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Just before dawn on Saturday morning on April 12, 1980, in my family home in Monrovia, Liberia, I heard what sounded like firecrackers off in the distance. I looked around the bedroom I shared with my brothers but nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I tried to go back to sleep. Then and I remember this as if it were yesterday our bedroom door was flung open. From the top bunk where I slept it seemed strange. I thought the door had opened on its own. But it was my dad. He had opened it while crouched on the floor. A split second afterward he was telling us no, yelling at us to get on the floor and under our beds. We were in danger. The sounds I was hearing were gunshots of celebration. The Liberian military had overthrown the government. My first coup. ....