Mike's Story

Mike's Story

Mike and I were fishing a few days after he returned home from Kuwait. A jet shattered the idyllic stillness of the rural Bossier pond. For a split second Mike thought he was back in Kuwait City where the window-rattling sound of bombs became almost routine and the smoke from oil well fires turned day into night.

Then he remembered where he was--home. Not even a B-52 could budge him from here again.

"I never want to leave Louisiana," Mike said. "I just want to stay home with my family."

Call it bad timing. Call it a terrible twist of fate. Here was a Kuwaiti-born man who had lived some two decades in the United States--but was not a citizen--and decided to take his family on a vacation to Kuwait at just the same time Saddam Hussein decided to invade.

Alisa, a Times reporter, writes the following in the March 24, 1991 issue of the Shreveport Times.

...That (Iraqi invasion of Kuwait) was eight months ago. For six of those months he didn't know if he'd ever see his family again: His wife, Mott, the strong-willed, ever-optimistic woman who married him 21 years ago. His children, Millie, 19, and Michael, 14, who inherited their father's dark, exotic Arabian features.

They had begun the trip in late July. It had been eight years since Mike's last visit.

He had come to the United States in the late '60s to study at Paris Junior College in Texas. In 1970 he married Mott, the daughter of a Baptist preacher, and they moved to Louisiana in 1974.

Mike went to work for Getty Oil, what is now Texaco.

He loved the freedom and opportunity afforded here but was pulled by a sense of loyalty to his native country. He never applied for U.S. citizenship.

"I couldn't make up my mind to stay or go back," Mike said. That indecisiveness would later haunt him.

When the family left here July 23, there was no foreshadowing of upheaval. "The Kuwaitis and Iraqis had been squabbling over land rights for years," Mike said. "No one took the threats seriously."

On August 2, the first day of Kuwait's two-day weekend, Mike heard nearly a dozen helicopters pass over his brother's upper-class home southeast of the city.

"The Iraqis have invaded Kuwait," everyone announced.

"We didn't know what to say or do," Mike recalled, "We didn't think it would last long." On the roof they witnessed aerial dogfights and heard the chants of defiant Kuwaitis. The Iraqis shot flares to quell the uproar. Two whizzed passed Mott.

When Mike learned the Iraqis were rounding up foreigners as "human shields," he made arrangements through the embassy for his wife and children to leave. On September 12, after they boarded a bus for the airport, Mike felt his world spin out of control.

The room at his brother's house was painfully empty. Mike cried. "I just couldn't take it," he said. "I felt alone. I thought I would never see them again."

He called the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait looking for a way out. They told him to go to the Saudi border. But lacking a Kuwaiti identification card, he feared the Iraqis might take him to Baghdad. At the very least they might locate his Kuwaiti family and rob them. Or worse.

In October and November Mike tried to relay messages to Mott through the embassy and the state department, since international phone lines were out. Finally, in mid-December he traveled nine hours to Baghdad, where he could make a call. He went with family friends who were going there to see an imprisoned son.

Through countless checkpoints Mike never said a word. By now he had two fake I.D.s--one as a teacher and another as a firefighter. He showed the Iraqis one of the cards. They waved the party on through.

Mike knew the journey was a risk. "I was afraid," he said. "I just prayed to have a safe trip." At the Baghdad Sheraton he called home several times a day for 10 minutes at a time. He and Mott talked about the kids, his job, how things were going. They avoided politics for fear someone was monitoring the calls.

On December 14, Mike headed back to Kuwait City. "It was the longest trip," he said. "But I was relieved. I was glad Mott and the kids were OK."

Back in Kuwait City, "Iraqi harassment was escalating. They cleaned out the banks. Generous, wealthy Kuwaitis responded by secretly distributing money to worshippers at the mosques, places Iraqis avoided." Mike said. "Then Iraqis demanded Kuwaitis resign their citizenship." "None of the Kuwaitis cooperated," Mike said. "So they made it harder and harder on us."

