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Friday, April 30, 2004
COLUMN: Bill Nemitz
A 133rd secret: He speaks Arabic
Copyright © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||
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Also on this page: In Iraq | |||||
MOSUL ‹ He could be an Army hotshot. He could be traveling all over the Operation Iraqi Freedom theater, piling one adventure after another onto his ability to speak fluent Arabic. But Sgt. Kameel Farag of Damariscotta is first and foremost a Mainer. And if it's all the same to the military brass who salivate at the sound of him carrying on casual conversations with local Iraqis, he'll be staying put with the Maine Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion, thank you very much. "I joined this unit. I deployed with this unit. I'm staying with this unit," Farag said this week. "As glamorous as it might be to go home and say, 'Yeah, I've been kicking doors down and asking questions!' that's not really why I'm here." He's here, like his fellow soldiers in the 133rd, to leave his mark on Iraq - not with a bomb crater, but rather with electricity and running water and other take-for-granted comforts that so many Iraqis still need so desperately. He carries an M-16 rifle, to be sure, but when he sits in the guard tower just before dawn and hears the call to prayers echoing up from the streets of Mosul, it reminds him of the two years not so long ago that he spent as a high school student in Egypt. "It has a familiar ring to it," said Farag, whose father was born in Egypt. "But at the same time, too, it's inherently different." How so? "Over in Egypt, I could go out, walk down the street to the market, do whatever I want to do, without carrying a loaded rifle, without driving in an up-armored vehicle," he said. "Here, I obviously wouldn't be willing to take that chance." Growing up in the central Maine town of Jefferson, Farag, 26, never really saw himself as anything but a Mainer. His father, Muhamed Farag, came to the United States from Egypt as a young man, met and married a woman named Marge, and went to work as a marine engineer for Bath Iron Works. Kameel, the youngest of their three children, was no different from any other kid - and if someone occasionally tried too make him feel different, he remembered his father's advice. "When something negative happens, when someone chooses to say something, what my dad always taught me was to consider the source," Farag said. "It's helped me a lot." His father also helped to broaden his horizons. When Muhamed Farag went to work on a long-term project in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1995, he asked Kameel if he wanted to come along or stay and finish high school in Maine. "I said, 'I'm going with you!' " said Farag, who was 17 at the time. "I wasn't about to pass up on that opportunity." He spent his last two high school years at the Shutz American School in Alexandria. He joined the local fencing club. He met relatives he'd only seen in pictures and, through it all, quickly learned to speak Arabic. Returning home to Maine after graduating, Farag attended the University of Maine at Farmington and then went to work as a contract sales manager for Poole Bros., a lumber and building supplies dealer in Damariscotta. He also joined the Maine Army National Guard. The 133rd's deployment to Iraq "definitely took a lot of people by surprise, myself included," Farag said. It also put him in a delicate position: As the only member of his battalion who speaks fluent Arabic, he could easily go from being one of many carpenters to the one and only "battalion interpreter." "The leadership and I agreed that would not happen," he said. "It's not my job." Still, Farag is happy to help out when and where he can. This week, he created a glossary of common Arabic terms and their English translations - suitable for mounting on soldiers' rifle stocks. He'll also provide translation in situations that truly warrant it, sometimes with dramatic results. During a recent stay at Camp Patriot, where Farag helped to erect an interrogation building for suspected Iraqi insurgents, he met a man named Sadeeq Eliyah. A foreman for the Iraqi labor crew at the camp, Eliyah told Farag - who in turn told a circle of awestruck soldiers - of the Bible that saved Eliyah's life. One day in March, Eliyah said, he and three other men were driving to work when insurgents opened fire on their vehicle. Two of the men died. Eliyah was shot once in the arm and twice in the legs. But a fourth bullet, one that probably would have killed him, hit a Bible and small notebook in Eliyah's shirt pocket. The Bible now has a small hole through it - the bullet was found imbedded in the notebook, right over Eliyah's heart. "He says if not for the Bible, he would not have survived," Farag told his open-mouthed comrades. Without Farag, Eliyah would have been just another Iraqi worker. With him, Eliyah became someone worth writing home about. "Sgt. Farag is a well-kept secret," said Lt. Adam Cote of Portland, his platoon commander. "But it's starting to get out." On the same mission at Camp Patriot, Farag was speaking in Arabic one day to a young Iraqi boy. A captain from the 3rd Stryker Brigade overheard him, smiled broadly and said "Ah, you speak Arabic?" Farag's heart sank. The captain had asked the question in flawless Arabic. "He said he could really use someone like me to help out with interrogations and translations," Farag recalled. "And I said, 'No, thanks.' " But the captain persisted. "The command staff at headquarters would be very interested to know there's a sergeant in the 133rd who can speak the Arabic fluently," he said, with a coercively raised eyebrow. "Just remember, sir," replied Farag. "Just as I learned Arabic, I can always unlearn it, too." The captain backed off. Had he not, or if some other officer in some other unit decides he wants to pluck Farag from the 133rd, the young soldier knows he's well protected. Sgt. Maj. David Wilkinson, who oversees all of the battalion's noncommissioned personnel, told Farag from day one not to worry - he'll stay with the 133rd as long as the battalion is in Iraq. "My word is my bond with these soldiers - I've never broken it with them," said Wilkinson. Besides, he added, "I work with Muhamed (Farag's father) at Bath Iron Works. We've known each other for 20 years." His bilingualism notwithstanding, Farag brings to Camp Marez the same sense of obligation so prevalent throughout the 133rd: Before he leaves here, he's determined to make a difference. "The risks are here, sure," he said. "But I know that myself and all of the guys I'm over here with look at it the same way. We can do a lot of stuff here. We have a chance to directly affect people's lives for the better." He doesn't think about the politics back home that swirl around the war in Iraq. With insurgents hidden throughout the sprawling city of Mosul - some with mortar launchers, others with sniper rifles - political debate is a luxury most soldiers here cannot afford. "When you enlist, I'm not saying you give up your right to have a free mind," he said. "But by signing your name and raising your hand and taking that oath, you're saying you're going to carry out your duties for the government." He paused for a moment. "To be honest, even if you're over here and you disagree with the situation, ultimately what good is it going to do you? It's not like you can call in sick in the Army." Farag, for the record, agrees wholeheartedly with the 133rd's mission. Like so many soldiers here, he's anxious to get outside Camp Marez more often and start turning the military work the battalion has been doing these past weeks into civil projects for the Iraqi people. When Farag does go out, he invariably draws a crowd. The moment he utters a word of Arabic, Iraqis cluster around him in amazement - and all begin telling him their personal stories at the same time. At times, Farag appears to enjoy it. At other times, he seems almost overwhelmed by it. "I can hear their conversations. I can understand what's being said around me," he said. "It's familiar, but yet it's not." Again, that qualifier. In what way is it not? Farag smiled. He recalled Easter Sunday, when Camp Marez was attacked repeatedly with mortar fire. "That was the day I turned 26," he said. "Someone tried to mortar the hell out of me on my birthday." Deployed coupleendure a year away from their children.8A Readers offerthanks to the troops.9A Marines planto withdraw from Fallujah.10A Bushfinds Iraq policy a tough sell.10A om Fallujah.10ABushfinds Iraq policy a tough sell.10A --> |
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Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram journalists