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NARR: Five men gather round a table at t Hanna's Middle Eastern restaurant in Danbury, Connecticut. They pass around plates of eggplants drenched in oil, crunchy falafels and zesty hummus. The food reminds them of Iraq, the place that binds them together.
SOUND: background of restaurant, fade up for a few seconds.
NARR: Michael Zacchea is a lieutenant colonel in the Marines Corps who now works in commodities at Morgan Stanley. He spent a year in Iraq training Iraqi troops. The experience changed his life.
MICHAEL: Aside from the obvious stuff that was had a really good time and I really enjoyed my time in Iiraq, my relationships with bad I my Iraqi friends. I still talk to all the guys on my team.
NARR: Tonight, Michael shares dinner with three Iraqis who escaped the war to start a new life in America. One of them, Sinan worked as an interpretor for the US military in Iraq. They're celebrating his new job at the Sheraton Hotel. He just got his first pay cheque.
SINAN: Yeah, for two days. First day, and second day. From last week.
MICHAEL: Well good, we'll have to go to the bank then.
NARR: Michael helped bring Sinan to the U.S. and he still lives in Michael's house. Their experience in Iraq made them more than friends. They describe themselves as brothers.
In Iraq, Sinan once helped save Michael from an assassination attempt.
SOUND: Bring up restaurant conversation.
MICHAEL: Eggplant, is this eggplant?
SINAN: Eggplant, here…
NARR: The dinner conversation is sprinkled with memories - some of them sombre - of Iraq .
MICHAEL: About two thirds of the officers we started with have been killed . So that's very very difficult. These are really good people, you know, good men. Good men.
FADE TO SILENCE
NARR: Sinan was one of the thousands of Iraqi interpretors who put their lives on the line to assist US forces in Iraq. Their collaboration with the US makes them a target of the insurgency. Sinan knew that his options were limited in Iraq.
SINAN: Since I worked for long time for us forces, I wouldn't continue or find good job or have good life in Iraq, because when I applied in 2005, the situation was very bad in iraq. So I couldn't do anything other than working inside the base.
NARR: After Michael left Iraq, he and Sinan kept in touch. Micahel told Sinan about a new Special Immigrant Visas given to Iraqis who had worked for the U.S. government. He encouraged Sinan to apply and list Michael as his sponsor. There were only 812 of these visas given to Iraqis last year. Sinan got one of them. He arrivd last September and was reunited with Michael.
SINAN: He received me in airport, and he took me in his house, in apartment in his house, and this is where I live now.
NARR: Off a winding road outside of Brookfield, Michael and his wife live in a spacious home.
SOUND: walking up path to house
NARR: Now, Sinan and Michael live one story apart, but the realities they face are very different. Michael is trying re-adjust to the life he left behind, and Sinan is trying to start a new one. But like many other US Marines and their translators, they have a shared experience of both the horrors of the war in Iraq, as well as the friendship that came out of it.
SOUND: sliding door opens
SINAN: It's just, there's kitchen here, small bathroom.
NARR:. Sinan's apartment is sparse, with nothing but a shirt or two hanging on the wall. He spent the winter months searching for jobs. After months of searching, he finally landed a full-time job at the Sheraton. He says his life here in America is safer, but leaves him feeling empty.
SINAN: Over there, you feel you are important. Doing something important. I don't want to underestimate sales associate, I respect any job. But here, do something anyone can do.
NARR:. In America, he says he's detached from so much of what he cares about. That's not all he misses.
SINAN: It's funny if I tell you. Missing the humvee. [Laughs.] Uniform. Jumping, going out and night missions. I used to doing that for the past 4 years.
NARR: Sometimes, the nostalgia gets to be too much for Sinan.
SINAN: Sometimes part of me wants to go back, doing that stuff again. It's crazy thinking I know, you think that.
MICHAEL: My initial reaction was don't do it.
NARR: Sinan told Michael he was going back to Iraq. T
MICHAEL: But as we talked about it , talked about it, I came to the conclusion that he has to do it, although he shouldn't have to.
NARR: The night before, Sinan received a call from a contractor he applied to for working in Iraq again. Now, Michael was driving from work to pick up Sinan at home and drive to the airport .
Michael is disappointed that Sinan didn't get the support he needs. Sinan thinks he's best off earning more money in Iraq to return to the US so that he can fulfill his dream of becoming a physics teacher. That reality confounds Michael.
MICHAEL: There's probably nobody else in this country that would ever risk their life to go to graduate school become a high school physics teacher.
NARR: Michael had had enough of the war. Together, he and his friend had been through enough life-threatening situations together. They were together for the second battle of Fallujah, one of the bloodiest battles of the war. That's when a rocket-propelled grenade exploded near Michael. He was knocked throught the air and wasn't sure what had hapenned.
MICHAEL: But I was leaning against the wall and someone said 'Is anyone hit' and I looked at the wall and you know my body left a bloodied imprint, and I said 'I think it's me.'
NARR: Michael was peppered with shrapnel, and his shoulder bone broke. He refused to be medivacced in order to continue working with the Iraqi troops. He received two Purple Heaerts and other awards. But the honours didn't help him once he was back home in the U.S.
MICHAEL: I don't remember a lot about the first six months, but one thing I remember was once was walking town and the guy came up to me and said 'Brother, I haven't seen a thousand-yard stare like that since I was Hue City. You need to get to the VA and I'll take you there right now.' I told him to go to hell.
NARR: But Michael did eventually seek help from Veterans' Affairs. He's been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a shrapnel wound to his shoulder, traumatic brain injury, and severe chronic dysentery.
SOUND: Michael gets out of car, walks up to house.
NARR: Michael finds Sinan packing his last items from a now- even more bare-looking apartment. Sinan says he feels mixed about leaving.
SINAN: It's not rational, it's emotional. Cause if I think raitionally, isupposed to stay here, safe, even though salary is, not good job, I never found a good, good job.
MICHAEL AT CAR: It's open.
NARR: During the car ride to the airport, Michael reminisces about the importance of the Iraqi experience in his life.
MICHAEL: My DNA got all mixed up with Iraqis, a part of me became Iraqi, I was always going to be Iraqi.
NARR: Michael had already had to leave Sinan once before, and had been worried about what could happen to him in Iraq. He hadn't expected that to happen again. He has a sense of foreboding of what's going to happen to Sinan.
MICHAEL: Simply because so many of my Iraqi friends have been seriously wounded or killed in combat or abducted , tortured, murdered…that it really sort of clouds my view and it's very very difficult for me to see anything good coming of this.
AIRPORT PERSONNEL: I need to see photo ID and boarding pass over here and two bags on the scale please.
NARR: At five in the morning, the Bradley International Airport is bustling.
SINAN: I was thinking of this moment, how could I say bye again.
NARR: There's not much to say. Michael and Sinan exchange a few words and hug each other good bye. Michael waits to make sure Sinan makes his way through the security line.
MICHAEL: It looks like he's through.
NARR: Sinan is past the gate, but Michael's there still looking on.
MICHAEL: It's going to feel empty, It's going to feel different. That's for sure.
NARR: Michael isn't discouraged from helping other interpretors seek a new life - however uncertain - in the United States. He's working on bringing over a seriously wounded interpretor named Ala'a. Maybe that'll be Michael's next trip to the airport.
SOC: I'm Nadja Drost, Columbia Radio News.