Last week we continued our profile of Badia, one of the List Project’s many clients. This week we will continue to tell Badia’s story, and again focus on the danger and violence that was a daily part of his life during his time working for Coalition forces.
As we all know, war is a horrible thing. The War in Iraq is no different. Although technology has greatly decreased the numbers that die on the battlefield, it has also made weapons more lethal and those that do survive often carry physical or psychological scars from their time in combat well into the future.
Badia too has seen his fair share of horrible sights and has escaped death’s door more time than he cares to remember. During our interview, Badia related to me some of his more harrowing experiences and talked about the anxiety of waiting for the next attack, and not knowing when or where it will come.
It happened many times that a mortar round landed on another vehicle in front of me and killed everybody in it. Also IED’s… Also snipers, but they missed me. Daily threats. You don’t know when they will bomb you, you don’t know when they will shoot you. So you are in the middle of combat [always].
Iraqis and the American troops with which they worked in many cases died side by side on the battlefield. Badia and other Iraqis like him braved this violence along with American soldiers. They also received direct threats because of their work with the United States, as detailed in last week’s “Voices from the List” post. This is why it is imperative that those Iraqis still in danger be welcomed with open arms into the United States. They sacrificed their livelihoods and in some cases their lives for an ideal, for what they felt the United States stands for, and without ever setting foot in this country. To not help them in their time of need would be truly shameful.