“Roy”

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A teenage Iraqi interpreter, code name “Roy,” served with a reconnaisance platoon in Iraq in 2007. (Blake Hall)

Over 2 years ago, I linked to a WaPo story regarding a teenage Iraqi “terp”. Blake Hall, the Army captain who wrote the original piece, penned a follow-up last month, about his search for Mohammed’s (“Roy”) mom. It’s a heartbreaking story without an ending:

It wasn’t easy to find her. After I first wrote about Roy in these pages in August 2010, I contacted several general officers, commanding officers from the unit that replaced us, the State Department, even an Army public affairs official in Baghdad, giving them Roy’s name and the date of his death in the hope that someone might find a record with the family’s contact information. It was all to no avail. I felt responsible to tell his mother how important Roy was to us; I wanted to tell her I was sorry.

After three months and no leads, I began to lose hope. But then a retired colonel, who contacted me after my essay “Remembering Roy” ran, was able to connect the dots. He knew a retired three-star general who had led the contracting firm that employed Roy as an interpreter while he served with my unit. On an early January morning nearly three years to the day since Roy was killed, I received an e-mail containing the telephone number of Roy’s mother.

I didn’t even know if the number would work. The contracting company had made it clear that the phone number was the only information it would release to me, so I had only one chance left.

I hesitated before calling. Would Roy’s mom hate me? I could understand why she might, but I knew it would hurt me if she said it. I took a shower to gather my thoughts, but when I finished I still didn’t know what I would say. I just dialed the number.

An Arabic song played for several seconds on the line, then static, and then through a slightly garbled connection, I could make out a woman’s voice greeting me in Arabic.

“My name is Blake Hall,” I said in English. “I was a soldier once, and I served with your son Mohammed.”

There was a pause, and when she responded I could hear the stress in her voice. “Mohammed. My son Mohammed? You know Mohammed?”

She asked why I had called her. I told her that I was Naqib (Captain) Hall and that I had worked with her son and had gotten to know and love him. I thanked her for allowing me the privilege of getting to know such a wonderful young man.

She started to cry. She said, “He was a good boy.”

“The best,” I replied, and I began to cry with her. Then I told her, “I’d like to bring you and your family to America.”

I felt compelled to try to obtain asylum for Roy’s family; I knew they were in danger. The unusual circumstances of Roy’s death and his previous prolonged absences while serving with us had brought attention to the family, both from Sunni militias and the Shiite-dominated government security forces. When I told Roy’s mother that my country owed her family a chance for a better life, she called me “her angel.” She said she knew the transition would be difficult for her and her husband, but they wanted Roy’s siblings to have a chance at a better future in the United States.

I’ve talked with her many times since that day by phone and through instant message. She told me Roy loved me, and that calmed my fear that she would hate me.

I contacted Morrison Foerster, a San Francisco Bay Area law firm recommended to me by the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, and it agreed to take on the case pro bono. Two third-year law students from the University of California at Berkeley volunteered to prepare the family’s visa packet. I obtained letters of recommendation from senior officers, including my old battalion commander, now a brigade commander in Afghanistan, and the company commander for the unit that replaced mine.

Over the next few months, I learned about the injustices the family had endured after Roy’s death. They told me that American forces initially refused to allow them onto the base to claim Roy’s remains. They couldn’t wash his body and bury him according to the customs of their religion.

Roy’s body was eventually restored to his family, but the injustices kept mounting. Iraqi security forces at first refused to issue a death certificate — a prerequisite to bury someone in Iraq — because Roy had been killed by a bomb under unclear circumstances. In the eyes of the Iraqi authorities, particularly the Shiite security forces, the manner of his death made it likely that he was a terrorist or a collaborator with the Americans. Thanks to the influence of a U.S. military unit, Roy’s family finally obtained the proper documents.

