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Show 7V censors kissy homecomings ; Saudi lifestyle ref yrnsng offer war boom! Then we thought the Patriot (missile) went out and intercepted. "That was about 9:15 p.m. I was going home and I saw a lot of police cars and ambulances going up this street where we were." Cespedez made his way around checkpoints and found that the missile had impacted about one mile and half away from the home he had been visiting. "So I went and just looked. I managed to get within about 300 yards of the place," where he watched wat-ched rescue crews pulling the dead and wounded from the smoking wreckage of the building. SEE SAUDI ON A-2 " By CARRICK LEAVITT Managing Editor ; BOUNTIFUL Black, sooty smoke from some 600 burning oil wells in Kuwait turns day into night 400 miles downwind, says a Bountiful Boun-tiful man living in the Saudi Arabian Ara-bian coastal town of Ad Damrnam. Alberto Cespedez, 40, a computer com-puter programmer for Riyadh Bank, has watched the war with Iraq with a gas mask in one hand and a ready cheer for the overwhelming victory U.S. troops engineered in Operation Desert Storm. The worst moment, Cespedez said in a weekend telephone interview inter-view from Saudi Arabia, came when a single Scud missile slammed slamm-ed into a reservists barracks near Dhahran, killing 28 U.S. ser-vicewomen ser-vicewomen and men. He was less than two miles away, at a friend's house, and heard the missile explode, Cespedez said. The Feb. 25 attack, the single most deadly incident in the war, was a sobering moment. "We were having a family home evening," Cespedez said. "Toward the end we heard the (air raid) sirens coming on. It was the usual siren that we heard for the past week, then we heard the boom, Saudi CONTINUED FROM A-l "I went home," Cespedez said. "I just went to bed and I could not sleep all night. I went back the next morning with my friend and looked at the area and sure enough the building was totally devastated." Now the war with Iraq is over, much to the relief of the wife and daughters of Cespedez. Karen Cespedez and her daughters, Alyson, 11, and Nivia, 8, gather around the telephone in the family kitchen of their Bountiful home at 8:30 a.m. Saturday for their weekly telephone call to "daddy." As the telephone rings halfway around the world, it is early evening in Saudi Arabia, where Alberto waits to hear from his family. Alyson wants information about Saudi Arabia and a native dress for a school report. Alberto wants up-to-date pictures from his daughters. Eight-year-old Nivias promises to send a personal letter, written all by herself. Karen Cespedez pledges a big plate of spaghetti when Alberto comes home on vacation in June. He can't get a decent plate of of the stuff in Saudi Arabia. Now that the troops are coming home, Alberto says, a quirk in the highly moral Saudi society is showing show-ing up on television. "When you turn to CNN," he said, "when they show the troops coming home to America, when they show that in Saudi Arabia, they cut the part when they kiss the woman." Men and women don't touch in public in Saudi society and that includes soldiers on TV embracing em-bracing their sweethearts as they arrive ar-rive back in the U.S., Cespedez said. Now that the war has ended, stores and shops are reopening in Saudi Arabia and traffic is increasing. increas-ing. In fact, Cespedez said, the war has become a tourist attraction in the unique Arab world. "I can see cars and vehicles from other countries such as Qatar and Bahrain," he said. "They come to see where the Scuds landed. ' Last Friday my friend and I went to Jebel and we were able to see the (military) equipment being transported to the port, one of the largest on the eastern coastline. We were able to see through the fence. "That's the first time I was able to see where our taxes go, and I appreciate ap-preciate paying taxes because it's doing a good cause, it's serving for a purpose," Cespedez said. "I told my friend, I don't mind paying my taxes when something good happens out of the money you pay. It's been a very satisfying time we had. I am satisfied my taxes are reasonable to support the cause, the right cause. I hope you can feel the same way. It's different when you can see what's happening." |