What My Father And Panama Taught Me About War

I've never shared this story publicly. I've talked around it and referenced facets of it, but the whole truth and nothing but the truth has been difficult for me to put down into words for all the world to see. But, it's time.

In 1989 my father was stationed on a small, US military base in Panama. The two years we lived there were mostly idyllic. I remember waking up to Kudamundi (or coatímundí, depending on where you are and who you ask) rifling through our trash cans and roving around the neighborhood in small gangs. I remember wild macaws in the trees, chattering at us as we played underneath them. I remember the closest village and the days we'd spend at the street market, drinking from fresh coconuts and shopping for handwoven blankets and handmade beaded jewelry created by the indigenous people of Panama.

For two years of my childhood I lived in paradise.

I couldn't have known our presence in that small country was a symptom of American aggression. I was only a child, about to get caught up in a war that, to this day, few people speak about. And I need to speak about it now.

It never seemed strange to me to see people in military uniforms, holding guns in public. When it's part of your every day life, you get used to it. So, when two men with weapons approached us on an empty road off base, my child mind thought nothing of it.

I remember sitting in the backseat of my dad's old yellow sedan. We were going into the village to pick up a few things, just he and I. It was afternoon. He was still in uniform as he'd just gotten off work. I was in shorts and a tee-shirt. It was fall, but it was warm.

I remember seeing two men in Panamanian military uniforms walking down the middle of the small road as we made our way to town. They both held semi-automatic rifles in their hands. To me, this was all very normal. But, I could sense my father's discomfort. He told me to roll the back window up. So I did.

As we got closer one of the armed men raised his hand, indicating he wanted us to stop our vehicle. Reluctantly, my father complied. They were armed. He was as well, but they didn't have a child with them. And he did.

He instructed me to stay very still and not speak. I was confused but, my father was a very commanding man. I feared him. And I could feel his fear. I listened and did as I was told.

One man, no more than 20 years old, approached the drivers side, and with false bravado, he demanded, "papers!" My father spoke in broken Spanish to the young man. "Si, papeles?" "Si! Si!" The young man raised his voice and thrusted his hand towards the small opening in the driver's side window. "Identificación!"

My father retrieved his wallet and his military identification from it. As he slid it out the window to the young man speaking to him, the other one circled the car, inspecting it. He finally made his way around to my side and then squealed with delight upon spotting me.

"Hello, baby!" He spoke through the window. He smiled. Earnestly. In one hand he held onto his gun and in the other he waved at me. I smiled back, then caught my father's eyes in the rear view mirror. He was afraid.

My father's identification was turned over and over again in the hands of the other young man. My father suspected he did not read English and wasn't really sure what he was going to do with it, but he looked it over regardless. He spoke across the top of the sedan to his partner, now making silly faces at me through the window. I giggled. He laughed too.

I don't know what they said, but whatever it is scared my father enough that he began putting his experience in public relations to work. And here is when he taught me a lesson about war that I've taken with me these 30+ years since.

In as much Spanish as he could put together, he made his case. "Los jefes, uh, no somos nosotros, uh, it's los jefes, si?" The young man at my window stood up and peered over the roof of the car at his partner. He tapped my father's identification in his hand. "Si...", he listened.

"Uh, si. Los jefes, uh, dinos qué hacer. But we, uh, hacer nuestro trabajo? Uh, tener familias." He motioned towards me in the back seat. "Si, familias." The young man at my window looked down at me with softness. He wore a small gold wedding ring.

My father continued. "Los jefes, uh, they make us, uh, dar ordenes. Si? But we're just, um, juguetes?" The young man he was speaking to considered this statement. "...toys? Si, erm, play with us." Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed. My father laughed too. And the tension broke.

"Los jefes!" The young man with my father's ID shouted to the man still talking to me through the window. "Si, los jefes." He sighed, throwing up his hands, as if to say, "whaddya do?" And in that moment the three men crossed a language and cultural barrier and found common ground: it wasn't them. It was the bosses. It was always the bosses making them do the things they did.

