Evacuation Saga
In yesterday's post, I forgot to mention that we have ended up at Injarlik Air Force Base in Turkey.
What follows is the saga of how we got here. As evauations go, it probably wasn't too bad, but compared to any other sort of trip, it was hellish. It ends with our arrival here.
Sunday, July 23 On the Boat
It’s 12:50PM, and we have just boarded the luxury liner called the USS Trenton, and are awaiting our “placement,” which I take to mean some sort of place to be within the ship. We are in the large covered parking area underneath the flight deck.
Our trip began this morning at 6am when our friends from Lebanon Taxi met us with a clean white Mercedes for the trip north to Debaiyeh. Traffic on Sunday morning in Beirut is blissfully light, so we made the trip quickly. We were in line by 6:30, and by 7:30, we had already had our passports checked and been dog sniffed. (I’m not exactly sure what they were sniffing for).
They had made a corridor of little awnings, like you would have in the backyard. Only there was a double row of about 25 of them. And they were packed with people. The line inched. By 11:30 we were at a smaller group of tents where we could sit, then by noon, another set of tents where we went through a reasonably thorough luggage search. Then around the corner to a processing point were they recorded passport information.
After a bit we got to make the trek to the boat, at which point, we began to feel like refugees. I’m sure you saw the CNN footage of the Marines landing on that little beach, tromping through the water, marking the first presence of combat marines in Lebanon since they fled the country after the barracks was bombed 22 years ago. We left from that same little beach. We didn’t have to get our feet wet, but it was a scramble to get down there and onto the ramp of the LCS (?).
It was a short ride out to the Trenton, and more processing and now here we are, up on deck, hot, tired and surrounded by about 1600 Lebanese/American men women and children. Just picture it….
The seriously bad news that we have just learned is that we are not going to Cyprus. We are going to Turkey. Cyprus is overloaded, and cannot handle any more. Up until we were on the boat and there was no chance of turning back, we had been assured we were going to Cyprus. I will write this now and not edit it out later: this is beginning to feel like a mistake. We won’t be able to go from Turkey to Cyprus, we will have to go to Athens first. But there is also the possibility that we may have no choice but to take the chartered flight all the way back to the US. If this had been an eventuality when we started out, I’m pretty sure we would have stayed in Hamra.
I do have to say one good thing about this: The police, Marines, sailors, customs people, everyone in this process, have been unfailingly polite and helpful. Even most of our fellow travelers are doing their best to be agreeable.
My only complaint, and it is a biggie, is that information has been scarce or unreliable, even when it comes from official sources. No one knows what will happen in the next stage.
The time is now 4:30PM, and we are not yet underway. I really hope we aren’t picking up more people, because there isn’t much room left. I’d like to stretch my legs, but I am afraid that I’ll loose my space!
With the comforting insurance of a place on Cyprus evaporating, I am growing increasingly uncomfortable with our decision to go. This is precisely the uncertainty we were so happy to have diminished by the Groome’s generous offer.
OK, I have been out and around, and do have a tiny bit more information. There are 1750 people on the ship, they were prepared for 1200, and the delay (It is 7:00 and we haven’t left yet) is so that we can take on extra food and water. No vodka, though.
Here’s a distraction: If your were going to be evacuated, would you wear 4” open back spike heels?
Would you wear an undeshirt, surfer shorts and flip flops? How about a skin tight orange top and white spandex bottom (that girl should not wear that outfit anywhere!).
I can see that some of the sailors are quite appreciative of the traveling clothes that some of the young ladies are wearing. All that lonesome time at sea…
It’s 7:15 and we are underway!
10 hours to, Mersin, Turkey.
So now I’m typing in the dark. Keyboarding skills pay off. Although I do wish this wonderful NEO had a backlit screen.
We have met some really nice people on this adventure. First is Charles, who introduced us to his Very Expensive Scotch early on. His factory in the Bekaa was bombed few days ago, and then he learned this morning, just yesterday. It’s a metal fabrication plant; they make water tanks. Shawn, the Chaplain’s assistant; he was sincere and honest in his concern for us, and read us a passage from the scriptures that has gotten him through many difficult times. Alex, the Lebanese businessman who is as distraught as we are about being diverted to Turkey. Diverted? We feel hijacked!
But we also have figured out that there is no way they an make us go to Baltimore if we don’t want to, and that we have reasonable hope of getting a ferry from Mersin to a Greek island and then to Cyprus.
