I could barely make out the words through the weeping and static on the other end of the line. It was still early morning dark at Fort Bragg when one of my teammates called from Afghanistan with bad news.
“Both Juma and Ish have been killed,” he said.
It was May 2006 and we were one month away from another deployment to Afghanistan. Two of our best interpreters had been stopped at a Taliban checkpoint. A fighter recognized them as individuals who worked with the Americans. Their bodies were found the next morning, brutally tortured and mutilated.
I went numb. I scrambled for a note pad to try to capture all the information. It was too much to process. As soon as everyone mustered in the team room, I broke the news. The impact was immediate. To us, it was no different than losing a fellow American soldier.
With the end of the war on the horizon, we are turning our backs on thousands of Afghan interpreters. Congress had authorized 8,750 visas for Afghan interpreters as of 2013, but only 1,982 had been issued by December of that year. Thousands of interpreters are in jeopardy as the State Department tries to clear the logjam of applications for the Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV.
The Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, which also assists Afghan refugees, told the Los Angeles Times that the SIV process is “prohibitively complicated, bureaucratic and opaque.” The group ran into the same problem at the end of the Iraq war. Only slightly over 6,500 out of 25,000 visas were issued to Iraqi interpreters.
As a Special Forces officer with eight deployments, I can tell you without a doubt that Afghans who have risked their lives, families and futures are going to be left behind to face horrific consequences, like Juma and Ish, for aiding the United States.
This will have a lasting impact on future wars and U.S. strategic interests. As American forces track terrorists in the Arabian Peninsula and across the African continent, we will need local assistance at many levels, specifically interpreters. If we leave our Afghan allies to die, it is a clear warning to anyone who would ever assist the U.S. in its foreign initiatives that unless you are on the Department of State or CIA payroll, you will be left to die. This will become all too apparent after the U.S. withdraws and the Taliban begin to once again hold public executions, but increasingly in front of a worldwide media audience.
Interpreters are our eyes and ears when deployed. They know the local customs, cultural norms and religion. They can see when things are out of place and, particularly in the complex social terrain of Afghanistan, they understand the nuances of villages and tribes. When American forces arrived in the country in 2001, we knew nothing. Our interpreters kept us safe and in some cases even helped us fight. They became part of our units, teams and families.
Take Jerry, for example.
Jerry (the nickname we gave him) was my personal interpreter during Operation Medusa, the largest Coalition operation in ISAF history. A 22-year-old kid, he emulated our speech, dressed in our uniform and even chewed neswar, the Afghan version of Copenhagen, like the other members of the team. Prior to the mission, he had gotten married. We told him he could sit this operation out since we knew it was going to be very dangerous and he was a newlywed.
“Ze ficker na khoum zma roor,” he said in Pashtu – “I don’t think so, my brother.”
Jerry liked to make me practice my Pashtu, so that I understood what was being said in tribal meetings behind my back. I remember him smiling like a Cheshire cat, his short thick beard and black curly hair sticking out from under the Special Forces ball cap I had given him.
“If you go, I go. If you die, I die” he said.
Two months after the battle, we were maneuvering through a village in Kandahar Province when one of our vehicles struck an IED. As I approached the mangled truck, the first thing I saw in the dirt was Jerry’s burned ball cap. He was sitting in the back of the vehicle when it struck the IED and was blown nearly 30 feet into the air.
I turned to go call in a MEDEVAC. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jerry struggling to stand against a mud wall. While most units did not allow their interpreters to carry weapons, many special operations units armed theirs. Now, despite his wounds, Jerry was holding his broken weapon and pulling security. His scrawny legs wobbled in misery. He was bloody and covered in dirt. He was medically evacuated with my wounded, and thankfully, he lived. He lived up to his promise to die with us. I made the commitment then and there that I would not leave him, or our others interpreters like him, behind.
Since I left Afghanistan in 2012, Jerry has been attacked in his mosque, moved his family nearly a dozen times and survived being shot three times. His last email to me was a desperate plea.
“I’m twenty four hour in house not coming out like jailer bro,” he wrote. “Thanks again for keeping asking me brother. I wish I didn’t have my two daughters suffer if I die. I would be (in) paradise if I see you in the State with my Family. Please help us.”
