Vacation in a war zone

When they left for summer holiday, Bridi family members were looking forward to fun, good food, and reunions with friends and family.

Instead, they got war.

The sound of bombs woke up the family of six the night after they arrived at their mountainside lodgings just outside of Beirut.

For Gerard and Leila Bridi -- both natives of Beirut -- the sudden outbreak of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel was a grim reminder of wars that have torn Lebanon apart for decades.

``I've been living with Middle East war since I was born," said Leila Bridi. 49. ``For me, it brought back all the bad moments."

And for 10 days, the family had no idea when and if they would return to their house on a quiet Waban street where they have lived for nine years.

Gerard Bridi, 51, who works in the transit benefits field, and his family have made it a tradition to travel to Lebanon every two years. This time they stayed with Gerard's brother near the village of Beit Mery.

Leila was expecting to see her mother, who still lives in Beirut, and to explore the countryside and sample new restaurants. Sacha, 17, and her 15-year-old sister, Maia, were looking forward to the beach and visiting friends. The 11-year-old twins, Georges and Paul, were planning to ride go-karts with their cousins.

When the fighting started, the Bridis were high enough above the city to be safe, but the terrifying boom and thud sounded relentlessly day after day and night after night. They had a clear view of fire, smoke, and havoc below.

For the Bridi children, born in France and the United States, it was all new.

``You feel so vulnerable," said Sacha.

``At the beginning with the bombs we were kind of scared, but we got used to it," said Paul.

The family stayed inside all day, telephoning frantically to the French and American embassies to find passage out of the country.

That gave them plenty of time to watch the same TV footage of death and destruction seen by their neighbors back in the United States.

The scenes reminded Leila Bridi of her girlhood, when Lebanon was racked by civil war.

While her home was left undamaged in the earlier conflicts, Leila Bridi said, bombs landed nearby.

``The sound is scary," she said. ``When you hear things, you always wonder, is it going to hit me or not?"

She did lose two male friends who were kidnapped during clashes between Christians and Muslims.

``We never knew what happened to them," she said. ``They just disappeared."

At 19, Leila Bridi moved to France but returned to work for a Lebanese magazine. She was living in Beirut in 1983 when a truck carrying 2,000 pounds of TNT slammed into a US Marines barracks and killed 241.

Her office was next door to the American hospital. She saw the cars driving the dead to the morgue.

This year's visit not only brought back the nightmarish past but also provided its own nightmarish exodus.

Neither the French nor American embassy could provide information about whether and when the Bridis could get out. They were put on lists and told they would be called when passage was secured. The calls never came.

Meanwhile, the TV news showed escalating civilian casualties and the Israelis moving northward.

Finally the Bridis were advised by a friend to just show up at a small port where Americans were rumored to be evacuating US citizens.

They weren't the only ones who had heard the rumor. They arrived at 9 a.m. on July 21 only to be stuck in a huge, anxious crowd. When it was announced that families with babies would have priority, infants and children in strollers were passed by hand over the throng to the front.

After waiting more than 14 hours, the Bridis were shuttled to a ferry that took them to Cyprus, where they slept overnight on cots in a warehouse. The next day they sat 10 hours in a bus at the airport until they could board a flight to Baltimore.

In all, it took three days before they arrived at Logan.

Now back home, they think about those they left behind in the war zone.

``I feel like it's scarier now than it was before, not being there with them," said 15-year-old Maia, who will be a sophomore at Newton South High School. ``You don't really know what's going on."

Sacha, who graduated from Newton South High School and plans to start McGill University in Canada in the fall, said the fighting has unraveled all the progress she had seen on previous trips.

``Every time we go there, it's been more and more reconstructed since the war our parents lived through," she said. ``And it just got to be more beautiful every time we go. And now it's getting destroyed again."

``Violence is never the answer," said Georges, who, like his twin brother, attends Oak Hill Middle School.

Leila Bridi faulted the politicians in the Middle East for casting the war as a religious conflict and shirking their own responsibility.

Bridi, who is Orthodox Christian, said she went to school as a girl with Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and they all got along.

She takes no sides between Hezbollah and Israel, placing blame on all the players in the Middle East and on the United States. ``I'm really disgusted," she said.

With tears in her eyes, she described her countrymen as having been eager to rebuild after past wars. This time, she said, she was not sure what would happen. ``It's going to be tough."

Her husband said that the family's experience has reinforced his conviction that ``it is unacceptable" that no permanent cease-fire has been reached in the Middle East.

``Killing people, whether they are on the left or the right, is the same," he said. ``In the end, who's paying for it? It's the poor people who are paying for it."

Connie Paige can be reached at cpaige@globe.com.