I made a new friend today!

As you all know I started a new job on Monday and along with that I made a new friend. He is new to the company as well and he escaped from Iraq. That's right I said "escaped." Not once but twice. I've had lunch with him twice and the stories he has told me have made things look not so bad here.

He started with telling the story of how he got out of Iraq the first time in the first Gulf War. The US Army recruited him and some other college students as translators, etc. for when armed forces went into Saudi Arabia. After the conflict was over the Army pulled up stakes and left them in Saudi territory. The Saudi Arabian government put them in a refugee camp in the middle of the desert. There were six people to a tent, drenching rain storms, blinding sand storms, heat, people shooting at you if you attempt to escape and the one thing they cared about the most....their games. Yes games! As in Monopoly, playing cards, Shoot and Ladders, Life, these things meant more to these people than getting shot! He said, "It was their life." or more to the point their sanity.

After six months the Saudi government paid Saddam Hussein to take the refugees back. That is when lunch partner made his way to America. His family thought he was dead for 3 1/2 years until he was able to contact them once he reached the US.

Now he works C-shift and his wife works in a department store. They are expecting a baby shortly.

The stories he has told me are nothing short of amazing. How he lost a brother becuase he did not want to go to war. The Hussein’s men found him, dragged him out on public display and shot him. After killing this young man, the enforcers forced his family to pay for the bullets they "wasted" on their son and brother.

150 people were found in an underground cell. They had been there for 20 years. They were imprisoned there for various "crimes" against the government by the previous leader. They survived on scraps of food tossed down to them by guards and soldiers through sewage grates. They fought (sometimes killed) for what little food they received. They lived in almost total darkness, naked in human waste, rotting corpses, and very little dirty water. When they were found a 16 yr old boy was among the prisoners. He was born there. He had NEVER seen the sun or stepped onto soft ground before that day.

People disappearing forever, families ripped apart, torn from their homes, men killed and women raped. All for speaking out or suspected of speaking out against the ruling power. For all the whining, bitching, moaning I do about our government and our President I am glad of one thing.

That I can.