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thedrifter
06-03-09, 08:20 AM
Just home from Iraq, Braintree man spends day trying to get family cat out of tree

By Adva Saldinger
The Patriot Ledger
Posted Jun 03, 2009 @ 05:36 AM
BRAINTREE —


Qasim Al-Janabi didn’t expect to spend his first day home after two years in Iraq trying to coax the family cat out of a tree.

Al-Janabi, an Iraqi-born American citizen, served as an interpreter with the Marines and the Army.

“All day long I spent with the cat,” Al-Janabi said. It didn’t bother him, he said, because it was interesting and he still got to spend time with his kids.

Al-Janabi climbed a ladder, but the cat, Nyla, was out of reach, so he tried to get her to climb onto a rake. She scurried farther up the tree, so the family called the Animal Rescue League.

The cat, had been in the tree for about 24 hours and had climbed as far as she could go, about 45 feet.

“The cat was in a precarious spot, perched on the edge of the canopy on branches that were not too supportive,” said Brian O’Connor of the Animal Rescue League, who came to Al-Janabis’ Braintree home.

O’Connor cleared away rocks and stumps and created a landing pad of inflated plastic bags and tarps. He then climbed the tree and began cutting away branches. Eventually the cat lost its balance and landed safely.

“It’s a technique we don’t like to use,” said O’Connor, adding that there was no other way to get Nyla down.

Cathy Al-Janabi, Qasim’s wife, said “it was a big ordeal.”

The cat, she said, seems to be doing just fine, and she’s very happy to have her husband home.

“He wanted to do something to help our country and his country that he was born in, and he decided to do this, and it’s been a long two years,” she said.

Ellie