The young man gave my father his ID. Both men backed away from the car and then waved us on. I watched the smiling man who I am convinced was also a father, waving goodbye to me. "Goodbye, baby!" He yelled. I smiled and waved back.

Two months later on December 20th, 1989 the United States launched Operation Just Cause or The Panama Invasion. I awoke to the sounds of gunshots breaking windows and hitting the side of our houses. Pop! Pop pop pop!

My mother pulled my siblings and I from our beds, demanding we crawl behind her into the hallway. There were two other mothers with their children in our home. It was night. Mattresses were pulled off the beds, and bedroom furniture was stacked in front of windows. 6 children huddled together under a fort of pillows and mattresses propped up against a load bearing wall. I remember how hot it was under there. We couldn't breathe.

Our mothers hushed us, told us to sleep, but all night all I could hear was the POP! POP POP! of Noriega's forces surrounding the base, firing into our houses from the jungle. There was a candle in the dining room, barely visible from the hallway. Our mothers sat around it sharing what little information they had. One woman became hysterical. My mother commanded her to pull herself together. "That's not going to solve anything. Stop it. You're not helping."

I must have slept. I don't remember. The night bled into morning somehow because the next thing I remember is my mother picking me up and carrying me quickly to the front door of our home. It was still dark but a soft glow of sunrise was just over the horizon. An American soldier took me from her arms, placed a helmet on my head that was so heavy it pressed down into my small collarbone and hurt so badly I cried. I tried to move it. "BE STILL AND BE QUIET." My mother hissed, throwing a small blanket over my body.

The solider carried me down the stairs from our home to what I believe was a bus. He laid me down on the hard, metal floor of it next to my older sister. She pulled me in close. He never spoke to me as he did this. Just turned around and went back out.

I remember my mother carrying my brother into the bus. She laid down on a small bench seat, and set him down with my sister and I. He was just a toddler and fussing. "Keep your brother quiet." She instructed. We did as we were told. "It's okay." We whispered. "Shh, shh, it's okay."

Over the next 24 hours we were effectively smuggled out of the country and back home to the US. A local ABC affiliate came out to profile our "harrowing escape from Panama." I remember watching the news reel footage of my mother in her mid-30's, exhausted, traumatized, and having no idea where her husband was, sharing with our small rural community what was happening in Panama. It would be months before I saw my father again.

Anywhere from 200 to 3,000 Panamanian civilians died during the fall of Noriega. (The US says it was just 200. Other sources credibly argue that it was closer to 3,000.) "Los jefes" or "the bosses" in Panama and the US didn't seem too bothered by what they were doing to that small, tropical country of beautiful people. That warm, lush, green place where kudamundi and macaws roamed free and fresh coconut milk tasted like heaven.

I wonder about the man who cut open our coconuts on market days. Was he one of the 3,000? I think about the two men on the road just doing their job. Did they survive los jefes? Did their families? Their children? I spent Christmas 1989 crying for my father. I wonder if their children did the same.

In times of war I remember my father's words. It's the bosses. It's always the bosses. It wasn't those two men who plunged that beautiful country into war and chaos. It was los jefes. It wasn't my father who sought out this conflict. It was los jefes.

I will never be able to forget those early memories of guns and weeping women and scared children and missing fathers. I haven't spoken about this publicly before because I'm still working through it in therapy. The impact of war on children is devastating. I look at wars happening around us and my mind thinks of all the little children, numbed by conflict, traumatized by violence, and more than ever I hate los jefes.

The people of Panama were just toys. Things to play with and then discard, while the bosses were sitting in their Ivory towers, safe and secure, and getting richer and richer.

I will never return to Panama, even though it is such a beautiful country full of beautiful people. It was paradise. And it was shattered by the bosses. And we don't even talk about it over here. We don't acknowledge what we did and the part we played.

But, my father did.

And now I have.

And I beg you to remember that it's los jefes. It is always because of los jefes. When you see war, remember why it's happening.

We are juguetes. Nothing more to the bosses. Nothing more. And there is something deeply wrong with that.