Lori's Song
The Lori Forouzandeh Story
a book by Lori Forouzandeh
xxxotic_genie@yahoo.com
Published: November 15, 2006

Part Two

Lori's Song Front Cover
Chapter Four: Things Just Keep Getting Worse
Chapter Five: 9/11 and Not In America This time
Chapter Six: Arriving Home!
Chapter Seven: What Did I Learn And How Did I Learn It?

Lori's Song Front Cover

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Chapter Four
Things Just Keep Getting Worse

It was mid summer of 2000 and I was pretty much getting used to being slapped in the face like a dog everytime I walked near Mohammad's side when in Public...Things had gone downhill when he found out that I had been checking up on him. That is checking his plane schedules, verifying where he had been and so on.... I remember though back last year at this same time, we had gone on our biannual vacation to Tehran, where we stayed at the Lalleh hotel, or the Enghelab; Mohammad had told me that we were going to have a visitor, I just shrugged it off as being another stranger yet to meet; where Mohammad would explain that it was an old friend from High school...I started to wonder just how big these classes or schools were, since it had seemed as if I should of met the whole graduating class of hubbies and then some..While I didn't buy his stories I also learned not to question them either...That night we were in Tehran taking a walk, and suddenly this Mercedes Limo with what seemed like a zillion cars following it passed us...Mohammad looked at his watch and said shit we got to get back to the hotel, of course I tried to protest, since we hadn't been out in 3 days, we virtually sat, ate, watched TV, and hated each other within the confines of those hotel rooms. I went because he said I was expected to go although they never seemed like vacations to me. I wanted to go where everyone else was going, which was Kish, or to the North by the Caspian sea, but NOOOO, we always got these terrific hotels where Mohammad would try to ensure the staff of big tips if they kept me entertained and feeling important. Which I can't blame the staff of these places they were wonderful, we had our own delivery boy so Lori had no excuse to leave the hotel when Mohammad was out on one of his errands that usually lasted all day. The delivery boy was funny and I was trying to teach him English, but then learned all too well, how little a people' character or worth meant when it came to pissing the asshole hubby off. One night Mohammad had gotten home late and I was downstairs in the lobby which served nice cold AB tolabee; i.e. ice cold cantaloupe juice, and playing backgammon with the boy, and teaching him English. I was laughing at a joke he told me about the Turks, when Mohammad came in and stood there glaring at us, then said Lori go up to the room NOW! I did and never did see the boy again. I did not ask and he did not tell, but I was informed never to get that friendly with the staff again.

Anyway back to our visitor, we had arrived at the Hotel I believe around 8pm, Mohammad was rushing around the room getting it straightened up, we had a suite with two bedrooms I believe, a computer in the room and its own private dining area, he got upset at the thought of not picking up his dry-cleaning that day and called the front desk and basically told them if they expected him to return on the next visit they would get their tanbul; i.e. lazy, asses up here and clean the room, and bring fresh fruit, shirini;i.e.sweet pastries, and chi; i.e.tea...I just sat down and lost myself in the computer, which was abruptly turned off when he yanked the cord out of the wall and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing, I told him I didn't want to bother him, he then told me to go change into the dress he had bought me that day, and to put my new scarf on, and when the guest comes to be on my best behavior...I wondered to myself Ok I can do this, now your probably wondering why I even had stayed this long with him in Iran due to his volatile behavior, because I thought he would change, and when I asked him to go home, he became irate and said it wasn't feasible at the moment! This was always his answer...

At exactly 9pm, there was a knock at our hotel room door. Mohammad answered it and all I saw from where I was sitting was a turban, so I was thinking "just wonderful a holy mullah, for him to kiss ass with and acquire another ally as to why women in Iran should be treated shitty!" Then I heard the man tell his entourage who had came through the door first, he in the middle and more behind him to burrow; he clapped his hands and said it in a firm but gentle tone. I thought I would like this mullah. Boy that is what I get for thinking! Mohammad said in his sweetest, yet mocking tone to my ears; "Lori Jan be" i.e.Lori dear come! and then he proceeded to introduce me to none other than PRESIDENT KHATAMI, I about passed out right there thinking for sure he was there to A) deport me for ruining my husbands life by his account, B) To explain the logistics behind executions of wives who don't kiss their husbands asses, or the worst yet possible C) To either get it on with me or my husband or both...lol.... But Mohammad knew what I thought of Khatami, I had never made any qualms about it nor hid it, I even wrote a letter to the editor in 1998 when he was elected to the Iran Daily Times about how I disagreed with his tactics, it was published but severely censored. YA THINK.

Anyway I acted as gracious as possible, all the time wondering why the hell he would enter a hotel room alone in a Muslim country with just a woman and her husband present. Wasn't this lack of security on his behalf? Couldn't he be blamed for actions that no one could verify if it came down to my word against his? Hmmm the wheels started turning and Mohammad I think caught on to my antics due to my outward shit-eating grin. Then I went and got us tea, said Hello and listened to Mohammad explain to me what an honor it was for an American to meet the president of Iran...Oh yeah, big honor I thought! More like a set up of some sorts, at least this is what my mind was convincing me of. After our first cup of tea with them mumbling and me staring at his pants and what looked like a tie on underneath his outer wear, so Lori got overly curious and said I thought you weren't supposed to wear ties in Iran if you were Islamic, I thought this was in bad taste, he then showed me that it was indeed not a tie just what appeared to be by the pattern of his shirt, then I thought to myself OKEE DOKEE and he's probably got on TOM & JERRY BOXERS too. Then I could not control my self-laughter, and pissed Mohammad right off. But I was excited, nervous and confused all at once, so I had to keep these charades up in my mind so I wouldn't completely go nuts...Needless to say Mohammad asked me to go downstairs and eat that they wanted to talk alone...I then concluded that Yep he is gay and why the hell couldn't he get a better looking partner than hubby? Again my thoughts were drifting but I did as I was told...

Ok after the Khatami thing Mohammad had calmed his behavior down somewhat and had bought me guilt laden gifts of a diamond and sapphire ring, earrings to match, and about 7 gold chains with a watch made out of a gold clasp for my teaching ...I was always complaining that I needed a watch with an American date so that I could remember where everyone in my family was season wise, holiday wise and time wise, so he did it. I thanked him but refused to wear all the gold, although its a custom to show off your gold in Iran as a symbol of your husbands love, or so hubby told me, it was to me asking to be robbed, since I had to leave the school now at night. Plus I always hated jewelry, I have never been the one to say oh honey I love this ring or this bracelet or whatever, I'd rather put it away for safe keeping for a nest egg if I have to have it at all... Now buy me saffron bastineeay; i.e. saffron ice cream, anytime but not gold...

