Samar
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Samar Ajam El-Amin is an Israeli born Arab, currently living in the United States, working for Bornmueller Courier Services, a private company providing high security delivery services to members of the heavy industry in the US. Having worked for BCS for the last six years, Samar has been promoted to regional manager, and has moved to the BCS Detroit branch, being appointed to Millennium City.
Contents
History
Early Years
Samar was born on March 4th, 1980, in Jaffa, Israel, to Mahmoud Abd Al-Yasu, a pastor in a local congregation, and his wife Fatma. Their neighborhood was primarily other Arabs, be it Muslim or Christian, but it was a peaceful one all the same. Samar was the second of four children. Asra, the oldest, older than her by four years; Farah, younger than her by two years; and Rasheed Abd Al-Yasu, the youngest, younger than her by six years.
The six of them lived in a small home, and had a relatively uneventful life. All the kids went to the same school. The mother and father both provided, with help from the grandparents and neighbors.
But this was Israel in the eighties and early nineties. And as it is in the Middle East, peace is anything but sustainable.
The Second Inthifada
When Samar was fourteen, in the midst of her teenage balancing act, news came that their father died, when a suicide bomber detonated on his bus, killing twenty two. The news devastated her faith. Her father, a man of the cloth and an Arab, becoming a casualty to the extremism of other Arabs. She realized that this conflict isn't as directed as she believed. She became reclusive at school, preferring to sit in isolation listening to angry music, than to talk to anyone about her feelings. How would they understand, after all. They all still have their fathers.
It wasn't until a year and a half later, on her sixteenth birthday, that she realized how she had it all wrong.
She was out with her friends in a major mall in Tel Aviv, when suddenly they all heard screams from not far away. Before they had the time to react, a deafening blast knocked them down. The air was dust, and their ears ringing. Another suicide bomber in Tel Aviv. She didn't get to see much of the event that took the life of thirteen people. But the hints of the carnage were obvious enough. Samar decided she had quite enough of it.
A day after it all, she marched right up to the nearest hospital, and demanded they let her volunteer as an EMT.
Magen David Adom
She passed training with flying colors, paying as much attention as she can. At first, they were only called for simpler events. A heart attack. A car accident. A fire. There wasn't much crime in the country. They had enough on their hands. She kept a close eye on the news during these times.
But she needn't wait too long. Just a bit over a year since she signed up for the job, they were called to a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Though, relatively, mild in casualties, the three dead were not a sight to behold. A bombing is never pretty. Body parts all around. Samar spent hours helping the crews to clean the area, collecting blood from the street in sponges and buckets for burial.
But she felt nothing.
It was quiet after that. She took the down time to focus on her studies. A relationship here and there, but it never lasted. She kept volunteering with the EMT after she finished Highs chool. Asra had already been in Nursing school by then, finishing her first degree. The two helped eachother expand their knowledge in the medical field, while finding the time to help Rasheed and Farah go through high school as well.
It wasn't until 2001 that things began to boil.
Over the course of just six months, Samar had been called in again and again to suicide bombings all over. Sixty injured in Netanya. Three dead in Netanya. Two dead in Kfar Saba. One dead, fifty injured in Kfar Saba. Five dead, a hundred injured in Netanya. Eight injured in Netanya. And that was just the end of May.
The Dolphinarium
June 1st, 2001. Farah was finishing the last year of high school. She and her friends went out to a club in Tel Aviv to celebrate. Saeed Hotari, a twenty two year old militant with connections to Hamas, was waiting in line, as well.
Dressed in a disguise to make others mistake him for an orthodox Jew from Asia, he was wandering among the gathering club goers, banging on his drum full of explosives and ball bearings, chanting in Hebrew; "Something's going to happen."
When the club was packed to his liking, at 23:27, he detonated his explosive device.
Twenty two people were killed. Twenty one of them civilians. Seventeen of them were teenagers.
Farah among them.
Devastation. That was what Samar felt as for the second time in her life, she had lost a loved one to a suicide bombing. She knew before her mother that Farah did not make it to the hospital. Farah didn't even get the chance to get medical attention.
There was nothing left to help.
Anger
Ten days have passed. What little they could gather of the eighteen year old girl was given a proper burial. Ten days they mourned. But to mourn longer is something few can afford.
Samar couldn't take it. For five years she has been cleaning the bloody aftermath of the Inthifada. Someone had to bear responsibility. Someone had to be held accountable.