I will write to CNN on their comment line to tell them how good the US Navy has been to us. Apparently there were a lot of complaints on their first evac run, and CNN caught passengers who had complaints. One marine also told me that the evacuees had thrown rocks at them because things were going slowly.
The Chaplain just read her evening prayer to us all. It was a nice gesture, but I wonder if perhaps she could have found someone to do a Muslim prayer. Well, even our money says “In god We Trust” I suppose the Navy does too.
OK,, lights out for me, for now.
6:00am Monday
There are no comfortable positions in a folding chair. I did manage a little sleep, but kept waking up. Then I discovered and open space nearby. It wasn’t a whole lot more conducive to sleep than the chair, but I did get some sleep.
The Captain just gave us an update on wheres and whens. We should dock in Mercin in about three hours. And then transfer to the Incerlik Air Force Base (US) and from there to chartered jets to Baltimore. Except we don’t want to go there! Hopefully we will get a chance to speak up about that…oh, to be sure we will speak up, but will anyone listen? Is the system carved in stone already? Mercin is a major industrial and tourist center, so there should be ample transportation opportunities from there. If we can stand the idea of getting on another boat, we might grab a ferry to a big Greek island and then to Cyprus. Or a flight to Athens and then to Cyprus.
True to his word, we got to Mercin at about 9, but it took about an hour to dock. Then they unloaded the luggage. There was no sort of coveyor belt or machinery that could do it,, so the Marines and sailors made a bucket brigade, and tossed them along down a ramp, and lined them up in rows so we could identify them. Keep in mind that 1750 passengers = 1750 bags and more because some people actually brought two. All the while the Marines and swabbies were toting baggage, others were beginning to clean up the bags and bags of garbage that 1750 people can generate. In that regard, the mess that our shipmates generated was truly appalling. They did little to minimize the mess. What I saw in the bathrooms, and later peeking in the cabins after they had left was also embarrassing. But the crew took it in stride and with a smile. I cannot say enough about the work they did, and their helpful friendly manner.
We had set ourselves up in a quiet little corner, we thought; it turned out to be a corner of the crew smoking area. You won’t be surprised when I tell you that Carol made a lot friends (and heard a lot of scuttlebutt). I even heard her discussing college choices with one group!
It was about 3:30 by the time we said goodbye to our new pals. Buses were waaiting, and the processing was about 45 minutes; the wait in the bus another 45, and then finally we were off. It was a caravan of 7 buses and two Turkish police cars, who, for no apparent reason, would stop us all, yell at the drivers, and then start us u again. A mystery.
Then we arrived at the gates of Incarlik, a base that is shared by Turkey and the US. That should have been a little red flag. Our wait at the gate was just a little over an hour and a half, as our names and numbers were “processed” yet again.
Oh, did I mentioned the cheery young woman who greeted us for the Air force and happily said that in a few moments we would be on beautiful air conditioned buses and then off to our air conditioned housing units. The bus was beautiful, for a bus, but it wasn’t air conditioned. And now, at 9:30 PM, we are in an airline hanger, waiting to be…..processed yet again. Does anyone remember Soylent Green? (the movie was about the recycling of people) Were they processed….?
So now, let me tell you the latest change in our thinking: Carol does need to be in the US for Linden tours, on Aug 1. She may not get a ticket off Cyprus if we are there. I will probably stay with her and go to the US,, and then work at getting back to Beirut ahead of her Aug 9 ticket. Heck, staying in D.C. I will be close to the seat of power! (I could say something about why would I want to be close to that ass’s ass, but I will try to maintain the high moral tone of this blog, and not mention it.)
So, back to our saga. It’s 9:45 and we are still in the hangar, with a lot of other folks. I wish being patient got me something besides the end of the line…
Finally, internet, shower, air conditioning, sleep.
It’s Wednesday morning.
Wait for the next post.
Love to all,
R & C
What follows is the saga of how we got here. As evauations go, it probably wasn't too bad, but compared to any other sort of trip, it was hellish. It ends with our arrival here.
Sunday, July 23 On the Boat
It’s 12:50PM, and we have just boarded the luxury liner called the USS Trenton, and are awaiting our “placement,” which I take to mean some sort of place to be within the ship. We are in the large covered parking area underneath the flight deck.
Our trip began this morning at 6am when our friends from Lebanon Taxi met us with a clean white Mercedes for the trip north to Debaiyeh. Traffic on Sunday morning in Beirut is blissfully light, so we made the trip quickly. We were in line by 6:30, and by 7:30, we had already had our passports checked and been dog sniffed. (I’m not exactly sure what they were sniffing for).