I loved the Iranian food and especially loved their ice creams and juices, all the juice places knew that Mohammad and I would be in following my last class at the school around 9-10pm, and even if they were ready to close their would always be my favorite waiting chilled extra cold, be it Ab tolabee, Ab haveeg or just Shirmoz it always tasted better when it was extra cold. And for this they received a hundred-toman tip for a 50-100 toman drink, Mohammad always overtipped. If the drink was 300 tomans then he would tip 200 extra, and besides we had our own taxi service on Afifabad that would come and pick me up anytime day or night if I got hungry and needed to run on the other side of town for a sandwich or needed cigarettes, since I always stayed up at night...Our taxi bill for these luxuries usually ran anywhere from 10,000 tomans to 20 a month. Somehow, Mohammad managed to keep us up to par with all these extras. Not to mention the best movies not just one but 10 of them delivered to our door every Saturday morning, and usually the top releases.

Then everything went downhill about the beginning of 2000. Then really climaxed after Mohammad beat me almost to death for calling his mother a bitch, not to her face, just said that I didn't care living there any longer because I didn't appreciate how their family was treating me, despite me working my ass off to try n please them, they kept treating me like a red headed step child. I did not think he would take it so personally since he always referred to her as this! He grabbed me by the back of the shirt and drug me into the bedroom and threw me on the floor and just kept slapping me...I was screaming hoping that someone would come in and stop him, I did hear his Mom yelling but it didn't phase him. I managed to get outside on the balcony off our bedroom and threatened to jump if he did not stop, he said go ahead let me help you, then noticed the people walking below, and staring up and decided against this. So he told me nicely to come in and we would talk. He even apologized, so I went in, then just as I stepped inside the door, he hit me so hard that I fell back against the water type heaters that are attached to the walls and busted my head. I was unconscious for I think about 10-15 min.'s when I woke up his uncle Mohandes was standing over me, and yelling at Mohammad. He helped me up and took me to the hospital, where he paid 200,000 tomans for my x-rays and treatment. They were reassuring at the hospital, "IF she has seizures they won't last long, it's just a side effect of the abrupt blow". God your smart I thought sarcastically. He had also chased me from rooftop to rooftop once when I forgot to don my hejab when his most hated Mullah Uncle came over, I escaped into this one door on a roof, that had the glass broken in it, I ran down the stairs through the peoples living room out to the kucheh where two of Mohammad's friends were awaiting to take me back home. Such a splendid life, then came 911, where all the gossip was that Bin Laden would make opium and heroine cheaper than cigarettes if Iran and the USA kept screwing with him, I didn't know they were but Mohammad felt the need to confess this to me one night after he got home in a rarely good mood. He also said there were rumors that the USA would be bombed on 911, he said September 11th, then told me how it correlated with our distress call for an emergency of dialing 911. I just listened, but he said it was just rumor and no one knew where or what would be bombed but it was going to make history...I snuck out of the room to the phone after he nodded off and tried calling my parents, the recording said, "No International calls being placed at this time due to heavy volume". Well, it was September 9th and I was getting quite nervous about my family's safety...I kept trying to call on the 10th and yes even the morning of the 11th, on September 12th in the am Mohammad had told me to pack our things we were getting on the next bus to Istanbul! Why I asked, He said the USA was bombed yesterday morning, and we aren't sticking around for the aftershocks!

After discovering the whereabouts of the bombing I was somewhat relieved for my family, but so heavy hearted for the others that died, I had survivors guilt since I thought we could have prevented it if we had really made an effort to listen to these rumors...But then again how did I know if EVERYONE WAS AWARE OF THESE RUMORS, or just some...TIME WILL TELL...

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Chapter Five
9/11 and Not In America This time

Ok so on the morning of September 12th, hubby and MOI arrived at Shiraz bus terminal to catch a bus from Shiraz to Tehran and from Tehran we would go on to Istanbul where we could catch a flight out to Heathrow or some other far away airport that would ensure us a flight back to the East Coast...Mohammad paid for our tickets, and then showed our American passports, we then went out front with our very limited luggage and sat down. Just then Mohammad became panicky and handed me this Iranian passport with the name of Ahmed Malekpoor Mansoorkhany's name on it, this individual was an old client of ours and why Mohammad had posession of his passport I couldn't even begin to understand nor explain. But he handed it to me and told me to take it and get rid of it.... I said why? He said, "Now isn't the time to ask questions just do it!" So I took it, got up, and went in route to the restroom, just then these armed guards pulled up in a truck and were putting Mohammad in cuffs! I threw the passport behind some desk and ran outside. I started asking what was going on and another truck a convoy style truck pulled up and a woman and a man got out that looked more French than Iranian, grabbed me put me in handcuffs, and told me it was due to a corrupt business that we had taken money from our clients.... I could not imagine, nor did I want to, all I could think was Mohammad was doing something that I was not aware of with our Immigration Consulting business that we operated in Shiraz! But as they pushed me into the back of this convoy type truck and pulled the tarp down; this was after Mohammad had disappeared into the back of another one, they put a blindfold on me, but before being blinded I could see there were others as well as me in the back of the truck blindfolded...
Some were men and some were women, they appeared well dressed and didn't seem to emerge from the poor population that dominated most of Iran.

Since I had no clue about the legal system in Iran, all I could imagine was this was it and how draconian it all was!

About 4-6 hours later after a very long ride which consisted of a lot of yelling amongst the guards, and a whole lot of bumps we were unloaded out of the truck but not unblinded. As we stood outside of what looked like another rendition of Guatemala Bay Prisoner camp only existing out in the valley of some mountains that I had never seen before they took our blindfolds off and chained us together two by two....

There was no rhyme or reason who they chose to chain together, soldiers just started grabbing us and putting one hand in a cuff along with one ankle, and then attached it to the person closest to us. Some young people were chained to much older people, women to men, there was no Muslim law being adhered to now.

I was lucky enough to get chained to Faresh. A young girl from Bahrain, who was put into the camp with her older brother Abbey, and her parents. Her parents were ill and had been in Iran for them to be seen by specialist, they were abducted on their way to the airport. Apparently some Hezzbollahs pulled them over, kept them on the side of the road until the convoy showed up. Faresh's english was better than most, and this I thought would be a comfor to me.....but .....we were never allowed to talk so I guess it didn't matter if the person spoke Swahili next to me for all the conversation that didn't take place. One thing I scoped out and noticed though, I was fortunate to be with another young, strong girl if the opportunity ever presented itself for an escape...

