Immigrant returns to Iraq with U.S. Army

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Ubi bene ibi patria
"BAGHDAD — Aawss Zahed’s path to the U.S. Army started in the unlikeliest way.

The 30-year-old corporal is from Mosul, Iraq, and arrived in the U.S. in 2003, just as the war started.

“I was mad because the country I always dreamed of going to was the U.S. and a week after I got there the U.S. invades my country. I asked God: ‘Why didn’t they invade Syria or Morocco?’ ”

Zahed, who’s married to an American, got a U.S. green card and a job in a Michigan car-parts plant that paid $6,000 a month, money that helped him support family members in Iraq.

But in 2005, his aunt, who worked for the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, was killed. And his father, a former Iraqi army major general, was threatened and forced to flee to Syria. Several other family members also died in the violence sweeping the country, Zahed said."

Stars and Stripes: Immigrant returns to Iraq with U.S. Army
 
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