Americans Struggle to Evacuate the Middle East a Week After Strikes

“It was a three-hour layover, and it just became a seven-day lockdown. I’m always quick to be like, OK, let me get on that list. Let me get on that thing. And they’ve just said that they’re working on getting everybody out. So this is the confusing part, is like, OK, are they doing everything they can to get us out? Because they’ll also say get out now.” “I expected a more comprehensive plan. And we registered from STEP. We’ve contacted our embassy. We’ve done every single thing that we should do. The woman I spoke to, she asked me where we were. I said ‘Oman,’ and she asked me to spell it for her. I never thought I would have to spell Oman to a member of our State Department.” “State Department, not very helpful at all. Every alert that they gave and all advice that they gave was like a day at least too late.” “I feel like it was a stressful situation, just not knowing when we can come back. But we were able to get back, and now we feel really good to be back home. Even in the rain and the snow, it feels good to be back.”