While embedded with the 172nd Stryker Brigade, reporter Margaret Friedenauer kept a Web log of her observations. This item was filed Jan. 1, 2006.
The interpreter with the soldiers I went out on patrol with today goes by the name “Easy-E” For safety and security reasons, he keeps his face covered most of the time we’re out talking to locals. He was working on a master’s degree in English Literature at an Iraqi university before war broke out in 2003.
A U.S. soldier on the patrol, Sgt. Robert Parker, asked him if he’d ever been to the U.S. He said no, but it is now a goal of his to finish his master’s degree in the U.S.
Then Parker suggested maybe the interpreter would like it so much he would settle in the U.S. But, as much as he wants to visit the U.S., Easy-E said he belongs in Iraq.
“I know Iraq sucks now but it’s my country. I have to endure whatever, whether it is sweet or not.”
–Easy E, Iraqi interpreter