Best of Iranian.com: War

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Best of Iranian.com: War
by Maryam Baaji
28-Oct-2008
 

Third installment of the “Best of Iranian.com” project [see: “Being Iranian.com”]. Through a series of blogs I will publish the “best of…” pre-2007 selections under different thematic categories. Here is the selection for the theme “War”. See maryam-baaji for "best of" index.

WAR [articles, photos, music]

Our Boy; their Prisoner of War
Iranian soldier recalls harsh Iraqi war camp

November 1995
By Jahanshah Javid
I met Mehdi Shamlou by chance. He was standing in front(jpg, gif) of his father's home appliance store in Sohrevardi Avenue (ex-Farah). My friend introduced him as his brother-in-law. He was courteous and had a gentle smile on his face when he spoke. He seemed like a typical young Tehrani. After exchanging a few pleasantries, we shook hands and I went along with my friend to the building next door. As we were going inside, my friend told me that Mehdi had been a prisoner of war in Iraq. I quickly asked to set up an interview >>>

Palm groves survive
From Ahvaz to Khorramshahr and Abadan

Laleh Khalili
June 18, 1999
For all those who have said, "Oh, please! It's all about national interests." In this, the land which requires ablution to step upon, you find a war - which ten years after it has been declared finished - still breathes its fiery breath upon the scorched earth. To go from Ahvaz to Khorramshahr and Abadan on the watery border with Iraq, you hire a driver. You want to take this trip alone, and between the children's school and her husband and brother's prior commitment at the university, your cousin's family is unable to accompany you anyway. The driver is reticent and only loosens up when you tell him - upon seeing his pack of cigarettes - that he can smoke to his heart's desire. He tells you, not too long after you have left Ahvaz, that the Iraqis came "this close" and he sweeps his arm out in the general direction of huts in the planes, among scarred and debilitated palm trees >>>

Burning eyes
No one will cry for us

By Javdon
June 18, 2001
Today I will bleed to death. At ten o'clock today, Wednesday July 25th,1988, or 3rd of Mordad 1367, I will die. To me both calendars are correct because I am half Iranian, half American. I am shot in the chest and bleeding profusely, near Kermanshah. Around me there are many wounded friends, soaked in blood. It is the first day of the operations the Mojahedin call "Forough Javdon" and the Islamic Republic calls "Mersad". Because of today's unrest many more prisoners in Evin will die innocently, as well. I am thirty-years old and from San Francisco. I used to be a very poetic and sensitive woman; Forough, Shamlou and Nima, Cat Stevens, Rolling Stones, Farhad, Rebels and Gol-e Yakh all on my mind now >>>

Gasping for air
You and I are alive. Many are not

By Arman Sadati
June 28, 2001
I was a kid when my family decided to take a road trip to Khouzestan for the first time. Khoramshahr is the city I particularly remember. I was so young that I couldn't understand how some people could live in Iran yet speak a different language other than Farsi. A language with the dialect that seemed to be closer to Arabic than Farsi >>>

Nothing but a name
What did my father die for?

By Yasaman Rohani
June 28, 2001
Today once again I find myself in one of those moods where I look at my life and wonder why it turned out the way it did. I begin to ask myself over and over again what if things would have been done differently? What if that wouldn't have happened? What if I wouldn't have done this? Where would I be now? Would I be living in Iran or would I still be here? And so on and so forth. I can sit outside all day by myself not talking, not eating, not doing anything but asking myself these questions over and over again >>>

Easy targets
Photo essay

By Jassem Ghazban-pour
November 12, 2001
Civilians suffer in every war or conflict. On September 11, 2001, thousands of Americans died in a single day. During the war between Iran and Iraq (1980-88), thousands died during Iraqi attacks on Iranian cities, towns and villages. Iran at first refrained from targetting civilians, but later responded to Iraqi missile attacks with missile attacks mostly against Baghdad. These photographs by Jassem Ghazban-pour are from Asseman va Zamin (Sky and Earth, 1997, Tehran Municipality). They show the aftermath of missile attacks on Tehran, bomb shelters, and preparations for possible chemical attacks >>>

Jaguar of the sky
My uncle flew that thing

By Babak Peyvandi
December 25, 2001
A few days ago we invited my uncle and his wife for dinner at our house. Before dinner we all sat around the TV and listened to the news. CNN was showing the bombings in Afghanistan by U.S. fighter jets. I suddenly noticed my uncle's eyes lock on the TV monitor as if he was not aware of his surroundings. Only I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking about the days when he was in the cockpit of his F-14. My uncle was a fighter pilot, a member of the elite Iranian Air Force. He was one of the few pilots trained to fly the F-14 Tomcats, one of the best fighter jets ever built. In the mid seventies he was sent to Texas to be trained at Top Gun with the best of the best. I remember when the movie Top Gun first came out in 1984, I used to watch it with my friends and say "my uncle can fly that thing" >>>