Congress created a “special immigrant visa” program as part of the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act of 2008, aimed to relocate tens of thousands of Iraqis — including former interpreters and embassy workers and their families — who helped us during the war. Though a few thousand visas had been issued as of early last year, the process has been painstakingly slow for many, in part because of security concerns in the United States. Now, 10 years after the conflict in Iraq began and more than a year after our last troops departed the country, it’s inexcusable that any of those who risked so much are still waiting.

It has been almost two years since we filed a visa to bring Roy’s family to the United States. I’ve called the FBI; I’ve called the State Department; I’ve called the embassy in Baghdad; I’ve called members of Congress, who have contacted the FBI on our behalf; and Morrison-Foerster and the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project have made multiple inquiries — yet nothing has happened.

I worry about what might befall Roy’s family. I worry, too, that they will lose hope and feel increasing bitterness toward the nation that asked them for the life of their son, yet gave them nothing in return.

So I am left with my monthly visits to Western Union — enabled by the wonderful generosity of strangers — where I wire money to a family who has given this country its most precious gift.

It’s not enough.

blake@troopswap.com

What do we still owe Iraq and Afghanistan, if we owe anything at all? Pottery barn rule? President Obama seems content to absolve U.S. hands of any further involvement and entanglements, having failed in renegotiating SoFA for the sake of national security and self-interest (which is tied to Iraqi’s security and interests); and we as a nation seem at peace with exiting both theaters, cutting our losses, weary of American blood and treasure spent or squandered (however you wish to look at it).

And what responsibility should we have toward individual lives and families, like Roy’s, who sided with the Americans? Why should we care? How do we honor those soldiers and military families who sacrificed the ultimate? Aren’t we selfish Americans, after all, who care only about nation-building at home? Who have no further responsibility nor obligation toward the mess and aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan? They own it, now. They should fix it.

Isn’t it cynical to believe America still stands as a beacon of freedom to the world, in this day and age? The last best hope?

Did we prove to OBL that America isn’t a paper tiger?

Should we care whether or not Roy’s mom hates us? Blames us- as so many rightly and wrongly do- for the state Iraq is in, today? Should we concern ourselves on whether or not Roy’s siblings are able to have a good life? Should Blake Hall be the only person to shoulder the guilt, compassion, sense of moral responsibility to Mohammed/Roy? What is he to us, who did not personally know him?

Remembering Roy:

At one point, we thought that the family was going to arrive in the U.S. last December. Each family member had completed interviews and medical screenings at the embassy and we thought that we were home free. They want to come to Virginia to live near me, and I was getting ready to help them make the transition. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Roy’s family is currently in a state of limbo as the case is pending a background check for the family members. His mother is understandably bitter about the long delay. She rightly wonders why, “she and her family are being treated like terrorists.” In fact, after Roy’s death, the guards at the Green Zone refused to let the family into the hospital in order to claim his body. The indignities that the family has endured in the wake of Roy’s death are many.

We can do something about it. With the help of Morrison Foerster, I’ve established a trust fund for Roy’s family. They sold everything they had in Iraq back in December when they thought they were coming to Virginia. Now, they are running out of money. We desperately need your help.

Donations may be sent to:

Mohammed A. A. A. Family Trust (make out checks or money orders to this name)
C/O Blake Hall
7927 Jones Branch Drive
Suite 3350
McLean, VA 22102

or

Bank of America
3 Dupont Circle NW
Washington, DC 20036
Mohammed A. A. A. Family Trust
Paper/Electronic Routing: 051000017
Wire Routing: 026009593
Account: 435028724399

A support group for the American soldiers killed with Roy can be found on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sinsil-Seven/181921918497606

A student waits in line to receive donated cold-weather clothing from U.S. military and civilian International Security Assistance Force personnel at the Aschiana School in Kabul, Afghanistan, Jan. 27, 2013. NATO photo by Laila Khoshnaw
A student waits in line to receive donated cold-weather clothing from U.S. military and civilian International Security Assistance Force personnel at the Aschiana School in Kabul, Afghanistan, Jan. 27, 2013. NATO photo by Laila Khoshnaw
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