My orientation program at school included a series of fistfights, some of them formally scheduled… I don’t know what my parents thought. Cuts and bruises, even black eyes, could be explained. Football, surfing, something. My hunch, which seems right in retrospect, was that they couldn’t help, so I told them nothing. William Finnegan, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life On the first day of 8th grade the Double Shirt Crew almost kicked my ass. We had been playing soccer and I had scored the winning goal for my team. I was elated. This was really going to help me fit in. After the game ended, I began walking from the upper field towards the quad. I was alone – I didn’t know anyone by name and did not have any friends. It was late afternoon, a few minutes before recess. There was no one in the quad. As I arrived at my locker and began to open it, someone shoved me hard from behind. I slammed into my locker. I turned around – more scared and …

This is one of my earliest memories: I’m looking at the body of a dead soldier by the side of the road. The soldier is lying with his back to me near a burned tank. This was in Ethiopia in the late 80’s, during the civil war. I was 7 or 8. My father worked at the Israeli embassy in Addis Ababa, and we “lived” in the city. I use scare quotes because when, every number of months, the rebels got close to the city, we would be evacuated to Israel. Then, when Mengistu’s army would push the rebels north, we would fly back. Until one day the rebels took the city. We returned to a liberated Ethiopia. I think the time I saw the soldier was the only time my family left the city during the war. At least I don’t remember other trips. So we spent our time In Addis. We lived in a large villa in a good part of time. A good part of time in Addis in the late 80’s …