At the age of twenty one, Samar had decided to enlist into the Israeli Defense Force. Not long before, a new brigade allowing women to be combatants had formed, and Samar wanted in. The Arab population was exempt from the otherwise mandatory conscription laws in the country, to avoid any conflicts of interest. But Samar was determined like she was never before. And after demanding again and again, her request to volunteer was answered.
Samar had finished training as a combat medic in the Karakal brigade by December of 2001. She was eager to jump into all duties. Be it the seizure of ships carrying weapons, or Operation Defensive Shield in the West bank. She had participated in the Battle of Jenin and the occupation of Betlehem. She had participated in Operation Rainbow. She was determined to show no mercy to those who have taken from her her father and sister.
And it cost her. To walk in her neighborhood, wearing the uniform of the IDF, made it clear as day where her neighbors stood. She'd more often than not gain the scorning, loathing gaze from members of her community. Even those who had known her personally for years. Even those who had come to offer their condolences when her father died, and when her sister died.
After three years, her anger had subsided. Even if only mildly. She had moved out of her neighborhood, into Tel Aviv proper, to live her life as a civilian.
Aftermath
Life as a civilian proved... Unbearable. Fortunately for Samar, her brother Rasheed had been having difficulty. Showing talent and interest in computers, Rasheed was considering to get a degree in software engineering, but was too afraid to go to university. So Samar went with him.
The two had studied together side by side through all of it, working together to cover the costs, their sister, Asra, by then a nurse, had helped too.
It seemed to be promising, at first.
But this was Israel in the early twenty first century. And as it is in the Middle East, peace is anything but sustainable.
On Monday, April 17th, 2006, Samar had been sitting for lunch with a couple of friends from work. As the group was just finishing their meal, and Samar was enjoying a cup of coffee, a Palestinian suicide bomber approached the crowded fast food restaurant near the old Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, in the southern part of the neighborhood. When the security guard at the entrance asked him to open his bag for inspection, he noticed something was off and shoved the young man. The young man then blew himself up.
The blast killed 11 people and injured more than 70. Two of the victims died on arrival at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. Of the wounded, six were seriously hurt, 12 sustained moderate wounds, while the rest were lightly injured.
Samar was among those six seriously wounded.
Her legs had taken the majority of the shrapnel in the bomber's explosive, as well as severe blast injuries to her torso. Despite the best efforts of the medical staff, there was simply too much shrapnel to take out, and Samar's legs had to be amputated from the pelvis down. Skin grafts were used to help her recover from the burns.
Thanks to the wonders of technology, and as a gratitude for her prior service as a combatant, she received state of the art prosthetic legs, allowing her, after six months of recovery, to walk again. In gratitude to her brother who stayed by her side day and night, the two returned to finish the bachelor's degree together, and went on to get a master's degree in the field.
Though Rasheed had ended up getting a PhD in Software Engineering, Samar had stopped at her Master's, having no interest in working in the field.
Feeling unhappy that she was the only of her siblings to not have a career, as her brother has established himself in the Israeli Air Industries, and her sister a PhD bearing Nurse in Pediatrics, she decided to perhaps look elsewhere for her future.
Golde Medina
She had heard from a friend that had moved to the States a few years prior, that a company in New York is looking to hire ex-military personnel for courier work for the Heavy Industry sector. Having spoken with some other employees of the company, Samar had boarded a plane to the US on February 1st, 2010.
Working for BCS was an interesting experience. Moving from Israel, a nation with enough trouble of it's own without needing metahumans, to New York, the city with the most metahumans in the world. After some training to grow accustomed to the new equipment, Samar got an opportunity to drive and see the country, delivering equipment and documents for heavy industry giants. Her woes from home grew faded, as now her greatest concerns were potential threats to her shipments. When she wasn't working, she took the motorcycle the company provided her for a ride around the state.
Moving to the States had been the best decision she has made thus far.
After six years in the company, Samar had been assigned to a new branch opening in Detroit, extending the company's vast network of vehicle fleets and equipment vaults, to improve the deliveries and to minimize risk, and as of July 2016, Samar is the Senior Delivery Officer of the Bornmueller Courier Services Michigan Branch, living in a comfortable home in Grosse Pointe Farms, driving every morning to the offices in the Southfield Town Center.
Since her move to Detroit she had made several new friends and contacts, but still occasionally drives down to New York to visit her old ones.
Assets
Samar owns a home on 9th Dodge Place, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where she spends most of her free time working out or relaxing.
She owns a 2017 Kawasaki Ninja H2R which she uses for her deliveries around the city as well as leisure riding around the area, and a 2017 Mercedes-AMG GT S Coupe which she often takes to longer drives around the country.