We were then led through this square type cement hall way that if you looked at it from the air you would see a thin outline of a square with a roof fenced in on the inside with barbed wire fence and no shelter on the inside yard...but we were led through the square roofed part out to the yard...this is when I caught sight of a telephone, and demanded to one of the guards my right to use the phone...after all I thought they were still the authorities and had to grant you this, because I was naive enough to think this was an international right with any legal arrest, boy was I wrong...After the guard laughed and said I was crazy or used the English term "KooKoo", I then proceeded to call him a derogatory name in Farsi..Which much to my surprise came my first realization that these fine folks were not authority figures at least not acting on any official basis. The guard laughed as he slapped me and I fell to the ground, this is when he kicked me so hard, that I still have the boot indentations in the back of my head. He didn't stop there, he continued kicking me while mocking my words about using the phone. At some point whether it was the kicks or the pain that overtook me, I managed to pass out and escape the horror for a while anyways.

That kick left me unconscious for approx. 6 hours, and when I awoke, now this is no shiite, a Pakistani man had put stitches in my head using a tree branch sharpened with a rock and some thread from his shirt...he had done this after asking a guard if he could, and while the guard I'm sure thought "let her die from some massive infection secondary to this procedure and we won't have to kill her and it will be more of a hideous death for her" said sure go ahead and allowed the man to do it...When I awoke my endorphins were still so geared up that I couldn't feel the pain...But was grateful to the man for help...He didn't speak any language that I knew, but he knew that I was grateful. Now why so many different nationalities in this camp such as some from Bahrain, some from Pakistan, Palestine, Afghanistan and yes America.... From what I overheard anyone having ties to the USA or possessing passports were picked up...For what reason I still do not know if I ever will know!

Well needless to say the kick in the head was not the last blow to my humility...After the first week, myself along with 3 other girls one named Nasreen, one named Faresh and the other girl I never had a chance to get to know her name. This was because she was the first one of us to be taken. About 4 days approximately after sitting in the camp and trying to comprehend the whole situation, they came to get the girl. Five soldiers, each soldier grabbed a limb and carried her out like some animal. The fifth soldier kept a watch on all those around her while pointing his gun at anyone near. She was screaming, and the soldier kept hitting her in the head with the butt of his gun, only causing more screaming and crying. We never heard a gun shot, so we still clung to the hope that she possibly was given her freedom....But noone knew for sure. Maybe her freedom came in death, I do not know, but I did pray for her that night.

I do not know the name of the terrorist group that picked us up but I do know that I kept overhearing the soldiers use the word "Khan" repeatedly...

Anyway getting back to "blows done to humility": The two other girls and I all of which we're not the only females in the camp were chosen as the soldiers "toys"! This meant that when they got bored or just for sadistic purposes they would choose one of us and rape us, all of the soldiers would.... Which if you counted them all it meant anywhere from 20-29 on any given day...
The first time that they came for me, I knew it was coming....I had this sudden nauseating feeling in my stomach, and kept watching the ground intently, while the soldiers approached. All I could hear by the time that they got to me was my heartbeat within my ears. I felt a sudden jerk on each arm and a kick to the back while I was being drug away from Faresh. Yes this was the only time that the cuffs came off....I did the usual screaming and fighting although I knew that in the back of my mind this didn't help, there were too many of them, and only one of me....When the first soldier grabbed me, the other two stood back and pointed their guns at me...and I knew what was happening....I just kept asking the soldiers where in their fucking Qur'an did Allah tell them to do this??? Which only angered them more...I got slapped a few times for that, and all three took their turns with me...I had been hit so many times that the pain that was being inflicted elsewhere was of no significance...I was too busy trying to keep my mouth free from the blood that was steadily nauseating me....well after the first three were satisfied that they had humiliated another American, 5 more soldier came in and the same thing, different tactics, some hit more than others, some were even ashamed to be doing what they were...Atleast this is how I perceived it... I would just stare at them and not take my eyes off them, since I knew from living in Iran that this made men feel uncomfortable in any situation. One soldier put a sock around my head to blindfold me....that was the worst, since then I couldn't see if they were planning on killing me when they were done or not. After that first time I never felt the same again....nor did I think I ever would again...

I felt dirty, sick to my stomach and hated the world. But most of all I was questioning my faith....How could a supposed good God/Allah, allow this to happen to us? I had so many questions and probably hated God by the weeks end... In Iran anal intercourse is so frequent due to girls wanting to remain virgins that when they get together with a man this is usually the preferred method....so any chance a man has to do it the so called, "normal" way...i.e.vaginal intercourse. .They welcome the opportunity. So for the most part girls were spared the pain of this, but lo and behold comes a few that are just mean...they aren't even interested in anything other than humiliating the girl every way possible.

This next part was probably the most brutal time that I had while in the camp but I guess it's necessary to relate....If nothing else to show how much or how little some human beings can actually separate themselves from others to the point of any act being justified within their own minds.....

It was late at night or early one morning when I felt myself being dragged away from Faresh by the end of my pant legs.....They drug me over rocks, through mud puddles and out the fence door.....I just wanted to die then, because this didn't usually start until the daylight hours....But their captain was there and wanted to meet the American....the full blooded one that is...

So after outside the fence, their Captain who looked like a cross between Sadaam and Ayatollah told me welcome to his camp and was I being treated well? I looked at him and started laughing so hard that I thought I'd puke right there. He didn't find it amusing. He slapped me so hard that I felt my ears ringing for the next 2 days. He said that he didn't like smart ass women and hated American bitches!!! I just continued to keep eye contact. He had asked me why did I think I was here? I told him I had no idea since I hadn't committed any crime. He quickly corrected me by telling me being born an American whore was a crime against his humanity. I'm not even sure if he knew what he meant. He then told the other soldiers to leave, but I'm sure they weren't far away in case I tried to run. He then told me to get ready for some pain he didn't think that I would be so quick to dismiss, he tore off my shirt leaving me to a sports bra to live in for the remainder of the time in the camp....the other soldiers had at least taken off the clothes or ordered me to, this one just ripped it.....he then without any warning grabbed me and shoved my face in the nearest mud puddle and had anal intercourse with me while I was trying not to drown in the mud puddle. Afterwards he shoved the barrel of his rifle up my vagina so hard that I felt something rip due to the sight at the end I think...and he told me he was going to rid the Americans of this whore...I.e.me....and while I didn't care at that moment about anything he kept shoving the rifle further and further and asking me if this felt as good as the many men I've fucked in my life. He just sat there getting pleasure out of having me in total fear this way. But to add insult to injury he continued to tell me how pathetic I was, and that I was way too ugly for any American to want me now. And started asking me questions like did I want to return to America with only half my face or half my female anatomy....Like this was a choice that I seriously had to consider....I finally said just shoot me and get it over with...and then added a derogatory name in Farsi, to hopefully drive him to make a decision. He just sat there and laughed....he then gave the rifle one final shove, and it felt like it had entered my abdominal cavity and took everything with it...and then turned me over to have anal intercourse again....he then made me lay there and submit to the other soldiers....all the while with this rifle that was killing me slowly...I could see the blood on the ground beside me, and it looked as though a pig had been stuck....so believe it or not this gave me hope that I still could bleed to death and escape this hell....

