One morning, Christopher Phelps led his team into the center of Saqlawiyah, a small Iraqi city 10 miles from Fallujah. Fellow marines,who thought the market a perfect place for insurgents to hide homemade bombs,had demolished it overnight. Phelps noticed a group of Iraqis glaring at them. He didn't like the feel of it. Neither did his Iraqi interpreter, Mustafa Subhy Abdualla. 65 US soldiers had been killed by insurgents the previous month and the marketplace was one of the most murderous sections of the Sunni Triangle. Phelps and Abdualla looked at each other. "Let's get out of here!" shouted Abdualla as Phelps simultaneously ordered his team to take cover in the nearby police station. "Was a bomb hidden there that morning?" asked Phelps afterwards.
"I don't know. The point that is Mustafa and I were totally in sync". As they had come to depend on each other for their lives and of their team members, the major and his interpreter had developed a communication that went beyond Words. That first night, Phelps asked Abdualla one probing question: Why did he want the job? Translating for US and Coalition forces involved extremely hazardous duty. Abdualla answered, "You guys came and provided opportuniy for our country. I want to give something back." For eight months, Phelps six-member team worked to earn the trust of the citizens of Saqlawiyah and Fallujah. Each morning when the team set out, Phelps recited a simple prayer,
"I hope to God we make it back." Incoming fire from snipers and the threat of homemade bombs were routine. "You can't worry about being blown up," says Phelps "If you're constantly fearful then the enemy has won." "Even when bombs destroyed our vehicles," says Abdualla "we had to keep moving."
When US and Coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003, he quickly applied to be a translator for the United States. After just a month on the job, he was patrolling with 82nd Airborne along Fallujah's main road when there was a huge explosion. "Within seconds, we had eight casualties." His lieutenant still yelling commands to his patrol, was bleeding profusely. Abdualla rushed through gunfire and applied first-aid to save the lieutenant's life. By the time Chris Phelps arrived, Abdualla had been through both battles for Fallujah and was well known to the insurgents. He had been shot MafiOSo-style on the road to Baghdad, still he chose not to wear a mask.He helped Abdualla apply to the University of Kansas, and in August Abdualla was accepted. Phelp's team are packing up to leave. "We were hugging and crying," Abdualla remembers.
"It has only been eight months, but it was like I've known this guys forever."
Abdualla rented a car and driver for the 12-hour drive to Jordan to apply for a visa. His 64-year old mother, Nidhal, accompanied him. Both were dozing when the driver hit the brakes and gasped, "Mujahedin!" Jolted awake, Abdualla looked out the window and saw a dozen men gathered around a bleeding figure on the median. Firing an AK-47 at point-blank range, an insurgent executed the man on the spot. When the driver said that the man had likely been executed because he worked for the Americans, Nidhal turned to her son and began to sob. At the embassy, Abdualla presented his papaerwork and was told to wait. When the clerk returned he had said simply, "The application was refused." Abdualla was devastated. Phelps was also devastated when he had learned of Abdualla's rejection. He had contacted Kansas lawmakers and others,he learned of a special Immigration program for Iraqis who had contributed signifcantly to the US. He assembled a package detailing about Abdualla's background to send to top Marine officials, Homeland security and State departments. Later that month, the visa was finally approved. Abdualla initially had doubts, had said goodbye to his mother in Baghdad. It was a traumatic parting. On 13 April, Abdualla boarded a Royal Jordanian Flight for Chicago. Phelps drove 8 hours to meet the plane. He stood at the gate with a video camera in hand. Then he spotted Abdualla, he shouted "Welcome to America!". The two cruised into Chicago for two hours and stopped along Lake Michigan. As the two continued to Kansas, says Phelps, "Sometimes I'd look over Mustafa and we'd just start laughing. We couldn't believe we done it."
Abdualla adapted quickly, acquiring a driver's license and tasting a barbecue in no time. He settled into a Kansas City apartment and spent so much time with Chris and Lisa Phelp's sons that they've began to call him their second daddy.
Abdualla is teaching the boys Arabic. "Soon we'll speak it so well," says six-year old Dalton, "that our teacher won't know what we're saying."
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