What would you do? I’ve written letters, emails, and made hundreds of phone calls trying to pry loose a half dozen applications of interpreters I worked with in Afghanistan. I am disgusted by my country’s immigration policy and the blatant, in this case deadly, double standard it represents. Immigration represents an excruciatingly complex policy area. Ultimately, a very limited and monitored type of amnesty might need to be part of any sustainable solution. But if so, that means allowing immigrants who were smuggled or snuck across our borders illegally to stay. How can we accept this but at the same time deny the right to come here to those who have served our nation and its cause? There is a rock solid difference between those who come here through the back door and those who are knocking, pleading at the front. They only want a safe place to escape to and live in peace.
I hear all the time about security concerns. The Department of State (DoS) is concerned about admitting Afghan interpreters for fear that al-Qaeda operatives will use the program to enter the United States. This is a loaded excuse. Apparently the State Department is not talking to the FBI, because al-Qaeda is already here. And even if they weren’t, they will not get here through this program. To be sure, there might be unsavory elements among any immigrant population. You don’t think some of the crime problems we have come from Mexican cartels and gangs? But unlike other potential immigrants, our intelligence staffs vet every Afghan interpreter numerous times. We trusted them with mission details, automatic weapons and our lives. The Afghans I sponsor and fully support to come to this country can live under my roof any day. I have vetted them time and again and they have proved themselves to be true, doing so under fire and in the most challenging of circumstances. Who could more deserving of the right to live, work, and enjoy our freedoms then them?
Afghan interpreters are throwing themselves at the altar of freedom only to be left to die. To State Department bureaucrats, these men are pieces of paper. To thousands of American soldiers, however, these men and their families are brothers in arms. They should be allowed to live in peace and freedom.
I know they’ve earned it.
MAJ (ret.) Rusty Bradley deployed to Afghanistan eight times, most recently in 2012. After 21 years in the Army, he medically retired in 2013. Bradley is also the author of the book “Lions of Kandahar.”
Photo credit: isafmedia
Beltway Escapee 
Rik 
Mitch Negres 
Elton 
Patrick Boylan 
Mark 
brian 
karen 
Anthony 
Nick 
Jacob 
Jeff Khan 
sikander khan 
I get that the Congress and the Executive branch keepers of immigration processes have dropped the ball on this. There’s no votes for this. There’s no money in this. They didn’t risk their lives with these people. But where the hell are the generals? The very people who insist they understand the need to walk the walk, to maintain (or restore, or prevent the further erosion) US credibility to the populations we affect, bringing our local interpreters to the US is just basic credibility maintenance. Generals who go to the press on this issue, outside of the chain of command if needed, would probably be given a true pass from the White House if they had the moral courage to do so. But they don’t, apparently. More and more symptoms, but neither a cure nor a culling seem to be waiting in the wings…
The sad fact is when has the US ever helped the locals who supported us in conflict. We left a lot of people behind in Viet Nam also. It is amazing that there are still people willing to help when we show up.
Major Bradley’s story reveals that once again, there’s a disconnect between the methods used by politicians and those used by soldiers, in that professional lip-flappers lie, cheat and break promises, while soldiers do their utmost (even die) to tell the truth, act honorably and keep their word.
I’m sad to say that while I regard American soldiers as among the finest in the world, I would never aid them because their government’s track record of standing by their allies after withdrawal (I’m thinking of the Hmong, Montagnards and others) is abysmal. On the other hand, criticism is very easy, something most of us are only too eager to indulge in. Perhaps it would be a good idea to form some sort of association of former SOF operators to lobby for, sponsor or even extract from hostile situations those Iraqis and Afghans who helped U.S. Armed Forces since 2001. It will go some way towards mitigating this bureaucrat and politician-inspired loss of credibility disaster.
I have three interpreters I am trying to get out including the one who worked for me in 2011 when I was with ANASOAG. I have gotten nowhere. The section of the US Embassy in Kabul that handles the SIV applications won’t even respond to emails. Ironically, these guys have earned the right to a visa whereas guys who cross the US border illegally are welcomed with open arms and granted access to all types of benefits (e.g., food stamps, Obamacare, free education (K-12), reduced tuition (college), driver licenses, etc) and all they have done to earn all of this is break US law. It makes absolutely NO sense.
