"He Saved My Life" American Soldier Returns to Help Iraqi Captain Fleeing ISIS | National Geographic

[Music] [Music] Ian yes for [Music] I'm very scared to lose my son, lose my daughter, lose my wife, thus all my [Music] life. The soldiers, like the captain, are the ones that kept us alive. My name is Chase Msab. I'm a veteran of the Iraq War. I did three tours in Iraq as an infantry Marine from 2006 to 2009. In that experience, I got an opportunity to work with the captain and help rebuild a country that was in complete chaos.

Truly, it forged our bond when we were at the checkpoint together. The sun was going down; it was another day in Iraq, and we were shot at by a sniper. He pushed me down, and he ran towards the sniper directly at him, risking his own life to protect mine. He saved my life that day, and we became more than friends; we became brothers.

We maintained our relationship. Every now and again, we would speak on the phone, we’d write an email: "How are you doing? How's your family? How are things? How's the war?" But it was in 2009 that the emails and the phone calls stopped completely. I later found out that the captain had been significantly injured in an IED attack. He had severe brain damage, nerve damage; he lost all the movement in his right arm and his right leg.

I have great respect for this man because when he had every opportunity to leave, he stayed and he continued to fight. Finally, as ISIS continued to get stronger and stronger and push into Iraq, this is the front line dividing the provinces of Karbala and Anbar. Its militants had come within five miles of Deer in recent months. He then told me about his family, the fact that they were being hunted by ISIS and he could no longer stay and fight. He had to go; he had to flee, and he did it so that he could protect his family and his children.

Currently, the captain lives in southern Turkey with his family: his wife, his two children, his sister, and his sister's children. We sent him to Turkey with the idea that he would be able to become a refugee, and we could start the process immediately to get him to the United States. We found out pretty fast that that was not the case. When he first arrived in Turkey, he received a UN Refugee status appointment date for 2022. That's since been bumped up to 2016, but that's just the start of the process.

Because he doesn't have Refugee status, he is unable to apply for asylum in the United States. The special immigrant visas and the resettlement visas don't apply to him because he never actually worked for the US government. He was an Iraqi soldier who was paid by the Iraqi government and worked with the American Marines. That technicality is what prevents him from even remotely trying to get to the United States at this point. He just doesn't meet the criteria.

From what I can understand, the refugee system is broken. You know, the US wants to help refugees but also does not want too many of them to come here, and I think every country is the same. Having that ambivalence, I think that our system addresses the needs of people who have successfully escaped, as in they have things they can apply for, but it doesn't do a good job of rescuing people.

Refugee resettlement, although UNHCR might be in your country or in the country you fled to, that's not going to be imminent and it could be years out. There can be all these different factors, and just someone can still fall through the cracks because it's just not a comprehensive solution. There was nothing we could do without him getting Refugee status, so he was stuck in limbo.

We had to find a way to keep him and his family alive while he waits. I couldn't do that from 10,000 miles away. The only way we could figure out a long-term plan is if we went there, so we did. You never put yourself unnecessarily at risk; you always have a backup plan, and I knew that we needed to have a plan for when we went down there just in case something went wrong.

"What's up, Dev? Hey man, um, so you guys know the general plan: like me and Spencer are going to be on the ground tomorrow through the 21st. Those are the main places that, if anything happened, that's where they would take us. Okay, if I don't respond within a 3-hour period, that means bad and the process starts. South of Gant is like really bad. I didn't entirely know what we were walking into. I trust my friend, I don't trust the scenario that he's in. We've got between a 3 to 5-day window before they can potentially get us into Syria, and then it's the lost cost at that point, so it's about moving fast. Be fine, and anything, these at all call, Peri. Appreciate it, man. Alright man, see you."

This is going to be a quick trip: 30 fast running, gun in and out. We had to make it happen in a very short period of time. "Let's do this!" inspires me to be a better soldier. Also, something to think about what he was going through. The plan was for the captain to meet us at the airport in Anfo for hours. We landed, we had very little sleep, and as we got out of the plane and walked into the airport, there was my friend. "Made it!" [Music]

"I hadn't seen him in almost 7 years." "I'm good, how you?" "Good, I made it happen." "How were your kids?" "That's good; that's good." I felt incredible joy because I was getting to see my friend, and I felt just sadness for what he'd been through. It was as if we picked up from the day I left Iraq. The joke started and I'm all, "Hey, hey what are you doing?" "You're like I'm eating, I'm hungry! G! Remember my friend G?" [Music]

[Applause] [Laughter] All D cigarettes came out, and it was us on a mission [Music] again. "What year was the explosion that when you hit your head?" "Yeah, when, uh? 2009, month 7, day 4." "We say because I have very, very, very bad injuries. You can't work, I can't get a Refugee status, I can't go back to Iraq to see the doctor. What am I supposed to do?" "There's another way." "Okay, first way: Refugee special immigrant, okay? That's what we got to figure out. First is do we need Refugee status from the UN? Can we speed up your process? Take time, take time, take [Music] time."

"Where's Bo? Here, KUSI. Let's do this; we're going to the UN see if we can get some answers. Make friends, you know? The idea is to go in and see if we can't talk to somebody." And you know, as we learned last night, you know, Andor's got some serious medical issues that, you know, left untreated, you know, can seriously impact the stability of himself and his family. "It's worth a shot."

"Alright, what are they going to say?" "Go away." [Music] We were immediately approached by the security. We asked to see someone within the embassy or someone within the compound who works on refugee issues. We were told that this was not the location to do that and that we had to leave.

