Chicago Tribune
December 25, 2014
From Chicago Tribune:
Every morning, Dinar sits in a folding chair in a second floor bedroom of a house in this university town and Skypes with his family a world away.
This is likely as close as he will ever be to them again.
Dinar, a 30-year-old Afghan man, was an interpreter for the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan and his service on behalf of the U.S. has cost him dearly.
He was targeted by death threats. He had to cut all visible ties to his family to protect them; for the same reason, he asked that his last name not be used here. And, in the end, he had to leave his country.
He is now starting over in an unfamiliar land. But he is not making the journey alone.
At his back — and often downstairs at breakfast while Dinar is Skyping – is Maj. Christopher Bourbeau, head of the Marine Corps subdivision of the Navy ROTC program at the University of Illinois.
In 2012-13, when Bourbeau was second in command of a Marine unit advising the Afghan national army, Dinar was one of his interpreters.
In gratitude for Dinar’s decision to risk his life working with the Marines, Bourbeau has stepped forward to help him build a new one.
When Dinar got a special immigrant visa for Afghans and Iraqis whose service to the U.S. put them in danger in their homelands, Bourbeau volunteered to take him into his home and be his guide to America.
Working with Heartland Alliance, the Chicago resettlement agency that brought Dinar to the U.S., Bourbeau picked up Dinar at O’Hare International Airport on Sept. 17.
He drove Dinar to Champaign, where he and his wife, Katie, set up Dinar in a bedroom in their home in a quiet neighborhood.
Bourbeau helped Dinar through the paperwork of applying for a Social Security card and for temporary government assistance. He took him to the secretary of state’s facility to start the process of getting a driver’s license.
He bought Dinar $900 worth of clothes for job interviews — a suit, shirts and a tie, socks and dress shoes. He is trying to help Dinar get a civil service job at the university, which would offer educational benefits that could lead to an American college degree.
Bourbeau sees his actions as paying back a debt.
“He’s done more for this country than a lot of people that live in this country,” he said. “He’s as much a Marine as I am.”
Dinar sees Bourbeau’s help as a crucial introduction to a new life.
“To find a person that guides you in a country where you know nobody … that was quite helpful,” he said.
The Bourbeaus are teaching him how to live in America, he said.
“They help me out about culture and people and society,” he said. “They’re, right now, everyone to me.”
It is not uncommon for U.S. military personnel to step forward to help their former interpreters in some way when they come to this country, said Darwensi Clark, associate director of refugee family services at Heartland Alliance. About 30 percent of holders of special immigrant visas move into the house or the community of someone they knew in the U.S. military, he said.