Moral of the story: Translators beware!
They were killed in Iraq too. It’s sad. They believed in us. How do we nation-build in mountainous country with no history nor desire of centralized government? Each valley village has its own culture. So, when we announced a Dec 31 2014 pullout, all our translators and their families received death sentences.
Elton
It makes a lot of sense – the politicians again benefit from the voting block of Mexicans.
What needs to be done is to get those interpreters and their families who are already here, to form an organization that can get the attention of the media.
Mr. Bradley, well done sir, I look forward to reading your book now, I have spent a lot of time with the Pakhtoons (Af/Pak), “Sta pakhtoo zuba, der khe de, woror.” . Please send your article to all the media that will cover this, and to you representatives in government.
Respectfully
Patrick
This couldn’t have been said better. Our Terps go out on mission after mission. They should be allowed asylum in the US because it is too dangerous for them and their families after their service.
Besides being inhumane, stabbing those interpreters in the back will reduce the willingness of people in Afghanistan to help the US fight terrorism in the future if they think they will be abandoned so badly that they are killed.
Good article. I know this is a coincidence but the terp and american soldier were in my unit. I forgot the terps name, but that was my platoon leader 1Lt Corma. He died by stepping on an IED during a dismounted patrol. The terp was and still is very loyal. The terp was walking right next to my PL when the IED went off. He told me he tried to say something before it went off but it was already too late. Thankfully the idoits that dug the IED dug too deep so the blast went strait up. Corma saved our lives. We are forever indebted to you sir.
I heard about this on Dennis Prager today. He suggested that President Obama sign an Executive Order authorizing immediate visas for these valiant heroes.
Is this possible?
Thank you for writing this article. I have forwarded it to various radio shows in the hope that awareness can create action to save life.
I left Vietnam in 69.Assigned as an Infantryman with the 4th Infantry Division.President Nixon withdrew 50,000 of us in that year. I had two weeks left before returning to the world,when given word I was going home early. I was flown from Pleiku to Saigon to a holding company awaiting transport home via Braniff Airlines. A Vietnamese women that was cleaning our bed sheets and shinning our boots looked at me and said” You get to go home” I never forgot those words. The spoils of war are great
I feel the same sentiments as the author. To add to what they are laying out. This war is a mirror image of what Vietnam turned out to be. Forgotten soldiers, forgotten veterans and abandoned friendly local nationals. (terps, fighters, ext…) I wrote every one of my interpreters letters of recommendation to come to the US. sometimes multiple times. To date, I only know of one who had a serious chance. I received one email from a state department rep asking about his credentials. I called her number and vouched for his loyalty to our country and the seriousness of the consequences his family would face if they are not permitted to leave Afghanistan and seek asylum in the US. She thanked me, and that was the last I have heard of or from him. Its deplorable to think that we would turn our backs on our only real allies during the last decade. Its just another notch on the belt of huge blunders and broken promises made by the current administration.
Nick
I would actually go so far as to say that we should greatly increase the number of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers, even at the risk of letting more terrorists into the United States. Damn the torpedoes, no one ought to be left to the depredations of the Taliban.
Typo there…should have written “greatly increase the number of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers we let into the country”. Changes the meaning of the sentence somewhat, lol.
I have nothing but respect for ANYONE that is willing to stand at my side while helping to protect my life, while I help protect theirs. The GOP needs to stop politically flaunting the Benghazi fallout and start focusing on ways to prove that their REAL support for humanity goes beyond the U.S. & Israel.
yes this story is real ,aim sikander khan from afghanistan khost province I were interprater here in khost , I did a lot of dingeirous jobs with US army but when the US forces left i become jobless and i face with a lot of problems , threads and even worning from Taliban so my life is in dingier . every day here blosting , assissnation of peaple so I need help to keep me safe my request is from US gov to provide for me vissa of US or other country vissa. sikander.khan1989@yahoo.com