IT was love at first sight –the moment they first laid eyes on each other in the Jerry Springer party, they already knew.
Andi Parhamovich was still working with Air America at that time while Michael Hasting, a journalist from Newsweek was bound to go to Iraq in a few months time to cover the war. Soon, they’ll be thousands of miles away but before that, they’ll both agree to take a leap of faith and try to make things between them work.
Every night, every dinner, was a day closer to the day I was leaving.
She’s mad that he is leaving. She doesn’t want to talk to him. But at the same time, she also want to make the best of their remaining time together. Mixed feelings. I’ve been there –like the hundreds and thousands of others who are also caught in the bittersweet thing we call long-distance relationship. When A left for Libya, I was really frustrated. Hindi pa nga tayo nakaka-recover sa nangyari nung summer, ito at iiwan mo nanaman ako mag-isa. But of course, I can’t stay mad at him, his doing it for our future and I would want to make every minute of our time left worthwhile.
And it wasn’t just the distance that I was worried about –it was his safety. It may not be Baghdad in the middle of the war but it was post-war Libya –less than a year after Gaddafi’s death. The country was still in turmoil, divided into pro and anti-Gaddafi. Firefights between the militias and the former government were still rampant.
Eventually, the long distance, the worries and the little fights took its toll and Andi decided to follow him. She resigned from her job and joined the International Republican Institute (IRI) then later, the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
Dear Angels dear God dear universe
Please let me get this NDI job.
The NDI job will work out fine.
I am protected by light and love.
Now, Andi didn’t do this solely for MH. She was young, idealistic and passionate. She had the genuine desire to bring about change and make the world a better place to live in. The world is her oyster; she had so much promise in her. When they said, she followed her heart to Baghdad they weren’t only talking about her fiancé but also her passion.
17 January 2007. After meeting with the leaders of the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) –the persons whom she would be working with to help make media and public affairs more accessible to Iraq, all hell broke loose. Her three car convoy (she was in the second car) was ambushed. There were speculations that this was a set up. After all, the ambush took place just outside the IIPs headquarters –the guards didn’t do anything about the attack happening just a few steps from their doorstep.
Intelligence said that the insurgent group responsible were Islamic jihadist with ties to Al Qaeda. They were known for torturing, kidnapping, raping and then eventually beheading Iraqi women. Their initial plan was to kidnap the blond American girl with blue eyes.
After pounding the cars with bullets, they tried opening the door to get Andi but they couldn’t. Instead, they rolled a grenade under the car to blow it open. The gas tank caught fire from the grenade explosion and in a matter of minutes, the car was engulfed in flames. Twenty minutes later, NDI security then later a US Patrol came to respond but it was too late for Andi and her Hungarian bodyguard who tried to cover her body from the bullets and the fire.
There is no body. She is not what you think. What is left is not recognizable as a man or a woman. It is ugly. It is not her.
It is sad to think what a human being can do to another human being. It is sadder to think that the persons who did this were the same ones Andi hoped to help when she went to Iraq. I remember back in college, at the time that I already knew that I wanted to be a doctor, I was considering taking forensic pathology as my specialization. I went to the library and borrowed a book on forensics. As I browsed the pages, I become disgusted –not at the appearance of blood nor rotting flesh but at the things people can do to others. Thousands of people wanted to become doctors, sacrifice years of studying, endure long hours of work just so they could help prolong and improve the quality of life of others. And here are people, doing exactly the opposite. Years of hardwork, down the drain with just a strike of a knife or a quick trigger of a gun. It takes so long to build a life, a relationship, a career and it just take a second to finish all that. Sigh. Well, after all, were just bags of flesh.