They had made a corridor of little awnings, like you would have in the backyard. Only there was a double row of about 25 of them. And they were packed with people. The line inched. By 11:30 we were at a smaller group of tents where we could sit, then by noon, another set of tents where we went through a reasonably thorough luggage search. Then around the corner to a processing point were they recorded passport information.
After a bit we got to make the trek to the boat, at which point, we began to feel like refugees. I’m sure you saw the CNN footage of the Marines landing on that little beach, tromping through the water, marking the first presence of combat marines in Lebanon since they fled the country after the barracks was bombed 22 years ago. We left from that same little beach. We didn’t have to get our feet wet, but it was a scramble to get down there and onto the ramp of the LCS (?).
It was a short ride out to the Trenton, and more processing and now here we are, up on deck, hot, tired and surrounded by about 1600 Lebanese/American men women and children. Just picture it….
The seriously bad news that we have just learned is that we are not going to Cyprus. We are going to Turkey. Cyprus is overloaded, and cannot handle any more. Up until we were on the boat and there was no chance of turning back, we had been assured we were going to Cyprus. I will write this now and not edit it out later: this is beginning to feel like a mistake. We won’t be able to go from Turkey to Cyprus, we will have to go to Athens first. But there is also the possibility that we may have no choice but to take the chartered flight all the way back to the US. If this had been an eventuality when we started out, I’m pretty sure we would have stayed in Hamra.
I do have to say one good thing about this: The police, Marines, sailors, customs people, everyone in this process, have been unfailingly polite and helpful. Even most of our fellow travelers are doing their best to be agreeable.
My only complaint, and it is a biggie, is that information has been scarce or unreliable, even when it comes from official sources. No one knows what will happen in the next stage.
The time is now 4:30PM, and we are not yet underway. I really hope we aren’t picking up more people, because there isn’t much room left. I’d like to stretch my legs, but I am afraid that I’ll loose my space!
With the comforting insurance of a place on Cyprus evaporating, I am growing increasingly uncomfortable with our decision to go. This is precisely the uncertainty we were so happy to have diminished by the Groome’s generous offer.
OK, I have been out and around, and do have a tiny bit more information. There are 1750 people on the ship, they were prepared for 1200, and the delay (It is 7:00 and we haven’t left yet) is so that we can take on extra food and water. No vodka, though.
Here’s a distraction: If your were going to be evacuated, would you wear 4” open back spike heels?
Would you wear an undeshirt, surfer shorts and flip flops? How about a skin tight orange top and white spandex bottom (that girl should not wear that outfit anywhere!).
I can see that some of the sailors are quite appreciative of the traveling clothes that some of the young ladies are wearing. All that lonesome time at sea…
It’s 7:15 and we are underway!
10 hours to, Mersin, Turkey.
So now I’m typing in the dark. Keyboarding skills pay off. Although I do wish this wonderful NEO had a backlit screen.
We have met some really nice people on this adventure. First is Charles, who introduced us to his Very Expensive Scotch early on. His factory in the Bekaa was bombed few days ago, and then he learned this morning, just yesterday. It’s a metal fabrication plant; they make water tanks. Shawn, the Chaplain’s assistant; he was sincere and honest in his concern for us, and read us a passage from the scriptures that has gotten him through many difficult times. Alex, the Lebanese businessman who is as distraught as we are about being diverted to Turkey. Diverted? We feel hijacked!
But we also have figured out that there is no way they an make us go to Baltimore if we don’t want to, and that we have reasonable hope of getting a ferry from Mersin to a Greek island and then to Cyprus.
I will write to CNN on their comment line to tell them how good the US Navy has been to us. Apparently there were a lot of complaints on their first evac run, and CNN caught passengers who had complaints. One marine also told me that the evacuees had thrown rocks at them because things were going slowly.
The Chaplain just read her evening prayer to us all. It was a nice gesture, but I wonder if perhaps she could have found someone to do a Muslim prayer. Well, even our money says “In god We Trust” I suppose the Navy does too.
OK,, lights out for me, for now.
6:00am Monday
There are no comfortable positions in a folding chair. I did manage a little sleep, but kept waking up. Then I discovered and open space nearby. It wasn’t a whole lot more conducive to sleep than the chair, but I did get some sleep.
