Blairstown Marine evacuated from Syrian embassy

CEDAR RAPIDS - As a group of U.S. Marines gathered around the flag pole above the U.S. Syrian Embassy earlier this week to lower the American flag for the last time, Sgt. Stephen Rivera stood a few feet away snapping photos.

For the Eastern Iowa native, the mood surrounding Monday's closing of the embassy was “incredibly bittersweet.”

“There's a bond that's formed under stressful times with small groups of people working towards a common goal,” Rivera said in an email sent from Jordan, where he's in-between assignments.

Until Monday's evacuation, the 29-year-old Blairstown native had worked as a Marine security guard at the embassy in Damascus since December 2010. It was a position from which he said he saw the country start to change.

When he arrived, Rivera said he expected to find more of the same “dangerous” atmosphere he experienced in Iraq in 2005 and 2007. Instead, he relished the “bustling” streets, historical feel, and authentic castles of Damascus.

“All in all, I had a good time, experienced a lot of things that most people only read about, and saw much of the city,” he said.

But last April, Rivera said things started to change.

First, he heard about protests and government crackdowns in nearby cities. Soon after, demonstrations in support of President Bashar Assad reached Damascus. It wasn't long before anti-American protesters frequently surged at the doors of the American embassy.

On July 10, Rivera stood post as protesters pelted the embassy with eggs, shoes, and tomatoes. The next day, the anti-American crowd broke through the police barrier and began scaling the embassy's walls, attempting to get in.

“I was surprised by how quickly it happened and the violence of the crowd,” Rivera said.

Marines and local police were able to push the crowd back, but the compound's street entrance was damaged.

“That moment was a game changer for a lot of us,” he said.

Going into the fall, Rivera said tourists vanished from the once-bustling streets, and were replaced with an increased police presence. He said he heard news of brutal government crackdowns on protests in cities like Homs, and in December, it came to Damascus.

Rivera recalled hearing about a car-bomb attack on a Syrian government building in Damascus that killed and wounded dozens. Two weeks later, a suicide bomber attacked a police station in a nearby neighborhood. After that, the violence escalated and spread to the suburbs.

Back in Blairstown, Rivera's father, Aaron, said it wasn't easy for him and his wife to hear about the situation in Syria.

“We were of course nervous, but at the same time, we prayed and trusted in God to take care of him and the people who were over there in that situation,” Aaron Rivera said.

Rivera saw little of the violence and brutality in Damascus first-hand, which he said was no coincidence.

“I never observed any measurable violence against the people of Damascus by their government...If there's a protest, Americans and everybody else avoids the area,” he said.

Rivera recalled watching uncensored violent images on Syrian state TV stations, as they streamed looping coverage of the car-bomb carnage for weeks. The TV stations - like Assad - characterized the attackers as terrorist groups.

The closest Rivera got to the brutal crackdowns was when he took “frantic phone calls” from people trapped in the violence of Homs and Hama. It was Rivera's job to put the callers in touch with embassy staff who could help.

“For the past four months or so, I've had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that I would characterize as low-grade tension/general unease,” Rivera said. “Because for the most part, out in Damascus, things still progressed as usual, so there's the temptation to ignore the increased threat.”

Finally, on Monday, officials decided to suspend the U.S. embassy's operations in Damascus and evacuate personnel.

For several months before the closing, Rivera said he watched the locally employed embassy staff “make their way to work under increasingly difficult conditions” like road blocks, checkpoints, and suburb attacks.

The day before the embassy closed, Rivera said one of those employees sent an email to several Americans at the embassy “expressing heartfelt sorrow” that they hadn't experienced “the real Syria.”

“I believe he's right,” Rivera said. “I believe Syria is in for some big changes.”

Despite the violent uprisings and subsequent evacuation, Rivera described most Syrians as just normal people working to make their lives better.

“There's a lot of citizens standing up to their government, fearing for their lives, their safety, and the safety of their families in a region that's incredibly volatile,” he said. “Freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom to petition their government...these are all freedoms that Americans appreciate, but take for granted.”

Rivera is now out of Syria, in a hotel in Jordan awaiting his next assignment. Soon, he'll have a chance to visit his Vietnamese fiancé, Ninh Thi Bui.

But if he could tell fellow Iowans one thing about his experience, Rivera said, it would be to keep an open mind as the situation continues to progress.

“I would urge Iowans not to judge Syria by the current Syrian government or by what they see in the news, but by the courage of the people who are standing up to make a better life for themselves and their country,” Rivera said. “Those men and women are the real Syria.”