War on terror moved my family to a Muslim country. It was an adventure of a lifetime.
On Sept. 11, 2001, my husband was working at the U.S. Treasury Department when he noticed people running out of the White House next door. He called home to tell me to turn the TV on – just in time to see the second World Trade Center tower crumble.
With thousands of other stunned workers, Bob fled Washington, D.C., on foot. He updated me along the way by cellphone, which not everybody had yet and the only reason we rented one then was because our third child was due soon.
At the time, my USA TODAY high-rise office was just a couple of miles down the street from the Pentagon, into which bombers crashed a jet at about 9:30 a.m. But that evening, after hearing from my boss that it was all clear, I drove in to work on the copy desk.
It wouldn't be the only time I headed toward a perceived dangerous place after that fateful day.
Suicide bombers attack most populous Muslim country
On Oct. 12, 2002, suicide bombers from an al-Qaida-linked group hit two beach nightclubs on Indonesia's island of Bali. The attack was Asia's deadliest terror strike then, killing 202 people – including 88 Australians and seven Americans – and injuring more than 240. It was the first of a wave of violence that would hit the most populous Muslim-majority nation.
On Aug. 5, 2003, another suicide bomber killed a dozen people at a Marriott hotel in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.
By then, Bob was working as a counterterrorism analyst and our family was preparing to move to Jakarta, not only with our three young kids but also my mom and Bob's parents. The Marriott bombing didn't change our minds.
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The grandparents weren't even on our travel orders from the State Department. But Bob's parents didn't want to be separated from their first grandkids, and my mom jumped at the chance to live in Asia again, close to our native Vietnam. They traveled on civilian passports while the rest of us were issued diplomatic passports, even the toddler born weeks after 9/11.
He celebrated his second birthday that September in Jakarta, where the U.S. Embassy assigned us a two-story, marble-floor house. We'd live there for two years.
While Bob settled into his new job at the embassy, our parents and I settled the family into this foreign city: unpacking, registering the kids into international schools, hiring a housekeeper and a driver, and taking Indonesian classes.
Because of the recent terrorist attacks, the entrance to many places – government buildings, foreign embassies, international schools, our grocery store, big hotels – had security officers screening the undersides of cars for bombs. Even at our gated residential compound, home to 10 mostly Indonesian families, uniformed guards manned the entrance. Inside our house, every bedroom had a red button that when pressed would alert the Marines at the U.S. Embassy.
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Back home, family and friends couldn't fathom why we weren't scared to live there. Wasn't Bob's job dangerous? Wouldn't there be another terrorist attack any day now?
Living in fear, then and now
Remembering this, after more than two years of living with COVID-19, it reminds me of how scared our family with three vulnerable grandparents was at the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns. Masks, gloves, virtual classes, working from home, grocery deliveries, social distancing from loved ones – all were weapons we used to fight disease and death while praying for vaccines.
And now, keeping up with vaccine boosters and still not free of masks, we know the best we can do is take precautions. But you have to live your life.
WHO director-general: Pandemic won't end until rich countries stop hoarding vaccines
In Indonesia two decades ago, security steps were intimidating at first, but after a week everything felt routine. We realized that you can't live in fear. With precautions everywhere against possible attacks anywhere, we just focused on enjoying all our host country had to offer.
Indonesia is an archipelago of thousands of islands with gorgeous beaches and mountains. Our family didn't just explore the land, we also made a lot of friends and learned from Indonesian culture and the religion of Islam:
►At the end of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast daily from dawn to sunset, we hosted a breaking-fast dinner for our house staff and their families and were invited to celebrate with our neighbors.
►We – including Bob's parents – became groupies of the rocking Fun Fair band, which covered English-language songs from Guns N' Roses to Shakira.
►In 2004, for the national election, Bob and I took a road trip to central Java to monitor a voting site, witnessing how Indonesians celebrated this national holiday to cast their ballots.
►We took our kids to nearby Vietnam for the first time – Hanoi, my mom's birthplace, and Saigon, where I was born and where my family had fled at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
Yes, another terrorist attack hit before our Indonesia tour was over in 2005.
On Sept. 9, 2004, we were hosting a lunch for my mom's birthday when a car bomb outside the Australian Embassy killed nine people and wounded 150. Our house became a haven for our guests and all their spouses and children evacuated from offices and schools.
Yes, we were all terrified. And we all knew either people who worked at the Australian Embassy or Australians living in Indonesia. Though in mourning, we had each other, and we knew life would go on. Indonesia would go on.
The United States would go on.
Even now. As the war on terror and my third child turn 21, as we enter another anxious COVID fall and winter, as America faces another terrifying election season – my family goes on. We're cautious, but making friends and memories is timeless, and priceless.
More from Thuan Le Elston:
My 9/11 baby begins COVID-19 university. What will his generation show us?
Where I was when a white gunman killed Black Americans in Buffalo
This July 4, I pledge allegiance. It took two wars to make me an American.
Thuan Le Elston, a member of USA TODAY's Editorial Board, is the author of "Rendezvous at the Altar: From Vietnam to Virginia." Follow her on Twitter: @thuanelston
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: War on terror moved my family to a Muslim country. It was priceless.
