`t going to make things any better. With 32 years at the plant, I think I`m safe. But others will be laid off.”
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Carl Porter, 47, of New Lenox, whose family founded the W.G.N. Flag and Decorating Co. on Chicago`s Southeast Side: ”It`s no surprise. I think they`ve done what they said they were going to do-wait for night, for (the)
moon not to be shining, for fog on the ground which is helping for coverage. And they`re hitting places they felt they should hit. You know, hit the heart.” Porter, an Army veteran, has designed a Desert Shield banner: ”It`s tri-color, red, white and blue.”
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Txan Nzo, 46, a Vietnamese refugee whose husband fought in the Vietnam War but escaped, now lives in Chicago with two children, 15 and 16. She works at the Southeast Asia Refugee Center: ”I am not upset, not glad. But I think the reason it is happening is good. It`s necessary to fight because the occupiers are strong. Iraq has to be policed, to be policed by the world.”
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Frank Miceli, 40, a Vietnam War veteran from Northlake and owner of the Elite Military Surplus Supplies store in Schaumburg: ”My thoughts, after being in the military three years, are that I don`t want to see anyone go to war, because in a war no one is a winner. I don`t want this to turn into another Vietnam War.”
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Uy Nguyen`s father, whom he never knew, was a captain in the South Vietnamese army who died in war. Nguyen is now a senior at Lincoln Park High School and a resident of Uptown. ”My Dad, he died for his country. I am proud of him. He died for a reason. I want to show my appreciation to the U.S. for helping my country. My mom would support my brothers and me going. We feel it is like a payback.”
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Pressing machine operator Gene Soto, 44, of Park Forest: ”What we are doing is right. We either put our foot down or we just allow Hussein to keep going. We have to take care of what we have to take care of. I believe we have to support our president. We can`t let one nation overtake another.”
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Tomio Yasunaga, 28, a Tokyo bartender employed at the Botan bar in Tokyo`s Ginza district: ”I was born in the postwar period, so I have no experience with a world war. But I think Iraq miscalculated the same way Japan did in 1941.”
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Hideyuki Ashikaga, 30, works at Nissan`s Tochigi plant near Osaka in the production control section. The factory, which has 8,000 workers, produces Nissan`s luxury Infiniti. Said Ashikaga: ”We were all expecting some kind of military action to happen, but we were all surprised at how quickly it happened. Everyone here in the plant is listening to the radio as the latest reports arrive from the Middle East. Everyone looks very worried, but we are trying to work as usual.”
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Anthony Jones, 24, is a junior honors student from Rochester, Minn., majoring in prelaw and journalism at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He served four years with the Marine Corps as an artilleryman and is currently enrolled in an officers training program. Several Marine friends are in Saudi Arabia. ”I`m excited and I`m nervous, and maybe a little shocked,” he said ” . . . If I was told to go, yes, I would go. If I was asked if I wanted to go, I guess right now I could not give you an answer on that. I`m just starting my life as an adult. I don`t necessarily want to end it.”
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Dr. Jan Van Schaik, 37, a psychiatrist at the Milwaukee Psychiatric Hospital in Wauwatosa, Wis.: ”Many of my patients have already brought up the theme of war in therapy sessions. There is a kind of kinship that many people feel, even if they don`t have any friends or relatives involved, a kinship with other members of humanity. For many people, it is still a very painful, gut-wrenching experience even if they are not there.”
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Suzanne Harjo, a Cheyenne Creek Indian from El Reno, Okla., and director of the Morning Star Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based cultural rights advocacy group for Indians: ”Our Indian people are going to be poorer-this war is costing megabucks, the banks and insurance companies are failing-and there aren`t going to be as many of us because we`re (Indians) in the Persian Gulf-like in Vietnam-at a disproportionately high rate.”
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Koji Kakizawa, 58, a representative of the lower house of Japan`s parliament and chairman of a committee on foreign affairs: ”I am not happy about the beginning of war, but because of Saddam Hussein`s tough stance on Kuwait, it was inevitable. Now Japan must support the multinational effort. . . . We Japanese aren`t involved actively, but we are psychologically.”
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Eileen Story and her husband, Pete, ranch several hundred head of cattle in Montana`s Paradise Valley just north of Yellowstone National Park. Eileen said she views the war ”with just the most horrible sense of foreboding. . . . I just wish we had a wonder weapon that would kill Saddam and nobody else.”