The Captain just gave us an update on wheres and whens. We should dock in Mercin in about three hours. And then transfer to the Incerlik Air Force Base (US) and from there to chartered jets to Baltimore. Except we don’t want to go there! Hopefully we will get a chance to speak up about that…oh, to be sure we will speak up, but will anyone listen? Is the system carved in stone already? Mercin is a major industrial and tourist center, so there should be ample transportation opportunities from there. If we can stand the idea of getting on another boat, we might grab a ferry to a big Greek island and then to Cyprus. Or a flight to Athens and then to Cyprus.
True to his word, we got to Mercin at about 9, but it took about an hour to dock. Then they unloaded the luggage. There was no sort of coveyor belt or machinery that could do it,, so the Marines and sailors made a bucket brigade, and tossed them along down a ramp, and lined them up in rows so we could identify them. Keep in mind that 1750 passengers = 1750 bags and more because some people actually brought two. All the while the Marines and swabbies were toting baggage, others were beginning to clean up the bags and bags of garbage that 1750 people can generate. In that regard, the mess that our shipmates generated was truly appalling. They did little to minimize the mess. What I saw in the bathrooms, and later peeking in the cabins after they had left was also embarrassing. But the crew took it in stride and with a smile. I cannot say enough about the work they did, and their helpful friendly manner.
We had set ourselves up in a quiet little corner, we thought; it turned out to be a corner of the crew smoking area. You won’t be surprised when I tell you that Carol made a lot friends (and heard a lot of scuttlebutt). I even heard her discussing college choices with one group!
It was about 3:30 by the time we said goodbye to our new pals. Buses were waaiting, and the processing was about 45 minutes; the wait in the bus another 45, and then finally we were off. It was a caravan of 7 buses and two Turkish police cars, who, for no apparent reason, would stop us all, yell at the drivers, and then start us u again. A mystery.
Then we arrived at the gates of Incarlik, a base that is shared by Turkey and the US. That should have been a little red flag. Our wait at the gate was just a little over an hour and a half, as our names and numbers were “processed” yet again.
Oh, did I mentioned the cheery young woman who greeted us for the Air force and happily said that in a few moments we would be on beautiful air conditioned buses and then off to our air conditioned housing units. The bus was beautiful, for a bus, but it wasn’t air conditioned. And now, at 9:30 PM, we are in an airline hanger, waiting to be…..processed yet again. Does anyone remember Soylent Green? (the movie was about the recycling of people) Were they processed….?
So now, let me tell you the latest change in our thinking: Carol does need to be in the US for Linden tours, on Aug 1. She may not get a ticket off Cyprus if we are there. I will probably stay with her and go to the US,, and then work at getting back to Beirut ahead of her Aug 9 ticket. Heck, staying in D.C. I will be close to the seat of power! (I could say something about why would I want to be close to that ass’s ass, but I will try to maintain the high moral tone of this blog, and not mention it.)
So, back to our saga. It’s 9:45 and we are still in the hangar, with a lot of other folks. I wish being patient got me something besides the end of the line…
Finally, internet, shower, air conditioning, sleep.
It’s Wednesday morning.
Wait for the next post.
Love to all,
R & C
posted by Robert in Beirut at 10:46 AM
6 Comments:
I had heard scuttlebutt on the Athens stations that the Americans were being "diverted" to Turkey because Cyprus was "full". I had hoped I had misunderstood, guess not. Anyway, Soylent Green or not, you are processed, reprocessed, clean and at least semi-rested. Does all that processing have any effect like the processing of food? You know, maybe now your "sell by" date is sometime next year?
Anyway, keep up the blogging, God Bless
Sam and Antony
Have been waiting with great anticipation for your news. Glad you and Carol are safe and sound, even if you have had a few kinks thrown into the plan. Your writings on Beirut have kept me positive, Robert, and I hope we all can return to a safe country in the not too far off future. Take care of each other. Tell Carol we keep looking at Japanese foodstuff and saying we must bring it back for her.
Keep the story rolling.
with much love
Kathy
Awaited your saga eagerly and glad to hear you are safe, but sorry not to where you'd planned. Didn't know the USA kidnapped those who have a alternate beliefs...!! Perhaps they want to re-process you once again before you return. Let's hope not.
Love to you both and Emily.. Pat
So glad to know where you are (at least for the moment!) and most importantly, that you are safe and relatively sound! I eagerly await more news of your journey. Hang in there - tell Carol to keep "counseling" with more of that college info!
Know that you both remain in my heart and in my prayers. Blog more when you can.
Much love to you both,
Bernie
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