Sitting in her quiet Alabama home on a Friday afternoon earlier this month, Betty Saxon grew increasingly worried as the minutes passed. She hadn't heard from her son in hours.
Jay Saxon '05 had been studying in Beirut when Israel Defense Forces bombed it in retaliation for Hezbollah attacks across the border. Now he and his friends were desperately trying to get out.
Despite the massive damage done to Lebanon's infrastructure during the fighting, she had been lucky enough to stay in almost constant contact with Jay. That is, until that Friday afternoon.
"It was the most upsetting part of the ordeal," Betty Saxon recalled.
The last she had heard from her son, the State Department had sent him and his fellow students at the Lebanese American University in Beirut an email telling them to avoid going out in the city's streets.
Saxon knew this had increased tensions inside the LAU's walls, where the students were sequestered. That knowledge, plus the sudden and unexpected lack of communication with her son, made her all the more upset.
"I got really worried and concerned. No Internet, no phone calls, nothing."
Her feelings were undoubtedly shared by dozens of families across the world who also worried about their loved ones trapped in the midst of an increasingly fierce war.
Sherry Lefevre recalled being contacted by study abroad dean Nancy Kanach soon after hearing that Israeli fighter jets had bombed Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport.
Her daughter Callie and another student, Emily Norris '09, were studying at the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University in Beirut when fighting broke out between the IDF and Hezbollah on July 13.
When Kanach phoned her, Lefevre said they were just "open[ing] a line of communication," and it felt "premature ... to think about getting [Callie] out."
But the violence escalated the next day. The American University told students that the school would have to close, leaving most students their respective embassies as their only recourse.
But Callie and Emily could be evacuated by International SOS, a London-based private security firm with whom the University contracted.
Kanach eventually explained to the girls and their parents that the decision to stay in Beirut or to use SOS and evacuate would be theirs to make. For the next 24 hours, Callie and her mother deliberated over the difficult choice facing them.
The dangers of staying in Beirut were obvious. But to leave behind friends from other schools without the luxury of the SOS, would "feel a little like leaving the Titanic," Sherry Lefevre said.
"The girls thought about saying 'no one will evacuate' to show solidarity with those who couldn't leave."
And evacuation was not without its own dangers. SOS's plan was to drive a van to Syria, over bomb-riddled roads and through areas habituated by native Lebanese with undoubtedly growing hostility to Americans, who have been viewed by some in the international community as backing the Israeli campaign.
Back home, images of terrorist ambushes and kidnappings from news reports flooded Sherry Lefevre's mind. "How could you ensure that this would be safe?" she recalls thinking about an overland evacuation.
"You get really wrung out while trying to make a decision."
But after speaking with representatives at SOS, Lefevre knew that an overland evacuation to Syria would be the safest option. Their van would be part of a larger United Nations convoy, an unlikely target for an ambush, SOS assured her.
"When [the decision] was made, it was such a relief," she said.
After a safe passage to Syria, the girls were flown to Cyprus to await flights home.
"There was certainly a moment of joy, but there's still the huge sadness of the situation," Sherry Lefevre said. "The story doesn't end with the evacuation of these kids. We want people to continue to pay attention to the situation."
President Tilghman said in an email that "the well deserved credit for Princeton's very quick response to the events in Israel and Lebanon goes to Dean Nancy Kanach, who orchestrated the evacuation of the two students in Beirut."
Sherry Lefevre seconded Tilghman's praise of Kanach, but also thanked Near Eastern Studies professor Nancy Coffin, who kept in touch with the girls via email and telephone.
"She even promised to make them dinner," Lefevre said. "What Princeton did was quite unusual." (See Lefevre's letter to Tilghman thanking her for the University's assistance.)
The speed with which Callie and Emily were evacuated contrasts sharply with the difficulty that many other Westerners faced in trying to leave the country. Some were stranded for days amid the fighting as Western governments struggled to quickly organize massive evacuation missions.
Heading home
Jay Saxon, as it turned out, had temporarily lost cell phone service that Friday afternoon and reconnected with his mother soon after, much to her relief.
And thankfully, his parents did not have too long to wait before receiving even better news.
In the days preceding his escape, hoping to find a way to get their son out of Lebanon, his parents frantically placed calls to congressmen and contacts at the State Department they had met from their days living in Washington.
They weren't certain that rumors of a "pecking order" for evacuees were true but didn't want to risk their son being at the bottom of any list.
"Do whatever you can do," the Saxons said to their contacts.
Their efforts paid off: Jay and his group of fellow LAU students were soon contacted by the embassy and told to catch a bus to a location north of the city, where they boarded a Norwegian freighter bound for Cyprus.
Jay regularly posted on The Daily Princetonian's Mideast blog while he was in Lebanon, recounting the experience of hearing the first bombs drop to his evacuation aboard the freighter.
Betty Saxon, Jay's mother, echoed others' frustration with the government's handling of the evacuation.
"I cannot understand why it took our government so long," she said. "This is a volatile area, has been forever. Why don't we have contingency plans?"
But still, she appreciated how lucky her family was to have their child home safely.
"We are very fortunate that Jay was in Beirut and got out."
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