Posted on 12/31/2003 4:58:04 PM PST by saquin
THE Stars and Stripes emblazoned on the top of a cream state-of-the-art tent has drawn a large crowd of Iranians. There is a buzz in the air. They havent seen the American flag on show in public in this way for 24 years.
Two bright red trucks gleam beside the tent, not a splash of mud or dust on them. Tanned, brawny firefighters hurry about. They look slick.
Their crisp, dark-blue combat trousers and fitted military-style jumpers are an incongruous sight amid the baggy fluorescent boiler suits. Cameramen, journalists, Basij militiamen, mullahs and soldiers swarm around the new arrivals; even a few curious survivors have taken a detour from collecting aid to come and look at the amrikais.
Everybody wants to talk to the boys in blue. They have enjoyed a rapturous welcome: no other aid team was given a singlered rose for each worker. We go, people see us and they love us. They see the American flag and they feel like help is here, Craig Luecke, from the Fairfax, Virginia, Fire Service, said. The people of Iran have given us so much.
The feeling is mutual. We like Americans, they are nice people, a shivering survivor says, sitting on a mound of rubble, huddled with his family around a fire.
Even the Basij, carefully watching the proceedings from a grass mound overlooking the American tent, view the political situation as a separate issue: Weve got nothing against the American people. Its just their Government that messes things up.
Steve Catlin, the co-ordinator for the US Agency for International Development, said with a broad smile: I dont know about the politics and I dont get involved. Im just a dumb rescue guy here to help people.
The Americans have sent 81 rescue workers, including doctors, nurses and structural engineers. They are working with the Ministry of Health, and have set up a hospital in Bam, where up to 50,000 people are believed to have died since the earthquake last Friday.
The Americans arrival coincides with the departure of seven search and rescue teams, who feel their job is done. Bam isnt like other earthquakes, the collapse has been complete, a member of the British search and rescue team said. Usually you have buildings made of concrete slabs that create air pockets. You dont have that in Bam because of the mud bricks. And, if there were any pockets of air, any survivors would have suffocated from the dust .
There have been a few miracle rescues. Yesterday an elderly woman was pulled alive from the ruins of her house by a French team, having spent six days trapped underground. François de Salge-Villegieu, a French doctor, said that he believed the woman was aged about 80, and not injured.
A family of four were also rescued alive after being buried under their house for five days: they survived on water from their tank that had also fallen in the earthquake.
Dr Jalil Tabatabaei, the head co-ordinator of the Iranian Red Crescent, who wants the search and rescue teams to stay, said: I am sure that at least a thousand people still under the rubble are alive. I am sure.
Even if the other international teams are concentrating on humanitarian aid rather than the business of rescue, for the first time since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Americans are at hand. Were here to do whatever the Iranians want us to do, Mr Catlin said.
Rick Schmidt from Vienna, Virginia, a member of Fairfax County, Virginia, search and rescue squad, is given flowers by an Iranian man (L) on his arrival to the earthquake-hit town of Bam, in southeastern Iran, December 31, 2003. Flowers were given from Iran's Revolutionary Guards. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (news - web sites) staff prepare their tent in Bam, Iran, Wednesday Dec. 31, 2003. Friday's devastating 6.6-magnitude quake left at least 28,000 dead. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
Get used to it.
Weve got nothing against the American people. Its just their Government that messes things up.
Ronald Reagan couldn't have said it better. This guy must be a Freeper.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.