The torment that many went through during the Gulf War is still felt to this day by many people. And now we have to live with the Iraq that has come out of Saddam’s ashes, I for one was very happy that they took Saddam out but I knew that Iraq would always remain an issue because of their severe instability and internal issues. Kuwait suffered greatly from Iraq and to this day they do not want to pay the financial damages which Kuwait incurred, and that isn’t even close to the damage suffered by the Kuwaiti people. Kuwait hasn’t been the same since then, it did change and we persevered during that time. I won’t forget seeing CNN with the map of Kuwait and Iraqi invasion written on the screen, I didn’t understand what was going on but I thought it would be solved right away, I thought to myself why would Iraq invade Kuwait. And these days I wonder about the younger people who were born during or after the Gulf War who don’t have a sense of it, even though we were young I remember it vividly as it brought our families together and our parents tried to make it as normal as possible for us even though we knew it wasn’t. They took us to every rally, every protest, and I was so proud to Kuwaiti and so many people wanted to help us, I still have the pins from the marches in my drawers. I remember we loved that the British and US Armies went in and so many countries supported it us, I was shocked so many Arab countries supported Sadam, I found out the meaning of hate at a very young age.

Then when Kuwait was liberated I was so happy but they said that we couldn’t go home just yet, I missed Kuwait a lot. And then when we got back it was all black, it was dark, it was daytime but the sun was blacked out. Then I learned what the meaning of scorched, because Sadam’s last order was called Operation Scorched Earth, they set fire to every oil well as they exited Kuwait destroying as much as they can as they left. I remember going to school wearing a mask for almost a year and it was strange looking up to a dark sky. We were so happy every time they put one out and so many braved people from so many countries risked themselves to put out the fires, it was a painstaking process. But even now 20 years later we see the results of all that pollution and chemical weapons that were left in Kuwait and what damage it has done, now more then ever there are so many cases of Cancer and so many illness popping up at a very high rate in Kuwait it is terrifying. We all loved having our country back and building it back up again, I just hope that people have not forgotten. I for one haven’t.