Monday, “The Lead with Jake Tapper” highlighted the story of former Army Captain Brian Larson, an Iraq war veteran desperately trying to get the Iraqi interpreter, who was a crucial part of his team during the war, out of that country before he’s killed. State Department red tape is apparently making that next to impossible.
“He was part of our team, and it feels like you left one of your soldiers behind,” Larson explains.
As you’ll see in the clip below, Captain Larson’s story is just one of many … too many:
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CNN:
It is military creed that you do not leave your battle buddies behind. But in many ways the U.S. government is doing just that.
Thousands of Iraqi and Afghan interpreters who served U.S. soldiers in those respective wars – not only translating, but serving as eyes and ears for troops – have been left behind, and in some cases were killed. Those trying to avoid this fate by pursuing visas to come to this country have been trapped in a maze of U.S. bureaucracy, weighed down by post-9/11 security.
The Washington Post last week wrote in an editorial, “We find it incomprehensible that the State Department is dragging its feet in providing these interpreters with U.S. visas.”
Here is one such story.
For years former Army Capt. Brian Larson has been waging a battle, not in Iraq, where he served from 2006 to 2008, but against the State Department bureaucracy and red tape.
Full story here.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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