Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War by Phil Klay

Author:Phil Klay [Klay, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

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In 2007, a spiky-haired kid who went by the name Ted signed up for the same job Ali had taken in 2004—interpreter for U.S. forces. Originally from northern Iraq, Ted had learned English watching shows like Cheers and Seinfeld. To him, America was Soup Nazis and bars where everyone knew your name. And like Ali, he welcomed the coming invasion.

But when insurgents threatened him for talking to Americans, he’d fled to Syria for a year. This meant Ted, who picked his interpreter name because of a fondness for the actor Ted Danson, began working with Marines at a different—and very deadly—stage of the war. His first posting was with a Marine reconnaissance unit.

“I had no idea what Marine recon was,” he recalled, laughing. Ted, with barely any training but attached to an aggressive, elite unit, soon found himself under fire. “I got a cold feeling,” he said. “I didn’t feel anything.” But this numbness helped him operate, as did the example of the Marines around him. “It’s very intense, firefights,” he said. “But the people I worked with, they’re brave men.”

Ted soon proved his own bravery. During a platoonwide operation, his unit exchanged fire with insurgents, one of whom signaled he’d like to surrender. Since captured insurgents could yield critical, time-sensitive intelligence, Ted ran through enemy fire to the house and conducted an interrogation that, according to the commendation written by his battalion commander, helped “decisively end the engagement.”

Around this time Ted learned of a new program offering special immigrant visas to those who worked with U.S. armed forces. In one sense, the program could be seen as a smaller-scale continuation of that old American idea that you could earn the title “American” by fighting for America.

But the program had a second, more practical purpose: to prove that America was a trustworthy partner in the complex wars we’re currently fighting. Interpreters are essential links between American soldiers and the local troops they train, the neighborhoods they patrol, and the intelligence sources they depend on.

To insurgent groups, cutting off the link is critical. “Nine bullets for the apostate, one for the Crusader,” was the slogan of an early ISIS strategy, emphasizing killing Muslim allies over Americans. That is why they have gunned down interpreters, kidnapped and beheaded them, killed their cousins and fathers and friends. And it is why generals like David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal have publicly supported the program. One of the early beneficiaries was none other than Ali.

In 2007, one year after that firefight in Hurriya, Ali received a visa for the United States. Within a year, he joined the United States Army. His own trajectory seemed proof that the American dream was alive and well and truly universal.

For Ted, though, the American dream would prove harder to reach. He’d started fighting with Americans later in the war, and so by the time he would apply, events in both Iraq and America would make following Ali’s path far more difficult.

First, his career as an

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