Haifa street was a no-go zone. It is smack in the middle of Baghdad under the control of Sunni insurgents and Al Qaeda elements. It’s January 2007 and the capital is a patchwork of areas split along sectarian lines, controlled by one group or the other. Many Iraqis carried two ID’s with them, one with a Sunni name and one with a Shi’a one. On average, in Baghdad alone, dozens of unidentified mutilated bodies would arrive at the morgue. Families would cram into a room watching a macabre slideshow of the dead, trying to identify the person they loved who had gone missing.
On any given day one of our CNN Iraqi staff would arrive to the bureau with a story of someone they knew who was killed. There was one about a relative whose head was cut off and a dog’s head sown on in its place.
For years the American military and diplomats had berated the press for reporting “bad news” (aka the relentless bombings, slaughter, pain and loss) and tried to feed the public a diet of “things are going great” (i.e a school was painted). That is, until things got so bad the Bush administration had to face reality. A troop surge was coming.
The battle to recapture Haifa Street started off with the forces moving forward hugging the buildings, signaling through hand gestures. The unit we’re with starts clearing an apartment building, aka smashing down doors, guns pointed.
There are these tiny purple sequined flip flops outside of one apartment door, lined up next to other larger children’s shoes and adult ones. Breakfast is half-eaten on the table in the kitchen. It’s a story that can only be told in what’s left behind. They left in a hurry. They had kids, one was a little girl that loved sparkly things.
A couple hours in and it’s all in full swing. The platoon we’re with is pinned down on a rooftop by gunmen on a higher building. The roof was encircled by a low wall that we were all lined up against. The bullets were pinging in the middle, so if you didn’t move towards the center, you were OK.
I had been calling in phoners (when you report on the phone) all morning for CNN. it was big breaking news. You could see the smoke rising, the Apache choppers swooping and firing, and hear the gunfire from the CNN Baghdad bureau. The network had that shot up and my voice from the thick of it.
At one point I call in for my next report and the International Desk tells me that they are under instructions from Baghdad Bureau Chief, Cal Perry, not to put me on air until I call my mother. Oh yes.
Mama had obviously caught the breaking news or maybe as often happened someone called to tell her to turn on the TV and that her daughter was doing something crazy again. Either way, the conversation between my mama and Cal had gone something like this:
“Get my daughter out of there.”
“Mrs. Damon, I can’t. She’s in a firefight. And even if I could she probably wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Get my daughter out of there because you do not want to be talking to me to tell me that she’s injured or dead.”
Arab Mama lioness coupled with guilt trip. Works every time. He was totally freaked out. I mean fair enough, no one ever wants to make that call or really think about it.
I threw my own tantrum and got back on air.
While that was the first time, it would not be the only time that my mama has called my managers or bosses to demand that they extract me or disclose my whereabouts. Her response when I try to tell her that it’s not appropriate, that I’m an adult and it’s a major network, is always something along the lines of “C-N-N, Fiiii-N-N, YOU THINK BECAUSE YOU ARE ON TV WITH CNN YOU ARE SOMETHING NOW? I BIRTHED YOU! YOU CAME FROM MY LOINS! I HAVE A RIGHT TO CALL ANYONE AT ANYTIME TO KNOW WHERE MY DAUGHTER IS!”
For those of you who don’t know, my mama is Syrian, I grew up bilingual. So, if you are at all familiar with Arabic, translate that to yourself, it’s way funnier. Suffice to say my mama was legendary when I was at CNN. The people at the desk used to play hot potato with the phone whenever she called.
POSTSCRIPT:
I tried to find that same apartment building, ask about the little girl with the purple sequined flip flops. I never found her. I carry those stories with me, the stories that I can’t properly tell, the stories of the owners of the little shoes that litter battlefields.
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