Where were you when…? (DP: Submitted to Daily News editor but unpublished)

 To the Editor:

Where were you when…?

In 1979, a lot of things happened, but a singular event reverberates to this day: The day Iranian mobs took over an American embassy, seizing 52 hostages, in Tehran, Iran. What was I doing those 47 years ago?

Current events got me thinking; perhaps it sparked a memory for you, dear reader. I was in my 28^th year of life. I had relocated from Hobart, Indiana, where I graduated from high school in 1969, and spent a couple of nonproductive years at Valparaiso University. A step-van became my RV while I searched for...well, something spiritual, you might say. A Self Realization Fellowship commune in the Nevada City area was the first landing spot; from there, I was encouraged to keep traveling. Some church conferences led me to working on both church staff, as well as outside low-level jobs. Dormitory living and early-rising for prayers found me in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and Del Mar. Times were fun, fulfilling and self-revelatory; not, however, the stuff of a glowing resume.

I’m pretty sure 1979 found me in a church facility in Malibu Canyon, on Mulholland Drive. There were many prayer sessions for the hostages; Iran’s history, geo-political and religious background was quite foreign to me. Being a “Boomer” born in 1950, post-high school hadn’t informed my perspective. Any “Gen X-ers” reading this would have either been in high school, enjoying childhood, or not yet born. Born after 1985? Consult history books that, hopefully, are fair and honest without casting America in a negative light.

I may have voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976; don’t hold it against me as my 25-year-old self just thought he was a nice man and I had read that Ronald Reagan was scary. Four years later I flipped to the right and never went back; the private sector, which then employed me in restaurant management, can do that when economic reality sets in.

When the disaster in the desert occurred, where the attempt to rescue the hostages became a conflagration of destroyed aircraft and dead soldiers, Marines and airmen, it was dawning on me that America’s leadership and Carter’s presidency was, at the very least incompetent, if not wrong-headed.

The 1983 Marine barracks bombing by Iran killed 241; the 1984 bombing of U.S. embassies, also by Iran, killed scores; the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing by Iran killed 19 U.S. Airmen. Between 2003 and 2011, Iran-backed militias, roadside bombs and other attacks killed over 600 American soldiers and Marines; an Iran-connected 2007 raid in Karbala abducted and killed 4 Americans; a 2020 missile strike on a U.S. base continued the savage, unprovoked slaughter of Americans by Iran.

Nearly 50 years after that naive 28-year old prayed for American hostages in Tehran, this wizened patriot can only cheer on our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines as they exact justifiable revenge on a vile, bloodthirsty, barbarian, 7th-century “Death to America”-chanting cult/nation, in a war they started—that America is now finishing.