A Childhood Memory of War

January 16, 1977

It was around seven o'clock that morning when my mother walked into the bedroom I shared with my little sister to wake us up. I had just turned six years old and the little one was two and half. We were living in Benin (Africa), where my father had taken a teaching position a few months earlier.

As soon as I opened my eyes that day, I could hear gun shots coming from outside. From the look on my mother's face, I knew something bad was happening and that whoever was shooting wasn't hunting for food, and wasn't that far from our home.

The three of us then quickly crossed the dining room of the third floor apartment where we lived to meet my father in the master bedroom. Closing the door behind us, we proceeded to sit on the floor between the bed and the door, and to wait. The goal was to stay away from the window, which was facing the door, but on the other side of the bed. The window was wide open, with a screen covering one half. We could clearly hear gunshots resonating on a regular basis outside in the morning air. We knew we were surrounded and that whatever it was, it was the real deal.

While we waited, isolated in the apartment's bedroom, I remember us talking about the possibility of a shooter entering the building and the apartment, but I could not say who brought it up. Something I do remember (and did understand although I was young) is that we had nowhere to go and we were very unarmed. Simply put, we were trapped like rats with no way of knowing what our fate was going to be. All we could do was wait.

After a couple of hours, and with no signs that the shootings outside would stop, my mother attempted to go into the kitchen, only a few feet away, to get the family, and especially us children, something to eat. However, the shooters, who hadn't given us any time for breakfast, saw the door move, and they immediately proceeded to shoot in the bedroom, i.e. at us! And, not a chance that they would have shot through the screen – they shot the glass, which flew everywhere in thousands of tiny pieces. We screamed, we cried, we waited some more…

The shooting went on for about three hours. To us, it had seemed like an eternity, and the bedroom now looked like a war zone. Aside from the broken windows and the glass everywhere, there was the damage done by the bullets after they broke the glass and entered the walls. Over the headboard of the bed, there were two holes, each 8 to 12 inches in diameter, where two of the bullets had found their respective destinations. A third bullet had lodged itself in the upper frame of the (guilty) door, only showing a small hole, but it was probably the bullet that sent shell splinters into my mother's back, thankfully the only injury my family had to report.

A few months later, the four of us safely returned to North America, having spent less than one year in Benin.

Following the 9-1-1 events, and when the US retaliations were eminent, I thought a lot about Benin and the events of January 16, 1977. I wanted to understand what had happened that day and I wanted to know why my family had been, even for a short period of time, in the middle of a war zone.

Unable to find much information on the Internet, I turned to the Benin Embassy in Washington, where a nice gentleman took the time to chat with me about the events of 1977.

Benin's political past is, to say the least, tumultuous, involving a series of political and army coups. But, in short, in October of 1972, the government of Benin was overthrown with one of those coups, and Major Mathieu Krkou seized power. His regime was Marxist-Leninist, and Benin's nickname at the time was the u201CCuba of Africa.u201D Meanwhile, a group of mercenaries (terrorists?), desired to take control of Benin's government and, likely financed by other political powers, organized themselves outside of the country (in other African nations and in Europe) and they planned the event of January 16, 1977. That morning, they entered the country via the airport, and from what I understand, the building where my family lived simply happened to be on the road that goes from the airport to the government's central office.

Because the aggression came from the outside, the attempted government takeover we experienced does not qualify as a coup (or attempted coup). However, because it only lasted some three hours, it probably does not make the war category either. It appears to have simply been a small battle between the bad guys and the other bad guys. For the civilians caught in the middle, though, I can assure you that it's all the same.

On January 16 1977, Benin's national army defeated the mercenaries, however, many lives were lost on both sides and many civilians died that morning, merely for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I learned that they've since built a memorial for the victims of that day, not too far from where we lived. They named it Place du souvenir and the monument is called Monument des martyrs. I learned also that the apartment building we called our home during our stay in Benin is still standing.

Meanwhile, every time I hear about a war, any war, my thoughts turn to the civilians who inevitably get caught between the lines of fire. I think about the families who might be isolated in their homes, scared, unarmed, and trapped like rats with nowhere to go. I especially think about the children who may be old enough that they'll remember (if they survive), but who are too young to understand or to participate. I know how scared they are…

When I hear about the millions of Afghan refugees and the thousands of civilians already dead in this war of terrorism, I sometimes feel like a child again, in that I feel powerless and I wish I could make it all stop and go away. But while I can't do that, I can hope that my story will be yet another reminder to all of us, that the civilians being terrorized and killed (on both sides) are not mere u201Ccollateral damage.u201D They are people like you and I and it makes no difference where on earth they live because it's never their war.

In my book, u201Ccollateral damageu201D is the stuff like the two big holes in the bedroom walls, which stared at us every time we walked by, for months after the battle was over. It's the damage one can repair and the things that can be replaced, it is not the lives all wars take and destroy, no matter what you call them, what names you give them or in what name you are fighting them.

A special thanks goes to the Benin Embassy in Washington, D.C., for their help and their wonderful courtesy.

December 18, 2001