Making Lives in America, After Iraq

[bayonetbrant]

A great article about what happened to the Washington Post's local Iraqi staffers from Baghdad in 03-04

THE SECURITY CHIEF
Had a blood-pressure cuff been slapped around Muhanned al-Kusairy's beefy left arm while he rode with me down the ambush-riddled road to Baghdad's airport — his right arm always hoisted an AK-47 rifle — the gauge would barely have twitched. The bureau's security chief remained unperturbed, even when the rest of us were hyperventilating.

That equanimity escaped him last month in Phoenix. As he ascended to the 19th floor of a downtown building on a Baghdad-hot afternoon, his hands trembled, his face flushed, and his stomach, he remarked, felt as if it were "filled with mice, not butterflies." He was heading to see a man he had come to idolize since moving to Arizona three years ago, a man who he hoped would fulfill his American dream.

"Mr. Sheriff!" Muhanned exclaimed. "It's a huge honor to meet you."

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose hard-line approaches to illegal immigration have drawn nationwide attention, embraced the fawning Iraqi immigrant. "Tell me about yourself," he said.

Instead of describing his 18 years in the Iraqi army, or the multiple times he steered us from danger, or the small militia he built to protect The Post's bureau, Muhanned opted for the present tense.

"My dream is to be a deputy sheriff," he told Arpaio. "I want to work for you."

much, much more - some great stories - at the link

[Martok]

Great stories indeed.  Thanks for the link chief. 

[Airborne Rifles]

Very cool.

[LongBlade]

"We," he told me, referring to the United States in the first person, "should have sent the sheriff to Iraq in 2003 instead of Paul Bremer," the White House envoy who ran the initial U.S. occupation. "We needed someone tough like him."

Wow. Who couldn't love that guy?