Well after about 3-4 hours of this torture, he drug me back to the camp by my hair, and there he left me to clean up all the blood while wearing nothing but pants and a sport bra....I used the closest mud puddle to wash off what blood I could, but the numbness allowed me to disassociate my body from the events to the point that I felt like I was just watching this happen from somewhere else.....But they had taken Faresh and I knew all too well what she was in for and cried for her....

This torture went on and on the whole while we were there.....I was continually threatened with acts of removing my limbs with knives, to removing certain anatomical parts with knives as well.......later I understood this was all part of their scare tactics and a method of making us fear them so much that we would eventually become submissive....which a lot of us did, I even did after about 2 weeks.

In my mind I thought the more we resist the more pleasure they get out of beating us....so if I submitted what fun would it be for them then....plus I was rationalizing that it would be over quicker too.....Not so......

This is when a whole new wave of torture started, this was when they started injecting us with heroine in the gums, so that no needle marks would be evident....I will never forget the first dose I received......The first feeling was euphoria since all my pain that I had been trying not to think about was lifted, then I got so sick and vomited, but since I had eaten nothing in two weeks, could only produce dry heaves...which only made the soldiers laugh that much harder.....at one point I thought that my stomach was coming out my mouth.....I was continuously nauseated but very weak.....which is exactly what they wanted.....then they started taking us out in twos so that one could watch while the other got tortured....then we could see exactly what was in store for us next......Once they gave Faresh a partial episiotomy with a kitchen knife and told her this should loosen her up some.....God that was horrible, they held her down and used the serated edge of a butter knife and sawed at her like she was a piece of meat....she was screaming but their hand held over her mouth stifled her screams for the most part.....it was sickening....

At one point I was getting good at just pretty much passing out after being given an injection...so I would like to think I don't remember much of what happened, but this is a fallacy. Because still to this day I wake up from nightmares that remind me all too well of what happened during those times.....

Like the times they beat our feet with leather belts, the times they gloves on and say one fist for the mouth and the other for....and this was very painful, since if we moved during the whole ordeal then they were entitled to hit us with their fist 10x....this was their sick game....they would give us orders like not to scream, not to move, not to shout, or they could retaliate....but even if we didn't they still retaliated....It was horrible, and some of the events are too hard to go into details here, and I hope you understand this.....

They at first were more private about the rapes taking us out through the cement hall to the other side, but then soon they caught on to our camaraderie of sticking together for moral support so that one of us wouldn't do something really stupid, so then they started doing it in front of the camp as to shame us so that we would not look each other in the eye let alone talk to one another out of shame and embarrassment...not that we could talk all that much anyway...but body language tells us a lot and we can sense the others feelings especially in situations such as these!!

Now at the time I didn't nor couldn't understand the concept behind the public rapes if that is what you'd like to refer to them as, but once returning to America I learned a lot more about psychological warfare and how gruelingly condemning the uses are of it!

Especially when your forced to be watched like a movie premier while the soldiers do these horrible things to you while laughing....one look at anyone in the camp while this was happening would only elicit a look of pity, which made you feel even more worthless than you already did.....Pretty soon it got to the point that no one would even glance at anyone else.....we all felt ashamed, dirty and that we were totally broken by these bastards....what future did we have now? I felt like I had been so abused and used that no man would ever want me again.....Not to mention that even if he did, the minute that we became intimate he would realize that I was just used merchandise and change his mind....that is if I ever allowed for this to happen again....at the point in the camp when all this happened, I never thought that I would even speak to another human again out of fear, embarrassment and never wanting to trust anyone again....let alone a man....!

The rapes continued almost daily, and so did the soldiers giving the girls heroin injected into their gums INVOLUNTARILY so as to not cause such chaos when they came to get one of us...But the heroin eventually was overused by one stupid soldier on Nasreen and she ended up dying of an overdose...she knew she was going and was chained next to me, not with me but rather next to me, she slipped me a silver ring she had on in passing and said I would always be her friend.... She died soon after and they burned her like a pig at a roast...And I swear this is true for the purposes of not having a body or to further intimidate us or whatever sick reasoning they had they did burn her body and cut off a piece of her flesh for us to all eat a piece, they must of considered this an act of good faith! Since they had not fed us in approx.2 weeks, nor did they ever feed us while we were there, we ate whatever crawled our way literally! Be it insect, or rodent; although a rodent tried to eat me once.... Anyway their act of good faith was making each one of us eat a piece of human flesh, I could not, so I stowed it away in the side of my mouth until they passed and spit it out.... I think somebody must have ate it since it wasn't there later that after awakening from a short nap of about, 5-15 min: which was a miracle to me, since I hadn't slept since arriving! Well being knocked unconscious does not technically count as sleep!

Anyway there were other horrific incidences, and one was when they took a son from his parents, they (i.e. the soldiers) unchained him and put a blindfold on him, his father was begging them to take him instead of the boy, they then took the whole family, i.e.mother, father, and son! When the soldiers returned, and after hearing several gunshots, we knew the outcome, the parents had returned without their son...The bastards had executed him right in front of his parents...So then I knew we were all doomed!

We used to hear choppers fly overhead and hope that one of them was a rescue team. I used to daydream that my Uncle was flying in since he was a chopper pilot in Vietnam, but to no avail the choppers were never our knights in shining armor, although once one landed, only to deliver more heroine to the soldiers though.

We also were transferred to different camps, around 3x total I think! The other ones were similar to this one, once the trip took us almost all day to arrive at our destination, so where we were was never anybody's guess!

The moves virtually involved all the same events that happened when we were first picked up, that is being blindfolded, pushed into the back of the truck, not being allowed to talk to anyone....but the handcuffs and chains remained in the camp....I'm sure for the next group of poor victims....but they always had others that were used upon arriving at our destination...The guards did change somewhat, there were still a few of the same ones, but for the most part we had all new guards in which to endure more torture under....

The first time they took us away, one of the girls thought they were going to take us back and drop us back off from where they picked us up...i.e.bus station or airport or worse home....but I understood their language probably better than she did...and knew all too well where we were headed....but I allowed her to cling to her fantasy for the time being...we all need an escape from reality at times to endure the forthcoming hell that was promised to us all!!

My escape from reality came around mid-October, when we heard rumors that
a Blackhawk helicopter flying in to view the area to verify rumors of Americans being held in these camps, I almost became excited.... ALMOST! If you go back and read the news archives I'm sure you will also see that a blackhawk helicopter crashed around mid October in Palestine or Pakistan anyway wherever we were at that time the news of this crash was the general excitement amongst the soldiers that week...They had won! This battle anyway.

