Life for me as I had come to understand it ended on 15 November 1977. Standing next to a group of young elementary school children from one of Washington DC’s inner-city schools on the Ellipse facing the South Lawn of the White House, I was one of a thousand greeting the visit of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and his Queen to the United States. The children were waving the US flag and I, a university student, the lion and sun flag of Iran. Within seconds of the 21-gun salute sounding, hundreds of white-hooded and masked protestors viciously charged into us with brandishing sticks with nails that used to hold their placards and shouting “Khomeini come back” and “Down with Imperialism”.
