IAPSC member Ray Rhodes shared this story:
One of my West Point classmates has an Iraqi-American employee who was formerly a translator for US Forces in Iraq. This young man is now a Sergeant in the Indiana National Guard.
The Sergeant was from the town of Singar in the northern part of Iraq near the Kurdish border and a member of the Yashvidi religious minority. You may have heard in the news over the past few days that Singar was overrun by ISIL and the entire town (ns of thousands) forced to flee to the Singar Mountains. The Sergeant asked for help in getting his family out of the mountains and to a safer place.
Through the pro bono efforts of contacts in Texas, Montana, Louisiana, Indiana, and Iraq, all working together as a team, we were ultimately able to get the nine members of the family to safety in Syria today.
The bottom line is that we believe in the motto of “no soldier (or his family) left behind.” All’s well that ends well.