Around the end of October due to people being sporadically removed from the camps either by freedom or death, there only remained about 25 people or so: Faresh and I were amongst those, we were also dying of starvation! I had guessed that I had probably lost close to 50-70pounds; and my spine ached so badly that it was becoming difficult to walk. Wonderful I used to ponder: I always wanted to be skinny, but not die looking like an Ethiopian either, for my pic to be used on the news where no one would even recognize me...But then again you think of strange things when you have a lot of time on your hands. I did an ant study as well, since there were many camping out with us, and I used to marvel at their teamwork, if only we could all get a plan going as good as they did, maybe we could get the hell out of here!

Anyway one day due to boredom I am guessing, the soldiers decided to play a game of Russian Roulette with Faresh and I. They blindfolded us and took us up in front of the camp and told us that we would be shot in the head, I was preparing to die.... Actually welcoming the chance to at this point! They put the muzzles to our heads and pulled the triggers, nothing happened they then broke out in hysterical laughter at Faresh falling on the ground, God how I wanted these bastards to die in the worst way possible! They then said, to the effect, to let the "bitch whores shoot themselves"! Wonderful I thought they are going to give us the guns to make it look like a suicide. So when they handed us the guns, I said to Faresh in English: since many of the soldiers couldn't understand a lot of English let alone metaphors, I said, "You take 9 o'clock and I will take 2 o'clock" meaning that if we're going to die then we are taking a couple of these JERKS with us! Since Faresh was on my left, she could hear the breathing of the soldier closest to her, and likewise for me. So we pointed the guns at our heads, and then immediately listened closely for any noise to give away the location of the soldiers and as soon as I heard the breath I pointed and pulled the trigger, but...yes you guessed it nothing happened, this upset me but not more than what happened next, I knowing what the consequences were going to be if they didn't kill us pointed the gun to my temple and prayed that there please be one bullet in that damned gun to get me out of this hell.... Well there wasn't one and the sound of the empty clicking nauseated me to the point of dry heaves...

Well, we were beaten severely: and this is where the second boot indentation on my skull arose from, not to mention the fractured jaw and half of my teeth missing or broke. Faresh had the same, if not worse outcome happen to her as well.
Well that night, I was dozing off, and was convinced that I had suffered some type of permanent brain damage after what happened next...I heard this voice say, "Lori your going home" it was a soft soothing voice, and I immediately looked around but no one was stirring in the camp they either were asleep or acting it really well. Then I felt this soft touch on my shoulder I swung around to see who was mocking me, and no one was there. I felt an uneasy calm the rest of the night and think I must have suffered from brain damage, and was now hearing auditory hallucinations!

Well the next night much to my surprise Faresh's brother Abbey (this is what they called him in Bahrain to mean a man that is so giving) had somehow either paid a guard off or something to allow me and Faresh to escape under the fence.

The fence was cut under the first few inches of dirt so it looked intact until you shoved the easily movable dirt mounds away....and due to my severe starvation fitting under the small space and out to my freedom was for once not a problem....

Abbey had been trying to get my attention all day, and once him and Faresh who was still chained to me were communicating via lip messages...but I didn't ask what they were talking about.....then after the soldiers were done eating that night and started their routine of smoking opium.....I noticed the one guard that usually sat up by us wasn't there....Faresh jerked me up, and said lets go....I said go where...she then said shh....just follow me....And Abbey who was over by the fence pushed the dirt away and held the fence up for us....no one else watched, they didn't want to witness this....this or they were just too sad that it wasn't them....this is when the guilt set in for me but I thought if we could get back to some moral civilization then I could help save them too.....

Abbey stayed behind with his parents since they were both too sick to make the journey that I was all to unaware of that was ahead of us.

Anyway that night after we were allowed out from under the fence, we were met by two men who didn't speak our language but could only say, "Shalom" which means peace, THANK GOD I thought, since I was sure these two men were there to take us back to execute us, you learned not to trust anyone nor anything then... But.... And YES I know this sounds incredulous it was to me as well but these two men had two llamas, awaiting for us to ride while they led them for almost two days over the mountains back to the outskirts of Shiraz for me...

As soon as we got a good ways from the camp, they handed us water bottles and some dried meat.....god that was heaven sent...the salty meat made the water taste that much better, although the water alone was almost too good to be true....I drank so much that I got severe cramps and had to stop for a while, this is when the llama tried to eat me.....that smelly, hairy animal with the bad attitude, yet that remained beautiful to me tried to bite me in the shoulder. I was standing or bending over trying to get the cramps to subside when I heard one of the men come up behind me and start yelling while he hit the llama in the nose, and it bleated in pain. It sort of sounded like a sheep. Anyway the man could not tell me what happened but I inferred that the way he made a gnashing teeth face....boy was I lucky....to make it all this way and then die from a llama bite. The mere idea of it sent me into a hysterical laughter fit. Only Faresh could see the humor in it though, so I crawled back up on my llama, my beautiful ticket home, to continue the ride.

They had brought dried fruits and a lot of water but they were stored at unusual spots along the journey back. This path must have been used before for them to have all these hiding places out in the middle of nowhere.....

Well we finally arrived at the outskirts of Shiraz, in which I gleefully ran down the large embankment to the very outskirts of Ghastrodasht, and when I mean outer skirts of this famous road in Shiraz I mean OUTER, since I had never seen this part of Ghastrodasht in my whole stay in Shiraz, and it was the remotest part, it entered from the direction of NOT Cinemasadi, but the other way, if you catch my drift Shirazians???

Anyway, I immediately went to Ostandary which was supposed to be a haven for foreigners in need of aid, well as I said SUPPOSED TO BE!

They took me to my hubby's family's house where I was told "Burrowgomeshaw"
from his mother!! "Burrowgomeshaw" pronounced...burrow-gome-shaw, is a farsi saying that means, "Get lost or go away and don't return".

I couldn't tell the authorities what had happened to me, since I was sure that the govt. was involved somehow so I was left with just my husband abandoned me at the bus terminal and haven't seen him in quite some time!

Ostandary gave me up to the Immigration International Police which of none could speak English, well broken at best, the Immigration Office put me in the Anvari Hotel where they told the man on duty which seemed to stay on duty to guard me the entire stay, his name was Mansooreh, who became somewhat attached to me and asked me what grade I was in??? HAHAHAH, they really filled him in on the details I could tell!!!

I was put in a hotel room without a TV...geesh, and no PHONE! And said until some form of ID surfaced I could not be flown back to America. Nor was I allowed to go out of the hotel room for matters of my own safety....More like matters of their own safety!! So there I sat with the only break in boredom coming with my one meal of rice or if I was lucky cheese and bread for breakfast, nothing to read, nothing to do but sit and listen to the planes take off and land....and dream of being on one back home....

