Poisoned Purple Pen

War 2006

Prompt: Dictionary.com's Word of the Day for Sunday was "calliopean", meaning "piercingly loud; resembling a calliope in sound". Tell us about a time when you've experienced what you might consider to be the worst loud sound you can imagine, and how did you react to it?

The loudest sounds I've ever heard were bombs falling from the sky while I vacationed in Lebanon summer of 2006. The boys were with me. Zak was 13 and Danny just 10. R never made it over because Israel bombed the airport runways. Still to this day I cannot decide which is worse. Hearing the screaming whistle as the bomb flies through the sky only to explode at it's target, no idea how close it is. Or, being at my house up in the mountains where I watched the F-16s launch those missle's. The planes were usually right in front of my house, then the red light would flicker, release the bomb, and I would watch it launch toward Beirut, not knowing what it would take out next. I watched them take out the runways from my balcony. Sometimes, even 11 years later I cringe when I hear fireworks. Bombs and some fireworks really sound a lot alike when they explode. That experience kind of ruined fireworks for me.

I held myself together pretty well for my kids sake, but there were terrifying moments where I'd cry in the bathroom. Every bomb that exploded made me jump. If I was walking and heard one, my knees sometimes buckled. Ten days we lived through the war as the US searched for and came up with an evacuation plan. Still classify this as the worst experience of my life, and one I'm thankful for because my oldest and I figured out what was causing a chronic three year illness that no doctors could figure out. For every negative there has to be a positive.

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