Minnesota veterans urge people to consider neighbors before setting off fireworks at home

A community scarred by a school shooting is asking neighbors to celebrate with consideration this July 4. Annunciation Catholic School leaders say the sound of fireworks might bring back difficult memories for students and staff.

A pair of military veterans says they know that yearly struggle all too well.

"It felt like a war zone for two weeks, the week before and the week after, and I would literally hide in my basement," Sarah Heyer, a Minnesota Army National Guard veteran, said.

Heyer was deployed to Iraq from 2009 until 2010.

"There were three rocket attacks when I was in Iraq that could have killed me one or two of them knocked up shrapnel that landed on top of me, "Heyer said.

The sights and sounds of fireworks take her to a place she tries to forget.

"You kind of go a bit numb and it's very intense. You can just like feel it and it brings you immediately back to, ' Oh, I remember this one time when a rocket felt like that, and I was in this location and these friends died,'" said Heyer.

For Heyer, it's not the professional fireworks displays that cause her concern; it's what happens in backyards and on side streets in neighborhoods across the Twin Cities.

"If I see a large fireworks display, I can pull over, plug my ears for a half an hour and move on with my day, but if you are shooting off fireworks in the backyard every five to 10 minutes throughout the day, that feels like a combat zone, that feels like I'm under fire," Heyer said.

Daniel Mejia was deployed to Afghanistan and Qatar. For him too, backyard fireworks resemble his combat experience.  

"You don't want to think about those times where the near misses, where you have buddies who have died or lost limbs and stuff like that. But it's definite once you hear it and it's repetitive over and over, and you start to put yourself in that space again," Mejia said.

Both soldiers hope people are mindful that fireworks don't always feel like freedom for those who served to protect ours.