I did finally make friends with Mansooreh, and the cleaning girls, named Nahid and Narges....and after about a week Mansooreh let me start walking or should I say accompanying him on his daily inspections of the hotel rooms...He was of course your typical Persian, kind to a fault, oblivious to details and not wanting to know too much about the atrocities happening right under his nose,, so Lori did eventually manipulate him into allowing her one phone call to the USA, my mothers, in which I forgot to mention one night at the camp one of the soldiers being too high on opium forgot to chain the door closed to the cement surrounding closure and Faresh and Lori managed to sneak in and use the phone, Lori was on the phone crying to her mother about getting me out before I died there all the while not wanting to hang up the phone to a familiar, caring voice on the other end which ended up being abruptly disconnected once the soldier realized what was going on, thus Faresh and I were reprimanded by getting the hell beat out of our feet with leather belts and almost dying from the infected gashes....

While at the hotel, I tried filling my days with counting minutes at first then crossing off each hour on the wall with a pencil I found under the bed.....then I got really energetic and started writing a letter home on the toilet paper wrapper ...when it's reversed it is blank on the other side. The days were monotnous. I mean no Tv, no phone, no conversation.....so I figured going down to the lobby like Mansooreh ( the man in charge of me) wanted; see he thought by having an American sitting in his lobby would be good for business....they love Americans, and if one stays at a hotel then it must be a good hotel for them to spend American dollars there. But after I tried talking to all these people who were willing to listen to my tragedy and trying to get a message out to my parents via visitors from England, Austrailia, and Switzerland.....Mansooreh caught on to what I was doing and put me back in my room and locked it. I would talk to anyone that spoke English and try to convey to them that I was still a prisoner and could they email my sister or could they call my parents when they get out of Iran. I had a few people promise to do so...but many left soon after, either frightened off from what I said, or thinking that this hotel was housing a lunatic!

Well eventually about 15-20 days passed of Lori being stowed away at the Anvari, then a knock on the door and I could see military boots underneath which always either triggered excitement at the thought of freedom or execution, which of either would of been welcomed..

The soldier held in his hand the one thing I will never forget seeing, nor appreciating more than I had ever appreciated anything in my lifetime....MY PASSPORT, he then asked me did I want to go to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran or to the USA embassy in Dubai, well I had had enough of Iran at this point so chose Dubai and the next day I was on my way! Which I never questioned how the hell did they get their hands on my passport when it had been taken with all my belongings at the bus terminal that horrible day??? I knew the govt. had been involved, and was sure the plane would probably crash on the way to Dubai....

Well in a synopsis, I returned home had a lot of surgery done on teeth, Fx. jaw, and remained quiet until now....I did send Tom Brokaw a request that he emailed me, apparently the book "The Greatest Generation Speaks" is being revised including some remarks from 911 survivors on their take of how 911 affected them, I also wrote an excerpt from the book, and will end this with that excerpt...The book asks you to "REMEMBER" and it begins with ...." I REMEMBER" then is followed by sub-diaries where your encouraged to write about ; "THE BEST MOMENT", "THE LONGEST DAY" and so on!

As for ME, well I made it home and have never appreciated setting foot on American soil as much as I did on November 14th, there was an ambulance awaiting me at the Detroit Metro Airport in which I kindly declined by saying, "I made it this far I'm walking out of here" when they escorted me out of the back my sister did not recognize me due to wounds and severe malnutrition, but when I declared "DEBBIE It's ME< Lori" she then broke down and we hugged like never before, I will never forget the devotion, love and worry that my family endured especially after my mom received that one phone call and could not acquire any help from any govt. authorities telling her that it had been my choice to go to that country in the first place so it was up to me to get out.....My family are the true heroes here, they were the ones that withstood the unknowing and the horror of their imaginations, I on the other hand am just a survivor here to tell and share in hopes that something like this will never be repeated in the future..... By any govt....! Thank You for your time in reading this...May GOD BLESS YOU AND AMERICA>>in closing, excerpts from the book..

"I REMEMBER......"
The soldiers, the chaos, the confusion, the stripping of all human dignity and the true face of humility. But most of all the one true moment in my life when I was completely left alone by everyone including those that had promised me liberty and justice for all back when I was a child and innocent, now all innocence lost completely alone left to fend for myself, to depend on my mind, my strength, and most of all my will to survive which meant PATIENCE.

"I REMEMBER......"
Facing many facets of deaths door, no grim reaper, just the games (mind), the Rules, or in their case the Lack of Rules. The betrayal by people with whom I once considered "brothers" and "sisters"; the total barbarism and primitiveness seen in their laughing eyes as they continued repeatedly carrying out their justifications of revenge with the "Big Satan"(i.e. what terrorist refer to the USA as),only their justifications were being executed not on the whole but the part of what I used to think of myself and the other girls as the whole. Now I've been betrayed by my country and theirs, no solace for this act will ever become part of my mind if I survived. As the barbaric acts continued daily repeatedly, my minds eyes became blind and I learned the art of disassociation, my mind drifts back to a time in my past: I was 11 and it was Christmas, the soldiers continue, WHERE'S GOD NOW, I asked, like long ago at 11 when I THOUGHT he was there then too!

"WHAT I REMEMBER MOST ABOUT THE WAR TIMES"
The ability the mind has to succumb to automatic pilot when the body shuts down and vice versa, within this irony I realized how to PLAN when in all actuality the body was near death, and how to trudge on when my mind had escaped the horrors of the body's entrapment.

"THE BEST MOMENT"
Seeing that family ties do matter when a man named Habib in Arabic=lovely one, sacrificed himself to stay behind with parents too sick to make the journey in route to freedom upon escaping, to allow his sister and I to be freed.

"THE LONGEST DAY"
Sept 11th, awaiting the horrors of Afghanistan to bomb the USA; knowing and not being allowed to call home to warn family or loved ones, the survivors guilt is hideous sometimes more to bear than the infliction.

"WHAT I MISS MOST ABOUT THAT TIME"
The total self reliance taught to me by people who knew not my native tongue nor knew me as their sister but as a friend, who were kind,caring and yes even loving, knowing not if they would survive one more day yet still strong in their faith in a faceless God one whom I deemed had let me down. What courage..... They had!!!
----------------
While I said I received a request by Tom Brokaw, I learned later that this had been an internet prank; I'm assuming in order to gain personal information about me from someone who obviously had known what I had endured in Iran!

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Chapter Six
Arriving Home!

