American aid workers fly the flag in Iran

The Times (UK) ^ | 1/01/04 | Ramita Navai

[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 haven’t 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: “We’ve got nothing against the American people. It’s 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 don’t know about the politics and I don’t get involved. I’m 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 isn’t 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 don’t 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. “We’re here to do whatever the Iranians want us to do,” Mr Catlin said.

[saquin]

Iranian men watch members of the Fairfax County, Virginia, search and rescue squad setting up a tent after arrival in the earthquake hit town of Bam, in southeastern Iran, December 31, 2003

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)

[XtreMarine]

This is definitely a sign of the times and how they are changing.

[billorites]

This will do in the interim until a nice photo of Pamela Anderson and her titties can be procured.

[McGavin999]

This is really something. Flowers? What a wonderful thing to do. I hope we can help those people.

[Calpernia]

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.

[Arpege92]

Uh excuse me....what happened to the pictures of the "tanned and brawny firefighters" wearing dark blue combat trousers and fitted military style jumpers? ;-}

[onyx]

That (#5) is a neat post, Cal. Thanks for pinging me.

[SAMWolf]

They haven’t seen the American flag on show in public in this way for 24 years

Get used to it.

[Dan Evans]

“We’ve got nothing against the American people. It’s just their Government that messes things up.”

Ronald Reagan couldn't have said it better. This guy must be a Freeper.

[saquin]

Uh excuse me....what happened to the pictures of the "tanned and brawny firefighters" wearing dark blue combat trousers and fitted military style jumpers? ;-}

[windchime]

Bump!

[luvbach1]

But the mullahs went out of their way to issue a statement that the welcome given American aid workers is not to be construed as a thaw in Iranian/American relations.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

ping

[pitinkie]

exactly!

[ARA]

It's nice to see our flag like that on the tents instead of some U.N. blue... Let's people know that we care...

[XtreMarine]

Yes you are right but I firmly beleive the country is due for a change. The group that has grown up behind the wall are becoming more interested in western culture....

[Newbomb Turk]

There is still good in this world.

[speekinout]

Our President did an admirable thing by offering help to the Iranis. Our argument is with their rulers, not with these poor people.
That amount of devastation is unimaginable.

[SCWard]

I remember the Fairfax County rescuers in OKC in '95.
We would be hard pressed, to find a better bunch of guys to show to the world what Americans are really like.

[F14 Pilot]

Good Post!