Baghdad Underground Railroad Book Talk

101 West Avenida Vista Hermosa,San Clemente CA 92672

25 May, 2021

Description

Book Talk: Baghdad Underground Railroad, San Clemente Author, Steve Miska tells why he wrote the story. In 2007, Iraq was in the midst of violent sectarian cleansing. Col. Steve Miska led a team within the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division (known as Dagger Brigade) that established an underground railroad from Baghdad to Amman to the U.S. for dozens of Iraqi interpreters facing near-certain death at the hands of the “death squads” that hunted down and slaughtered interpreters and their families. The mostly young men and women who embraced American idealism risked their lives to support U.S. service members in countries where understanding the language, the people, and the contours of the culture are often a matter of life and death. Yet, according to recent estimates, more than 100,000 interpreters and at-risk family members remain in Iraq and 70,000 remain in Afghanistan, each in grave danger. The plight of Iraqi and Afghan interpreters left behind by the United States remains one of the most significant human rights issues of the Global War on Terrorism, America’s longest, and ongoing, military conflict.