Marine's Bid to Pierce Refugee Logjam

The support was most valuable at the lowest point of Iscol's deployment: the night his men opened fire on a truck at a checkpoint and killed the innocent driver.

"I tried to tell him it's not his fault," Abood said. "It was the truck driver's fault. He was not to blame himself for the others' mistakes."

It was around this time that Iscol began calling Abood "Abu Zach" -- "Zach's father."

Iscol stayed in touch with Abood after returning to Camp Lejeune, N.C., in early 2005. As the security situation in Iraq deteriorated, he pleaded with Abood, who had transferred to work for NATO in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, to leave Iraq. For nearly two years, the interpreter resisted, saying he had yet to complete his mission.

That changed in November, when Abood telephoned Iscol with the news that three unknown men had visited his home and asked neighbors about his whereabouts -- a harbinger of a possible attack against him. Abood told Iscol he was in hiding and planned to flee to Jordan. But both men knew that Abood's life would remain in danger among the refugee community, where elements still loyal to Saddam Hussein operate covertly.

Iscol called everyone he could think of -- superior officers, immigration lawyers and even high school friends who worked at the State Department -- for help in getting Abood to safety. Only a few Iraqi refugees were entering the country each month, and 50 special visa slots for Afghan and Iraqi interpreters had been filled.

Frustrated by his poor progress, Iscol flew to Washington in late December and spent days knocking on doors on Capitol Hill, speaking to any staffer who would listen. Within weeks, Abood's case began gaining attention, his file passing among top human rights lawyers. By early January, a document laying out his case was hand-delivered to Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration. Her staff contacted officials with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Amman and promised to track the case.

In mid-January, Iscol was asked to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing examining the Bush administration's failure to provide sanctuary to Iraqi refugees. The night before the hearing, the news came through that Abood and his family had been granted refugee status by the U.N. High Commissioner -- the first step in getting them here. The next day, as Iscol testified, lawmakers noted that it had taken a Senate hearing to rescue a single Iraqi and his family.

As Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) quipped, maybe "1.7 million hearings would bring 1.7 million people out."

In the hearing, Iscol emphasized the critical role his interpreter played in the mission. "Without our translators, we are deaf and dumb," he said. "Without them we cannot speak, we cannot listen, we cannot understand."

Abood said Iscol's stirring testimony was key to ensuring that his family received security clearance within a few months, a process that can take several years.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who led the hearing, said Iscol's "passion and desire to help someone who had risked his life for him and our country had a profound impact on our hearing, and I believe helped his translator get to safety."

That endeavor ended on a summer evening when Abood stood with his family on the steps of their new apartment in Brooklyn. "Yesterday morning, I woke up and saw people from the municipality walking along picking up trash," he said, as if confiding the latest neighborhood gossip. "In Baghdad, the municipality people tour the street in the morning to pick up corpses."

Abood said he intends to find a job and obtain U.S. citizenship with the help of the International Rescue Committee. Meanwhile, Iscol -- who is leaving the Marines in October to return to school -- has been inundated with calls from service members desperate to get their own interpreters out of Iraq.

"There's a lot of soldiers who feel an obligation to help the Iraqis who served by their side in combat," Iscol said. "These are literally people who have the most dangerous job in Iraq. They go on combat patrols for us, but they and their families live outside the wire."