Posted on 07/19/2006 4:33:07 PM PDT by got_moab?
Kathleen Williams spent last Wednesday night on the roof of a downtown building in Beirut enjoying the opening of a new nightclub and the moonlight shimmering over the Mediterranean. Then all at once the cell phones of her Lebanese friends and fellow wedding guests began going off.
The Israelis, they told her, were bombing the cities of Saida and Tyr to the south.
Yesterday, as Israeli and Hezbollah fighting claimed more lives, and hundreds of the 25,000 Americans now in Lebanon waited nervously to leave the country, Williams expressed relief she had ignored U.S. State Department advice and got out when she could Friday.
"I'm very relieved," she said from her Providence home. "I would have been abandoned by my country and my bank," which put a block on her credit cards, leaving her without money.
Williams, 57, flew to Beirut last month for three weeks of wedding festivities for a friend's sister. It ended with the wife and mother of two watching the Israelis bomb the Beirut airport on the morning she was to fly home and enduring a tense 16-hour bus ride along narrow dirt roads to an airport in Aleppo, Syria.
At times the scenes she witnessed seemed hard to comprehend, she said, like the Thursday morning after the nightclub opening.
"I was standing in my room on the seventh floor of the hotel when suddenly I heard this huge boom," said Williams, who had never been to Lebanon before. "I looked out and saw smoke rising from behind an apartment building."
She called downstairs to the desk:
"I'm sorry, but are they bombing here?" she asked the clerk.
"Madam," the clerk replied, "I will have to call you right back."
When other explosions went off, followed by rising plumes of smoke, Williams said she called the desk again to inquire whether the neighborhood was under attack.
"You have a TV in your room," she said the clerk told her. "Turn it on."
Williams called over to the house of her friend. Someone there calmly advised her of the ways in the war-torn city: Don't go to the airport because of the bombing. Go have breakfast, instead.
"They have lived for 15 years with war so they knew what to do," Williams said.
In the meantime Williams called the U.S. embassy for a second time (the first time she called, she says the office wasn't yet open) to make arrangements for a speedy exit from the country. Williams said the embassy told her she would have to fill out paperwork on line. Then they would get back to her. Williams says she was told to stay put until she had heard back from embassy officials about evacuation plans.
Worried about the bombing and not wanting to be alone, Williams left the hotel Thursday and went to her friend's family house about a quarter-mile away.
Exploding bombs, screeching jets and the rattle of anti-aircraft guns shook her awake later that night. When she approached a porch window to look out, the mother of the new bride screamed at her to get away from the glass.
"She told us to go into the hallway where there are walls. She knew from her experience that it was safer there."
Over the next several hours, a relative of her affluent Lebanese friends, who works in Washington, somehow arranged for a tour bus to take Williams and 16 others over the northern border to Syria. On a normal day the bus ride to Aleppo would have taken about six hours. Friday it took 16 (without a bus bathroom) as the driver tried to avoid bombed out Hezbollah neighborhoods and roads.
At the border, women with their faces covered in Muslim tradition, and men pushing wheelbarrows crowded along the narrow dirt road. Many were Syrians looking to leave the country. At one point a wheelbarrow clanked loudly beside the bus and Williams said she jumped, believing the noise was an attacking jet.
"They bombed that road," she said, "a little bit after we went through."
Williams said the Lebanese are both surprised and enraged by the Israelis' military response to Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers.
"The people we were with don't agree with Hezbollah politics but they don't believe they deserve this," said Williams. "These people have been under siege and occupied for over 30 years. Last year they finally kicked the Syrians out. They were just getting back on their feet. Now they're destroyed."
Meanwhile, days after calling the U.S. officials in Beirut for help, and now safely home, "I still haven't received any word from the embassy."
What do these stupid people not understand about "You were in a terrorist-infested third world country"?!
How long has there been a general warning by the State Dept. against travel to southern Lebanon?
Heh, heh. I wish there was a record of what the clerk said after he (or she) hung up.
It's all about Me, Me, Me and Me. Well I for one will not lose any sleep worring about it.
The faces of the Ugly Americans. The priest whining because he couldn't wander willy nilly out in the street. The spoilt college brat wanting 5 star room service instead of US Marine handing her a chicken sandwich. And now Kathleen who too stupid to turn on the tv and get away from window glass and complains the bus driver won't make potty stops.
She is luicky that she was with people who knew what to do.
She saw a bomb go off and after hearing of Israel bombing Southern Lebanese cities the night before, she still didn't know it was a bomb going off behind an apartment building? And she called the front desk for verification. She should be embarassed to admit it.
She stood in front of a glass door, backlit amd was screamed at.I'd say her hosts were glad that she left.
Welcome home liberal weenie, and be glad you are in the land of the free where people like you can count on others to look after you. You were a very lucky lady to have such friends in Beirut, who like most pubbies, know how to look after themselves. In Beirut many Americans are learning to look after themselves, if they do not already know.
You clearly do not.
Yep. This just in, life's a bitch in the third world.
Next time think twice before going to a hotbed of terrorist activity.....
Has she said that it was George Bush's fault that she was there? If she hasn't yet, she will figure a way to fit that into an interview with the NYT.
Especially when you are one...
Hey, Liberals, vacation in Hawaii next time.
But they allowed Hezbollah to operate within country without trying to curb them!
Funny bit tonight on Glenn Beck's TV program. He and another guy were discussing the US footing the bill for the evacuation and then having the evacuees whine about it.
What's next, a fashion show in Somalia for a neighbors cat?
Dammit.
In the meantime, here's a link to Rush's website where he pokes a little fun at the bellyachers, too.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_071906/content/america_s_anchorman.guest.html 
Libs can't resist Katrina, and find an ingrate to reinforce the template. Meanwhile, Americans evacuate on luxury liners...
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_071906/content/america_s_anchorman.guest.html
Those were the days, my friends. Sing and dance instead of taking care of business...boom
The world could literally go up in flames, but if one "Jersey Girl" was inconvenienced, congressional investigations would ensue.
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