Iraqi Translator Welcomes North Carolina As New Home
Story by Pfc. Benjamin Watson
Posted on 11.17.2008 at 11:22AM

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – What is meant by the American dream?

In an effort to find an answer, someone might choose to debate the merits of fortune or freedom. Others might look to a photograph of the symbolic Ellis Island taken a century ago.

On the other hand, it could be meeting the one man whom an Iraq veteran considers the “epitome of the American dream” will go some distance in answering this curious question.

“To protect his identity, we called him Peter,” said Master Sgt. Gregory A. Cornejo, a mobilized reservist currently working at Fort Bragg.

There is a danger in exposing Peter’s real name. Peter is a recent immigrant from Iraq. In January 2005, he began working for the U.S. Army as an interpreter. Some of his relatives still live in Iraq, and releasing his family name can have serious consequences.

“The insurgents are on the internet just like we are,” said Cornejo, seated with Peter at his new apartment. “It’s that simple. They could find his family.”

Peter is one of a small, fortunate group permitted to come to this country as part of the U.S. government's special immigration visa program for interpreters. Congress created the interpreter visa program as a way to assist translators in Afghanistan and Iraq. These translators, who work with the U.S. military, put their lives at increased risk, much more than an ordinary citizen of the country, because of various complicated relationships among Iraqi citizens.

“After living 30 years in Baghdad,” said Cornejo, “still it’s hard for him to relax, even here, because he still feels like his family is going to be in danger.”

It’s painful to even look at pictures of his family, said Peter, who has fair skin and hair trimmed like a Soldier’s. “I can’t. I can’t see my parents because I am sure if I see them, I am going to start crying.”
What worries him most is the safety of those he and his wife know and love who are still living in the war-torn region.

“My biggest fear,” he said, “is not here, but in Iraq: her family and my family…I will try hard to find any way, any way to bring them here.”

DANGERS OF THE JOB

The majority of the time Peter was in Iraq, he moved trying to conceal both his tracks and his identity.

His identity was so well hidden – face wrapped in layers of cloth, cap on his head, dark glasses over his brown eyes – he was nick-named “the invisible man.”

Simply going to work required Peter to change transportation countless times and involved meandering, indirect walks to bus stops and taxis. Every day of life in his own country Peter had to maintain a state of high-alert for anyone or anything dangerous.

His second day as an interpreter, Peter’s convoy was struck by an improvised explosive device. It would be the first of eight times that would happen...

...“The IED [improvised explosive device],” said Peter, “when it hits your vehicle, it just –” here he slapped his hands together quickly one time, “happens like that. You just see the flash, the dust, and the powder – you smell the powder.”

“He’s literally bled for American Soldiers,” said Cornejo.

Cornejo, an Essexville, Mich., native, met Peter while working with a national police transition team in Baghdad. Cornejo was the non-commissioned officer in charge of the local national interpreters for Forward Operating Base Rustamiyah.

“To me it was fascinating,” said Cornejo. “I had Sunni, Shia, Christian, Kurdish all working together as brothers.”

Working with them, he added, made him feel that these guys were more than “just a talk piece. They become your brothers.”

After work days often stretching 18 hours or more, Cornejo stayed in the office putting together immigration packets for his interpreters. Few make it through the long, arduous process of locating various obscure and high-profile documents.

Especially difficult is earning the trust of a U.S. Army general enough for that officer to submit a personal letter of recommendation on the interpreter’s behalf.

It is a very long and painful process, said Cornejo. For any number of reasons, he said, few stick with it long enough to see the end result.

Fortunately for his immediate family – wife, Rana, and their two small children, 18-month-old son, Iven, and Carmen, born Sept. 12 – Peter was among the small number of successful applicants.

EAST TO WEST

Peter’s journey to America was not without its hang-ups.

Arriving in customs at Istanbul, Peter was “relieved” of more than $7,000 by an agent who never returned with his cash.

The family was supposed to be in the city for only a short time prior to leaving for America. Instead, they stayed for almost two weeks in their hotel and leaving only for food or for documentation from the embassy. They were frightened, Peter said, because they’d heard rumors that children had been kidnapped in Turkey.

“It was really hard for us. Ivan was crying,” and his daughter, he recalled, had been born only weeks earlier.

But Peter was not going to stop simply because he was robbed of money. He’d come too far.
“Flying from Turkey, we were really just afraid,” he said, “caring about what Ivan was doing and Carmen, why she was crying.

“But when we landed in New York, we just started smiling…It was like a dream come true.”
When they landed in Fayetteville on Nov. 4, the Cornejos – Greg and his wife, Teresa – embraced Peter and his family for the first time on American soil.

Greg had kept his head shaved while in Iraq. Since then, he’d grown it out.

“You have hair!” Peter chided Greg when they met at the terminal. “And it’s red!”

A NEW HOME

“Important to me is to bring a good life to my family,” Peter said, articulating briefly his own American dream.

A little more than a week after first meeting in Fayetteville, Greg, Teresa, Rana and Peter shared memories, sorrows and even a little good-natured humor while breaking in the new apartment.

“We were born in the same year,” Teresa joked to Peter after learning the month he was born. “But I’m older than you. So when I tell you to do something you do it.”

“Where I come from,” said Peter, referring to traditional custom in his home country, “even if you are older than me, if I tell you to do something you have to do it.”

Teresa’s response drew a warm, hearty laughter.

“You’re in America now,” she said.

Ellie