***Humor in Hostage Trauma

Written By: Lew Hamburger

It was Cherry Blossom time in Washington. I was on the phone in my office a few blocks from the White House when a secretary came bursting through doorway.

“Lew, the painters are fighting in the hall. Do something.”

I’m about 5’4’ and weigh about 145. “Do something?” What I did was take one look at men in the hallway carrying not paintbrushes and buckets, but machine guns and machetes, grab her, and run to a closet. One of the terrorists took exception to our hiding in a closet (NOT our usual Wednesday activity) and threatened to “shoot the place up” if we didn’t come out. Hours later, after we were marshaled to the top floor, a huge vacant cement space under renovation, getting the 70-100 of us to the bathroom became a challenge. Men were bound hand and foot with arms behind the back. Women, just hands. The genders lined up along the wall on opposite sides of the room. When it was my turn to go to the bathroom, my feet were released and one of the terrorist dragged me to his chair in the middle of the room. He had trouble getting at my bonds.

“What idiot tied these things?”

The thug who flushed us from the closet was the other guard in the room. “I did and I’d have killed the M—F’er if Allah would let me,” whereupon he lifted his M-16 and released the safety.

“Put that thing down,” said my guard. “There’s plenty of time for killin’.”

“Well, OK, but when the time comes, he’s the first to die,” said the thug.

My guard turned to me and said, “Do you still want to go to the bathroom?”

“I think I just did,” I said.

“Then get back to the wall.”

As I sat down my best friend and colleague of a dozen years, whispered in my direction, “What are you coming back here for? How do we know how good a shot that guy is?”

The next day, the terrorists allowed us to be beneficiaries of coffee and donuts from the Hilton Hotel. They decided, however, it was too dangerous to untie the men, granting us more strength and cunning than any of us possessed. So they left us with hands bound behind out backs and had the women feed us. A few weeks earlier we had hired Nancy, a tall, young, pretty, bright and somewhat sassy secretary who we had known at graduate school in Baltimore. Now she knelt before me, coffee in one hand and doughnut in the other. When I pointed out that “there was a part of the job I left out” she promptly stuffed the donut in my mouth followed immediately by a swig of coffee, part of which gagged me and the rest ran down my shirt. Her smile lit up the room.

From an early age my folks showed me that the Hamburger name presented a choice: be angry at the stupid jokes and teasing, at people, at events, or find the humor in the mess! Humor does change perspective, and doesn’t it make sense that if it can provide support and change the way we act when terrified, it can help throughout life’s little jokes?

Leave a message for Dr. Lew below or email him at lhamburger@boomer-living.com

Tags: humor, stressful times, support