He and 11 relatives lived at his brother's house. Mike rarely went outside except to take his bored nieces and nephews to a nearby park, since all the schools were closed. Iraqi soldiers, always in pairs, patrolled the park but never approached Mike.

Late at night he listened to Voice of America radio or the BBC. He slept late, read dime-store novels like Sidney Sheldon's Rage of Angels. In his loneliest moments he was comforted by photos of Mott, Millie, and Michael.

At about 3 a.m. on January 17, the household awoke to the sound of bombs. Mike ran down the stairs with a radio in hand as VOA confirmed his suspicions.

"We knew what was happening," he said. "The Iraqis finally had given up. The family rejoiced."

Vibrations from the bombs--hitting 40 miles away in Basra and near Kuwait City--opened closed doors. After a few hours, it stopped. The city was quiet as dawn arrived.

The Kuwaitis believed the war would be over in a matter of days. VOA relayed the success of coalition raids as Iraqi radio claimed its own victories.

"We weren't sure what to believe, at that time," Mike said. "However, we assumed the Iraqi news was exaggerated."

The Iraqis retaliated by destroying one of two desalination plants, looting abandoned homes and roaming deserted streets looking for resistance fighters.

"I never personally witnessed torture or execution but the news I heard sickened me." Mike said. "They tortured Kuwaitis until they would give them the information they wanted."

By early February, the local phone lines were down, electricity off and water service cut to once every 10 days. There was no meat or fish but plenty of rice to eat. The family carefully rationed its two bottles of butane for cooking.

One day Mike's sister discovered a 6-ounce canned Coke that had been packed away and forgotten. They split it twelve ways.

They lived with the hope that every new day would bring an end to the war. But the Iraqis, madder than ever, began a campaign to take hostages.

On Friday, Feb. 22, Mike was leaving for the mosque. His brother stopped him. The mosque wasn't safe anymore, he said.

"It was a very close call," Mike said. "We stayed inside for days fearing they would go from home to home and take all they wanted, including the men and boys...they did. � The homes on both sides of us were broken into and robbed. They took three of the neighbors teenage sons. However, they never came to our home."

On the night of Feb. 26, Mike listened to the rumble of armored trucks and tanks moving north. The Iraqis were fleeing in a convoy destined to become a deathtrap.

"We heard them yelling and shouting at one another," he said. "We felt the ground shake."

A few days later, after Saudi and Kuwaiti forces entered the city, Mike and his brother drove by the U.S. Embassy where American soldiers guarded 20 Iraqis. The war was over.

"The city came alive," Mike said. "We hadn't seen so many people in a month."

North of town they saw the carnage of Iraqi vehicles that had tried to escape only to be bombed by coalition aircraft. Tanks were flipped upside-down like toys. Dead soldiers littered the area for miles and miles.

"I had never seen anything like that before." Mike said. "I'm sure those scenes will be etched in my memory forever."

Back in Louisiana, Mott waited. There had been some dark days, but she rarely let on. She didn't even know if Mike had gotten back to Kuwait from Baghdad in December.

The TV reports of celebrating Kuwaitis brought a mixed reaction, making her wonder why he hadn't called.

Early Sunday morning, on March 3, her phone did ring. Mike had waited hours for one of the few international phone lines. He was fine but unsure when he would be able to leave.

Since Mike was not an American citizen, the reopened U.S. Embassy couldn't help. Instead he got Kuwaiti documents that allowed him to travel into Saudi Arabia. A family friend drove him into Saudi and onto the island of Bahrain.

At 2 a.m. March 16, he left Bahrain on a flight for London. But he still couldn't relax.

"When the plane landed in Atlanta, I finally felt safe--the first time since August 2, 1990." Mike said. "I was home. I got off the plane and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving."

"Being away from home and family, and worrying about them taught me to appreciate what I have here." He said. � "I want to be a better husband and father. I want to vote."

A week after Mike arrived home, he began taking steps to becoming an American citizen. In April, 1992, Mike did become a citizen. "The trip," he said, "helped me make up my mind."