Once arriving home and going through the emotional upheaval of first the culture shock. Yes I know it sounds crazy but there was a lot of culture shock for someone who just spent four years learning not to expose their hair, body parts and not to mention the dos and don'ts; that is don't shake a mans hand when meeting him, walk behind your husband, that is unless he approves you to walk next to him! And so on and so on. No one could imagine the gratefulness that I experienced just being able to speak my mind once more without the fear of being punished for it if they weren't the right words, or just the freedom to do my hair and not have to keep it hidden behind a roose a ree, which is what they call a scarf in Iran. I also was not expecting so much ignorance re: the Islamic religion. As I said, I really became involved in the religion to the point of praying 5x daily or doubling up on prayers in the AM to compensate for the noontime prayer when I would be in my class teaching. Yes you can do this, you can say your prayers twice in the AM to substitute for the noon prayer, also you don't have to pray when your sick or traveling if this is not feasible...The Islamic religion within itself is not a BAD religion! It has many good points, the only bad points that make most of us link Islam to terrorism is the fanatics...who take the Holy Qur'an out of text and interpret it for their own causes and justifications. But if you want to get literal we have more terrorism in the states that abounds everywhere and our Catholic and Christian history also has roots worse than Islam, take the Spanish Inquisition if you will, and the Jim Jones tragedy at Jamestown. We had Timothy McVeigh who killed children and we did not fear white men who drove around in Ryder trucks nor did we stereotype white middle-aged men to be terrorist. But we get a few extremist who CALL THEMSELVES Muslim, and I say CALL THEMSELF Muslim due to them not being true Muslims, Muslims only desire peace just as do and is the basis of all religions. Then the fanatics who claim they are killing for their prophet Muhammad and the whole world hates Islam.... I do not think this is neither fair nor an intelligent way of thinking. I have respect for all religions, consider them all worthy, and have merit or they would not have survived the centuries that they have.

So now that I've had my say on my views of Islam, I also would like to point out that back in the times of Muhammad the Prophet (PBUH) it was necessary to have bloody wars with many deaths to conquer the rights of land and ownership, unlike nowadays we just let our govt. promote propaganda to the point of exciting the masses so a war can justify our overthrowing a country...usually for the rites to something we need, lets say OIL if you will...We complain about Sadaam Hussein and his massive nuclear weapon armory, yet we don't complain about those countries who sold it to him...Our govt. only tells us what they want us to hear and I've come to learn that the press is strongly manipulated as well as to what they can print and report on as well...And if you don't believe this then go crawl back under that rock you've been living under and your life will be a peaceful blissful ignorant one.

OK sorry for the diversions there, getting back to my point re: arriving home, I obtained a job and wanted to clear up my past criminal charges. I even asked at the airport customs office if there were any warrants for me and they said no. So I thought ok, then they must have dropped it. Silly me! I then got a very minimal paying job due to my nursing license being suspended and about two weeks later was picked up by the police at my sisters residence where I was staying...The funny thing is and yes I tend to have a sarcastic sense of humor is that we were on our way home and were laughing about what we'd do if the cops came and I had to spend Christmas in jail after just arriving home and all...Well you guessed it I not only spent my birthday in jail, Christmas, New Years and Valentines day as well awaiting sentencing on charges in three counties for false Rx. So I tallied up a total of about 4 months in jail, but to me this wasn't jail nor did it seem as such, after where I came from getting 3 square meals a day, and a bed to sleep in not to mention a real bathroom it was more like TIME OUT in a nicer environment...Sure I missed my family but I'm used to always being away from something I loved either due to my own actions or someone else's so it really didn't bother me...what did bother me was the no smoking part that was the killer...

So upon being released from jail on March 15, 2002.... I moved in with my birth sister, since I had been adopted when I was 6 months old, and met my real brothers and sisters when I was 16 years old. I never really considered them family since the one that CHOSE me were the ones who endured all the hardships with me and put up with me so I rarely kept in touch.. But I couldn't stay with my sister, the one I had been staying with and the one who picked me up since her husband was a parole officer and some type of conflict of interest interfered with this.'
Well time went on and drug on at my real sisters house who I won't even benefit her by giving out her name due to her psychosis...god I hope it isn't hereditary. Talk about your schizo, psycho blissfully ignorant person she invented this title. She didn't want the Qur'an in her house since some ladies from her church told her that if I prayed on the holy rug in her house it would bring in evil spirits...Well what could I do but tolerate it until I got on my feet again. So I did and tolerated it not very long, besides being so ignorantly swayed by the thoughts of others she thinks she is a born again Christian...like most all Americans! I am sure if one were to do a study after 9-11 the increase in born again Christians rose about 10fold if not more. Now my view is that yes I'm sorry for the lives lost in the tragedy and I am not mocking it at all but I'm surprised something like this didn't happen much sooner than it did. Due to our govt. messing around in other countries and their affairs without having any clue to their traditions, cultures nor the reasons behind what they might be doing, and why their doing it! If you want to check into my political online club you will see many writings that I have done re: this issue...Half the CIA agents that are working in the Middle East don't know Arabic or Farsi and couldn't get directions in the language if they were lost in the middle of the desert and needed to locate a cactus.... Sorry that's my sarcasm again...Ok so now you know how I felt upon arriving home. I was sarcastic towards our govt. for their lack of help in getting me home. I exercised my right to free speech maybe a little too much.

And joined the IPC, which is the Iran Politics Club a group of freedom fighters fighting for the wonderful if not admirable cause of trying to democratize Iran. The founder is a bit of a fruitcake...sarcastic, outspoken, but sincere to his cause 100%, and he's the one who first gave me the idea of putting my story for real into words. I think all in all he's a sincere person but you wouldn't know it if you were to just read his writings although he is intelligent to a fault and this can get people in trouble at times...Ok once I got mad at Dr.X (the founder of IPC) since the only reason I first joined the club was trying to find answers about my husband and Iran and maybe get some insight into what happened. However, one day I really became irate and started my own political club on yahoo as well called Loris_Lords. The Lords stands for Logical Open Realistic Debates, and is not intended to mock anything religious...so sit back down you born again Christians! Don't start your reviews just yet!

The website address for IPC is:
http://IranPoliticsClub.net

Ok I will in a brief synopsis here tell you that I still miss Iran to this day, yes I know what happened to me there was hideous but the Persians are some of the nicest and kindest people I've met ...excluding my husbands family of course! The land and history of it is rich and beautiful and if things could work out between our two governments, the country would be a gold mine for Tourism! Now on with the final chapter.... WHAT DID I LEARN????

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Chapter Seven
What Did I Learn And How Did I Learn It?

First off, I want to digress and allow you some insight into a day in the camp and what it was like not only for me but also for all there!