The old photograph
Short story

By Sasan Hamidi
May 22, 2002
I am trying to warm my fingers with the steam coming from the teacup. Just the tips are all I want functioning. I want to reach out to my pocket, but it's too early; the tips aren't ready; just a while longer. Okay, I am going to do it; I pull out the old wrinkled photograph; my fingers are trembling as I pull apart the small black and white photo. I hold my tired, bony fingers over the tea mug. The picture is dusty and folded, perhaps a million times. I feel the warmth of the steam on my nose, but the rest of my face is numb; oh, how I wish the cold would go away for just a minute for me to reminisce >>>

Sarbaz imam zaman
We are pass this training, and they are send us for fight and war with Iraqi

By Hossein Hajiagha
November 6, 2002
Some times I write letter to Iranian news paper... but they never publish my letter or my cartoons as Iranian cartoonist. because some times or must times my letter or cartoons go so sharp about Iranian Government and those Fucking Ayatola. This is a one of them, and I am sorry if I have some problem in my gramer >>>

Khorramshahr forever
Photo essay: A soldier in coma

By Omid Salehi
January 6, 2003
This soldier was 17-years old when he lapsed into a coma on June 5, 1986 during the Iran-Iraq war. He was struck by a shockwave from an explosion in Khorramshahr, near the Iraqi border. He has been unconscious ever since. His mother and father fight to keep him alive >>>

Body full of blisters
As the Jeep is leaving, I see him for the last time

By Pessare Gol
January 27, 2003
The drums of war are once again echoing in my ears. I am disgusted at seeing Donald Rumsfeld defending why the US needs to invade another country. Interestingly CNN keeps showing an old footage of him shaking Saddam Hussein's hand >>>

Shock and awe Iranian style
Braveness is taking one's rifle and wanting to go back to the battlefield to defend one inch of your land

By Pesare Gol
April 15, 2003
As I watch the military campaign unfold in Iraq, I can't help remember my own days in the frontlines. The shock and awe campaign impresses me. In three weeks, the US has unleashed about 15,000 smart bombs with devastating power and deadly accuracy. In three weeks the US army has invaded a country. A country, that once had the fourth largest army on the planet >>>

The city in me
How can I explain that Khorramshar and those I knew are still alive in my memories?

By Mammad Aidani
September 1, 2003
The older I get the more I feel the larger my memory tunnel is becoming. But, of course, there are some deep-rooted things in that tunnel which I wish not to remember. Sometimes I find myself screaming at them to go away. You see, I'm the kind of individual that has this great desire to stand up and speak. No, don't get me wrong, I have this desire not because I want to. That's not the case at all; it is the reflection I have on language that encourages this feeling in me, and I don't know what to do with it. As far as I remember I have never had any capacity to speak eloquently in a group or at home when I was kid. As a matter of fact in my home we only spoke occasionally. Now that I have this feeling in me to speak I have to admit that I'm too tired to ignite any fire in me at this stage of my life >>>

Put a stop to it
15 years after the Iran-Iraq war, I have drunk the sweet elixir of forgiveness

Assal Badrkhani
October 8, 2003
He drank the sweet elixir of martyrdom 22 years ago, and he died. He tied a grenade around his waist 22 years ago, and he died. He was thirteen years old when he slid his childlike body under the enemy tank, and he died. In 1986, a stamp was issued in his name, but he is dead. He looks down upon us from posters and murals all across our country's cities, but he is dead. Right or wrong, he didn't sit on the sidelines and take a worthless position of neutrality. Right or wrong, he was asked to grow up and enter manhood a decade or more earlier than any boy should have to >>>

Fit to kill
I came across an Iraqi soldier who was sleeping

By Pesare Gol
October 31, 2003
These days, the images of the Iraqi war on television takes me back to my own fighting in the battlefield. As much as I try not to have flashbacks, a recent television program on CNN made it difficult not to think back to one of my past experiences during the Iran-Iraq war. The program was named "Fit to Kill" and focused on the post traumatic experiences of American soldiers after they had shot and killed an enemy soldier >>> 

