UC Sophomore Home Safe After Military Evacuation from Beirut

Growing up in the military town of Newport News, Va., UC sophomore Robb Hunter constantly saw Navy ships at close range. But he never took a ride on one.

That all changed in the last week, and all he had to do to make it happen was travel half a world away.

Hunter was among the American citizens needing military rescue from the Mideast conflict zone in Lebanon. After nine days of witnessing the conflict up close, Hunter and his mother and sister were safely rescued from Beirut by the U.S. Marines on July 21 to start a 55-hour odyssey in returning to the United States.

"It is truly sad that this is happening again," said Hunter, who plans to return to Cincinnati in the coming days to begin preparations for his sophomore year in UC’s top-ranked Industrial Design program. "It is a beautiful country, and the people were so welcoming and open."

Hunter’s maternal grandparents are Lebanese natives. This was the first visit Hunter had made to the country; ironically, it was only in the last year that the family thought it was safe enough to make a visit, after Lebanon had endured years of upheaval from civil war.

Hunter and his family arrived in Lebanon on July 8.

After several days of touring the country and meeting extended family, conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah terrorist group erupted, leading to airborne attacks in northern Israel and all across the small nation of Lebanon.

"First we heard that they were bombing the (Beirut) airport, and we looked out our hotel windows and sure enough, we could see the smoke rising. But there was a lot of optimism then that this would blow over in a day or two," Hunter said. "But on the second or third day, when they bombed the airport for a second time, we began to think we might not be getting out of there like we planned."

With many of his relatives living in the north – away from the Israeli border – Hunter and his family tried to continue with their planned activities.

But one close call put an end to that.

After traveling to a summer house on the coast north of Beirut with his cousins, Hunter watched from a safe distance as Beirut was pounded by bombing runs one night. The next day, he and his cousins were playing in a soccer game when the sound of explosions suddenly became much closer.

"We all ran to the seawall, and you could see about a mile away over the water, which was like a lagoon, there were two Israeli helicopters firing rockets, and then anti-aircraft fire being returned," Hunter said. "The sound of the explosions makes your heart stop. Everyone was running, they cleared the swimming pool, and all the parents were running around getting their kids and heading for shelter in a parking garage."

From that point forward, Hunter and his family stayed near their hotel in Beirut. Instructions from the State Department on how Americans could proceed to leave the country were very difficult to get, leading to a sense of isolation, he said.

"The overall emotion was kind of similar to 9/11. Then you had an immediate panic and the not knowing what was going on and what could happen," Hunter said. "But with this, you would hear a jet fly overhead and feel a sonic boom that would shake the house, and then anti-aircraft fire, and then explosions. Things were that intense."

After his mother, who has her own dental practice in Newport News, made several trips to the U.S. Embassy and his father back in Virginia constantly worked the phones looking for information from the State Department, Hunter and his family finally unraveled the process for getting out.

"One day Mom spent a good seven hours at the embassy. The Swedish had gotten out, the French and British were out, and it was getting to be frustrating," Hunter said. "It wasn’t until last Wednesday that Dad got through to the State Department and was told there was no list (for evacuation), that it was first-come, first-served. They told us to get to the port, and that’s where everyone was meeting."

Hunter and his family arrived at 4:30 a.m. last Friday. There were already several hundred Americans there, and more who were arriving who had vouchers from the previous day that restored their place at the head of the list to leave. Finally, after spending all day on the waterfront, the Hunters were aboard the Navy’s amphibious transport ship the U.S.S. Trenton. The vessel, with a capacity of 1,300, was carrying more than 2,000 passengers across the Mediterranean Sea to the island of Cyprus.

"We really did feel like refugees," said Hunter. Civilians were everywhere on the Trenton, and the sailors did their best to keep them comfortable.

Once arriving on Cyprus, Hunter and his family endured only a four-hour stay before flying to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and then back to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, arriving at 2 a.m. on Sunday, July 23, to be reunited with their father.

"My mom was amazing," Hunter said. "She had a focused energy. She was going to do what it took to get us out of Lebanon. Without that, I think we might still be there."

Hunter’s thoughts remain with those in his extended family whom he had just gotten to know, and who remain in the path of the conflict.

"There are so many people over there with no way out," he said. "We have family over there who are American citizens, and they are elderly, they lived through the civil war, and they’re sticking it out. They have bomb shelters in their homes. It is terrible that the Lebanese people are caught in the middle of this again."