Other places, we were also weren’t allowed to film the story. We were turned away. Debrief: lessons learned. Guy shut down pretty fast as soon as he saw the camera, so this next one let's try to see if we can't have a conversation, get you in front of somebody to talk about your issue, and then we'll see if we can get more from there.

We just went to the emic office UNHCR office, and there's a pretty big line out there. Obviously, they once again didn't want us taking pictures or doing video or anything. He had all of his medical records; he had everything laid out explaining what his head injuries were, what his body injuries were—all of it. He gave that to the UN, and they told him that he wasn't able to do anything with it because it wasn't in Turkish.

"English?" "So she wouldn't take any of your English documents?" "No, don't take any reporter English, just reporter Turkish and language Turkish." I walked away thinking there's got to be another way to get him into our system without the UN.

"In August, you came. When did you come to Turkey?" "I'm come before 9 months." "9 months? You've been playing the game for 9 months?" "Yes." The second part of the plan: we had to figure out where he was living. We had to show what conditions he was in. We had to identify what he was actually going to need to survive.

"Should we leave tonight, or should we leave in the morning?" "Tomorrow, yeah, in the morning." I wanted to see it for myself, not only to see his children and meet his family for the first time but also to get a better idea of what he needed. The plan was for us to drive. The idea was to get us down there before all the activity of the day, get us in, get us inside the house, make sure that we were settled before nightfall.

I knew that we would be exposed; I knew that people would see us. But I also knew that I was going to see my [Music] friend. "Tur [Music]." We got into his house, and I was nervous, "snck ello," but meeting his kids and seeing his family calmed me. It was the first time I'd met his children, the first time I got to hold them, say hello. It made me want to cry that we were there.

It made me forget that we were in a little bit of danger at that [Music] [Music] point. "For [Music]." "She's this foot, this shoes, medicine, special one? Yes, this this have four point. Yeah, it doesn't fit inside her." "Yeah, very scar because that's very hard for here." [Music]

"Alhamdulillah!" It was amazing to be able to spend time with his family, play with his kids, and have an opportunity to eat dinner with his family. This wasn't the same soldier that I had met so many years before; this was my brother in an entirely different [Music] light.

As the day started to wind down, I knew it was time to get down to business. So we sort of did a refugee financial planning: pulled the computer out, we sat down with his finances, and we kind of made a budget. We figured out how much it was going to cost for winter coats: "Boom, we have this much money— is it enough, high, low, somewhere in between?" And we'll feel it out as we go along. [Music]

"Right, how much was it going to cost if one of the kids got sick?" You know, the little details matter when you're living day-to-day as much as I wanted to stay with my friend. I knew it was time to leave. Every minute that we were there was another minute that somebody would see us, that somebody would see us with him, and that would be possibly putting him at risk.

"I need to know when I leave every day, get up, and keep fighting." So it was a constant balance between wanting to stay with our friend and also to be able to leave for his safety and for ours. "Okay call you. I think we need to leave the town."

I left that night thinking that I wasn't going to see my friend again, thinking that the trip was over, that we'd failed and that we weren't able to figure out a long-term plan. The part of me is like: do I take the risk and stay here for 6 more hours? So that to wait for the sun to come up; is something going to happen? Maybe, maybe not, but is it worth taking that risk? Just [Applause] [Music]

We made our way back to Ankara. We only had a few days left, so we knew we had to get him back and start finalizing some of the details about how to get him help. So he came to Ankara, he took the bus, and he met us at the hotel, and we came up with a plan of attack. We were going to go to as many banks as we could to find out how to open a bank account where we could send resources from the states to him.

This was an extremely difficult task, completely ignoring us, pushing us to the next person, not even acknowledging English. Using the translator, like between his broken Turkish and my translator on my phone, we were at least able to get—we have to get a photocopy first.

We went on a scavenger hunt in which we didn't know the language; we didn't even know where we were going, we really didn't know how to follow the clues. Finally, we found the last building right before it closed that was able to help us. They were able to get him a tax ID, and from there, we could run to the nearest bank because he wasn't a refugee; he didn't have a long-term visa to be in Turkey.

Because of all the technicalities, we weren't even able to get him a bank account. Both of us walked out of the bank broken, even after everyone telling us no all week and all the walls that we had to climb over, we still came up with a plan. When we left, I would come back to the states trying to find a way, trying to look for any way to start the refugee process for him to bring him home here with us in the United States and his family.

[Music] [Music] "Am I know now how the life for human, when I get United States, refuge United States, I can't feel I'm human. I can feel my children, my wife: humans." [Music]

[Music] In my heart, I'm really— I love this man. I love him like my brother. I wish I can be a good thing for him. I wish and I wish when I’m old, very old, all together. Seriously, I wish [Music] that you took care of me when I really needed you, and that's my job.

"This job, but it was you that did it, my brother." "Yes, you, my brother. Thank you; thank you for everything." "This together now, I hope so." "Take care for yourself, for the captain."

This story was much bigger than just him; it was about helping others who had helped us. I think when we walked away, he's able to sleep at night knowing that there's somebody else that can help him, that this isn't just his problem, that this is our problem.

Going into it, I thought that we would go and we would get all these things done and the problem would be solved. That wasn't true; we're really only starting at this point. The system is so complex. I understand that the process is going to take a long time. Could it be modified in some way to make the system better?

What if we were to permit people to openly travel here with the intention of seeking asylum? They didn't have to get false papers; they didn't have to be smuggled; they didn't have to lie. It's not currently being done; there has to be a really strong political will behind something like that. [Music]

We've got to find the best way for him to come to the United States, and if that path doesn't exist, we either need to change the law, or we need to create one. It's my turn to push him down and help, just like he did for me. [Music]