Burnt
A trip to my war-torn hometown

By Saman Ghiassi
December 12, 2003
Abadan, in southwest Iran, is where my ancestors lived for a long time. It's a city well known for its large oil industry. It was one of the first cities attacked by Saddam's army back in 1981. I had heard people talk about the impact of the war, but I hadn't paid much attention. It was only after this trip that I fully realized how appalling and disastrous war really is. When the war started in September 1981, my family and I moved to a neighboring country as refugees; then, after six years, when the war was finally over, we decided to go back and visit our hometown. It was February of 1990 >>>

We remember
On this day we honor the fighting nation of Iran

By Pouya Alimagham
September 22, 2005
This is the first war in nearly 200 years of Iranian history in which Iran did not lose an inch of its territory, even though Iran was facing insurmountable odds much greater than any war waged against the historic nation in several hundred years. And thus, the resilience of the Iranian nation to persevere through such a monumental and lethal predicament can be attributed to those Iranians who sacrificed themselves for the sake of defending Iran from Saddam's invasion on September 22, 1980
>>>

Worth living for
Birthday party at the height of war

By Alireza Tarighian
February 28, 2006
Last Saturday, I was talking to my son about my birthday party on February 28, 1988, back in Tehran, Iran. The war between Iran and Iraq had been going on for almost 8 years and there was no sign of peace. My brother, the only sibling I have, had been stationed at the frontline for his obligatory military service for one and a half years by that time. I had been excused because of my student status. The whole country was depressed from war and brutal acts, which had been running us for a decade. Under their relatively new religious rules, every type of fun had been banned, from music to love!

On the run
Returning to Iran: 1986-87
(Part 8)

By Sima Nahan
April 24, 2006
Boys over the age of fourteen are prohibited to leave the country. By the age of eighteen those who have not already volunteered for Basij or joined the Sepah-e Pasdaran are drafted into the army. The Basij -- dubbed yek bar masraf, the "disposables" -- is a volunteer militia corps ranging in age from the very young to the very old. It recruits among the poorest segments of urban and rural populations and provides minimal military training before dispatching volunteers to the fronts. Sepah-e Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards Corps) is in command of the Basij. The Sepah, also a volunteer corps, is privileged with material comforts and a good deal of much feared authority >>>

The martyr and his creator
Returning to Iran: 1986-87 (
Part )

By Sima Nahan
May 1, 2006
Payam-e Shahid (Message of the Martyr) is an everyday tribunal for the rhetoric and politics of the Islamic Republic. A clever propaganda device, it reiterates stock sentiments and injunctions in a new context each time. When it actually is the words of individual men, it also provides a first and last chance for a great number of faceless sons of poverty to claim existence and, however prefabricated and short-lived, a voice. It is a tribunal for Man-as-Martyr-of-the-Islamic-Republic >>>

Please don't
I ask President Bush now; please do not attack Iran with any sort of weapon

By Alborz Yazd
May 25, 2006

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President George W. Bush... >>>

Distant screams
Photo essay: Santa Monica Pier war memorial

By Shirin B
November 17, 2006
Saturday was my daughter's 13th birthday (which is always on Veteran's Day) - She and 10 of her friends were at the Santa Monica Pier doing rides, etc. I noticed on the beach they had an exhibit about the number of dead in Iraq (they always have it on weekends, but Saturday because of Veteran's Day it was a bit more elaborate.)
>>>

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Jahanshah Javid

Enquiring Mind?!!

by Jahanshah Javid on

My blog was recent. These selections, as mentioned in the intro were published BEFORE 2007. If you have seen a piece about war from that period which should be on this list, please make a suggestion. Was something you wrote overlooked? So bloody aggressive, cynical and ungrateful.


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Thanks!

by Enquiring Mind (not verified) on

Thank you for all the hard work. I suppose she who does the work gets to give her opinion! You did all this hard work and you get to be the judge; that's fair enough. Just never run for office on Iranian.com as you may not have won the popularity contest with some!

I thought JJ's blog, Saving Private Zero, was a really well-written and interesting piece about the war, too.

//iranian.com/main/blog/jahanshah-javid/s...

And one last thought/question: did you honestly read ALL that there was written about or around the war? How did you do that? How did you find those articles on the site? Word search? Does the site have a labeling mechanism which you used? Did your search include "shorts" where shorter essays were filed in the old system? I am also curious to know how come some writers got more than one of their writings on the list and some none? Are some of the writers on the list here that good? Just a thought.

Thanks again for all the work.


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A war story for children

by Anonymous Anonymous (not verified) on

I was wondwering if you ever read "A war story for children" and what your opinion of it was.

//iranian.com/History/2006/August/War/ind...