BAGHDAD -- In the fall of 2007, Forat Aldawoodi fled Iraq through a special visa program for Iraqis who worked with the U.S. government. He landed in Pawtucket, R.I., where he soon became a New England Patriots fan, traveled to the Atlantic Ocean and enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve.
Today, after a year's absence, Aldawoodi is in Iraq again -- this time as an American soldier. In fact, until recently transferred to a post outside Baghdad, he was assigned to a unit patrolling his former neighborhood, Dora, in southern Baghdad. "I know it might sound a little strange that I am back in Baghdad so soon after leaving here," Aldawoodi said in an interview at Forward Operating Base Falcon in Baghdad. "But I knew before I came [to the U.S.] that the Army was something I wanted to try."
Aldawoodi, who is an Army interpreter, is one of at least eight Iraqis who fled to the United States in the midst of the war, only to have returned home as members of the U.S. armed forces, according to Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, a Pentagon spokesman. Melnyk said the figure likely understates the actual number of Iraqis in the U.S. military because personnel records don't require recruits to list their nationality. |