The windows rattled. It was 3 am. It was a long rattle. It was a sonic boom. Then another rattle and boom. In my half-asleep brain for a few seconds I was a kid again back in south Texas with the jet fighters streaking overhead, before they outlawed breaking the sound barrier. But this was Israel. Tiberius. I ran out onto the pool deck to the rail overhanging the Sea of Galilee. I looked up at the rumbling sonic booms overhead. It was pitch black. Red traces streaked crazily across the sky. Afterburners? Flares? That didn’t compute.
Off to the north, a low patch of horizon lit up with slow-motion red and yellow streaks from the air and from the ground. Like golden globs explosions moved slowly around on the ground. The hotel cook came out and leaned on the deck rail next to me. I pointed north out at the black horizon at the red streaks crosshatching the sky. He said Syria. I asked how far away it was. He said 27 kilometers. I thought, 17 miles. I asked if he was concerned, if we were in danger. He said, “No. Trump is good. Trump has this.” This was the historic week that the embassy had been moved to Jerusalem.
It got quiet. The black void out in front of the deck rail was the Sea of Galilee. We were facing north. Off to the front-right were the Golan Heights. Out to the left-front was Syria. Around and behind to the south was Israel. On our bus tour to the north that day we had driven on a barren seemingly deserted road with a scraggly barbed fence hung with yellow warning signs to stay back. The Syrian border.
Then the havoc all started up again; sonic booms overhead, red streaks ripping above through the thick black, for maybe a minute. Then Syria on the northern patch of horizon lit up again, red and yellow arcs over and down into and up to the sky, the golden globs on the ground moving around again, for about a minute. Then it stopped. All quiet. We just stood there a minute in nothingness, soaking it all in. I was wondering why all the commotion above us.
Then everything cranked up for the third time. Momentary red tracer havoc overhead, to the north red crosshatches over Syria, golden globs, then all quiet.
We stood there about ten minutes. The expansive pool deck and palm trees and softly lit fountains and deck furniture ghosted back into existence. The crazy visuals had all kinda fried my brain. It had no frame of reference for all this. My brain seemed to be trying to fit or change the images to something it knew. This disconnect could easily be a minor element of the shock of war. The return of the quiet scenes of normalcy around the hotel were a welcome retreat.
The next day on cable news said that at midnight Iran in Syria had launched a major attack on Israel. At 3 am Israel retaliated, and they had now deployed the new fighter jet in combat for the first time, and that they and their allies were very pleased.
About fifteen years previous to all this, I had made fun of a man at Lowes. The way I remember it, he and his wife, and I and my wife were standing there looking at the massive wall of ceramic tile samples. He was wearing a B2 Bomber hat, a black silken Bonanza jacket, and an Edwards Flying Club T shirt. I said, “Excuse me sir, do you fly?” His wife laughed and said he was also probably wearing airplane socks and underwear. He said, “I do fly. Do you?” I said yes. He asked what, where and when. My answer included the Marines, airline sim instructor time, and building and flying my airplane. He asked about my major which was English and Education. He asked if I was looking for work and did I have a resume. I later found out that he had been here two days to put together the training team for the new jet fighter in town. Along the way, on the assembly line I watched the first nut go on the first bolt on the first airplane, and then watched several hundred fighters roll out the doors. And to wrap it up, watched the fighter go into combat for the first time. I would like to say I planned all of this. Well, thank Goodness Someone did 🙂