[ad_1]
Like those children who are being awakened by sirens in the Eastern European nation these days, I, too, woke up to that sound in the middle of the night and rushed to the basement. The eight-year Iran-Iraq war started in 1980 when I was just four years old.
In February 1984, nearly exactly 38 years prior to Russia’s attack on the Ukrainian capital, Iraq’s strategic bombing against cities — including Tehran — began, making every house and every child in my vicinity a potential target.
It always happened at night, when the sky was dark, when the houses switched on their lights and illuminated from within our beautiful city, a shimmering jewel at the foot of the Alborz mountains. That was when the Iraqi planes would come and the sirens would sound and when our government would cut the city’s electricity, supposedly so the planes couldn’t find their way.
That was when the sky could show off its brilliant stars and when for brief seconds on the way to the basement I’d stand in the…
[ad_2]
