Chicago, IL - Aug 11
I read this in the newspaper here in Chicago.
Libya agreed Tuesday to pay $35 million to some victims of a bloody terrorist bombing at a Berlin disco nearing two decades ago, another step in Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's effort to rebuild relations with the West.
The deal, coming after much larger settlements for the bombing of two U.S. and French airliners, does not cover American victims, including two soldiers who were among the three people killed and 229 wounded in the blast at the La Belle disco on April 5, 1986. Lawyers are seeking separate compensation for them in U.S. courts.
Agreed to by German lawyers and officials of a foundation run by Gadhafi's son, the settlement covers 170 non-U.S. citizens.
I was in Germany, staying with friends in the Air Force, the night this happened. I was sleeping on the couch, next to the phone, when it rang at 4:30 in the morning. (The guy I was staying with was an SP on staff duty that week.) There was a flurry of activity throughout the early morning and when we arrived on base the next day, weapons drawn at all checkpoints and entrances.
18 years have passed. I wonder if this gesture feels like closure for anyone.
Quincy, IL - Friday Aug. 13
I'm at the Quincy mall and just like malls in all the small towns, it features 16 year old girls dressed up to get pregnant, 18 year olds who all ready are, and the dismal weight on the shoulders of the adults who now realize this is all they get. Even the twenty-somethings stumble along stoop-shouldered, perhaps not defeated but certainly locked in a detente.
The most amazing sense of deja vu dances on the periphery. I've been here before, in Great Falls, MT., Spokane, WA., even in Limoges, France.
It's as if the young ones are looking for justification in accelerating adulthood. Running fast to catch up with destiny..