Usually I did not sleep, maybe I would catch a few minutes here and there, but that was it! I would listen to the soldiers speak Farsi together and at times Arabic and try to make heads or tails out of what I could hear and fill in the gaps with what I couldn't. In the morning there would usually be a changing of the guard so to speak, and they would laugh or mock whatever event they motivated to happen the night before...Laugh and point to one of us to humiliate us. It was then that I knew there was no such thing as every human being possessing a kind core, so to speak. I was dirty but not in the physical sense that you might think, although none of us had taken showers or ate in weeks it wasn't the kind of dirtiness that you feel from not showering. It was an inner feeling that made me constantly feel like vomiting, or having an exorcism performed. Either way that unpleasantness bothered me the most! When your placed in a life or death situation you do what you have to do whether it is against your morals or not; your only motivation is to survive the ordeal. Well I did this, I tried to be kind and nice to the soldiers and obey and not put up too much of a fight. At first I fought like a panther whenever they came to take me away to rape me or to inject heroin in my gums! But after a while you lose your will since you know it is going to happen anyway...So why fight it? I would just disassociate the whole scenario and think back to a time when times were better. Or make believe that by doing what they wanted would get me home quicker and this would be the last time that this would happen to me! I learned also that trust is not a given nor is it earned indefinitely. I was with my husband for 9 years and thought I could trust him but boy was I wrong! You would think that after this long you could trust a person... not so. And as for anyone marrying an Iranian, Middle Easterner, or for that matter, anyone from a different culture than yours: I strongly suggest learning as much about that culture as possible. Don't be prejudice or shun a relationship due to the differences of the two cultures, but don't go hook, line, sinker, and delve into anything without thoroughly researching it first either. Love is a wonderful thing but very deceptive and vague upon the surface when you think you have fallen head over heels for another. So give yourself time and listen to the experiences of others before committing yourself to a situation that you may regret later. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against two cultures, races or religions mixing and getting married; but I do when it comes to one being ignorant and just listening to the words of their supposed loved one, and loyally unquestioningly jumping in feet first. Had I listened to Betty Mahmoody's story of "Not Without My Daughter" more closely then I would of been more cautious than to go to a strange land based solely on what my hubby had told me...Which was: Iran has changed, it's more modern, they don't treat women like that anymore, blah, blah, blah! Well while I do and did admit that Persians are some of the kindest people I know, I can also tell you that they are the most manipulative...And this is not their fault this is their training from birth. Due to never being allowed to express their true emotions. Either due to being punished for it or for reasons that might infringe on the family's reputation in society.
Now getting back to the camp...yes, I do have a tendency to stray on subjects and I apologize for this.

Well after a few hours of a little hope that built up in my mind every morning. The hope that today was the day I was going to be freed, I would eventually start doing my ant study once again...Which meant staring at this ant hill and watching these ants march in and out of their hill while either carrying something...not food because if it had been I would have been the biggest thief amongst the ants that they probably would of relocated. To be honest with you I don't know what the hell they were taking in and out of their nest but it was more interesting to watch them then to see all the desperate and miserable faces of the other prisoners in the camp. I would think for a while what it might be like to be home to be sitting down with my parents in their living room and watching CNN. Don't ask me why but this thought and my mother's tuna noodle casserole is what kept entering my mind the most! This and killing the bastard soldiers one by one after humiliating them, the same way that they had stripped us of our pride! Despite a person's persona in life, this is subject to change due to the circumstances that they are placed in.

Then after a few hours, the soldiers would take turns at getting their fringe benefits! This would be raping the girls. Then there would be the usual screaming, hysteria, and people shouting! This I would also try to block out and try to rationalize... That they're had to be people in other parts of the world that were going through much worse! What was worse than this I had not a clue but I had to rationalize it all just to stay sane. Then would come the dead silence after a few hours in which I would reflect on what had just happened and would it be all repeated in a few hours, minutes or days? Then I would have my moment of tears and think why is God allowing this to happen to me? Hadn't I always prayed to him, talked to him, and believed without questions? Then I would try to think of what I had done so terribly wrong in my past to bring this grief upon myself. This question I have never obtained the answer to, to this day! Then I would see others praying to Allah aloud just to be punished more by guards. Which led me to at first think how brave these people are to continue believing in a faceless God, and in a God that was allowing this to happen to them...Then towards the end I just thought it was pure stupidity, and ended up despising them. I have no clue as to why I guess it was just one of those unexplainable emotions that you cannot figure out why you ever hated those that were in the same situation as you. Nevertheless, I did. I hated them for causing more controversy than was necessary and possibly hated if not envied their devoted faith in a God that I deemed had let me down or never existed in the first place. At night, we would all watch the soldiers eat then smoke opium. I don't know which I craved more to be totally honest with you, since the soldiers would give us the heroin injections involuntarily for a few days then not give it to us making us go through withdrawals...So at times I may have desired the opium more than the food since at least the opium would allow my mind an escape of sorts or so I thought. Then they would demand us all to shut up while they had their festivities of the moment, which was returning to the cement building enclosure...the one with actual walls and a roof and a telephone. What I wouldn't of done to get in there for one night and not sleep outside in the dirt with whatever insects crawling on me, and to just be clean inside as well as out but more INSIDE! So there was a typical day.... Starvation, rapes, humiliation and always questioning your past and faith not only in God, but in your future as well. Did I even want to continue on this world knowing that there were actually people like this doing these heinous things to their brothers and sisters? Could I live with the fact now that I had actually experienced it? It's totally different when you sit at home and hear about it on the news...its too far away there to be reality, but when you live it you begin to question everything in Life and wonder what are the questions, rather than what are the answers to sum up these events? The answers were the easy thing to come by it was the Whys? What's? And always the Who's? That bothered me...Like why was this happening...the answer was "does it really matter since you probably will never learn the truth anyway?". I do not know if I am making sense now but I am just trying to summarize how, and what I felt like when I was there.
Like some of these questions bothered me and still do!

Why is it some countries can get their soldiers motivated for martyrdom and other countries can't even do what is necessary for survival even if the equipment is there? I have no clue what the answer is here...but in the camp I came to the conclusion that whatever great answer it is that were looking for were not going to find it here on earth...I was at an all time low then when thinking this. But then again, upon returning home I had the same thoughts resurface...So go figure...Now about the new man in my life! Yes those "fanatic Muslims" will call me every dirty name in the book for still being married, yet getting involved! But oh well... After all this is my life and I make the decisions that I am forced to live with...I wrote a quote for my yahoo profile and this pretty much sums it up: "While Terrorism is a war that starts developing within the mind, religion is a war that antagonizes our conscience, but love is a war within the heart!

And now that I have dealt with the first two subjects i.e. terrorism and religion my heart was ready to deal with love once more...Oh it didn't happen overnight, but in April of 2002! I met the most wonderful man who was so supportive of all my fears and misgivings involving relationships. His name is Carl and he will forever be in my heart no matter how this life ends up for me. So, see you can suffer greatly but still find a little happiness in the end! For all those that suffered on 9-11 I say GOD BLESS YOU AND MAY ALL OF US LIVE IN PEACE IF NOT NOW SOMETIME SOON>>>WHEREVER THAT MAY BE!

Thank you for reading the book...

Lori Forouzandeh

Part One
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