After being injured working for the Army, Iraqi's life in Salt Lake is a letdown

By the time his plane landed in Salt Lake City late on the night of April 11, things weren't going very well for Diyar al-Bayati. His motorized wheelchair had been mangled on the flight from Jordan to New Jersey, and then his luggage was lost. Still, al-Bayati was optimistic about one thing: that he would be greeted in Salt Lake City by Americans who were happy to see him.

After all, hadn't he lost both his legs while working as an interpreter for the U.S. Army in Baghdad?

But there were no grateful soldiers at the airport that night. Instead there was one Somali refugee, sent by Catholic Community Services. The man insisted on speaking Arabic, in an accent al-Bayati couldn't understand, and he wanted to take al-Bayati to the home of another Somali refugee.

"I said, 'no, dude,'" remembers al-Bayati, who had perfected his American slang during his 200 combat missions with the 4th Infantry Division in 2005 and 2006. When Catholic Community Services then wanted to put him in a cheap hotel — "with the drugs dealers," says al-Bayati — he said "no" again.

At 22, al-Bayati is an Iraqi with definite opinions and a belief that he deserves a measure of respect for risking his life.

Like other Iraqis who have contracted as translators for the U.S. military, he says he cannot go back to Baghdad, for fear of reprisals. And his life since Baghdad — first in a hospital in Jordan and now as a refugee in America — has been full of disappointments.

The interpreters are hired by contractors — at the time al-Bayati was hired it was L-3 Communications/Titan — so the Army doesn't consider the interpreters its responsibility. His medical treatment in a Jordanian hospital, covered by insurance through L-3/Titan, wasn't very good, al-Bayati says, and the prosthetic legs he was given there are so painful and heavy they're not usable. "I can wear them three, four minutes, and then I fall down," he says.

Instead of getting special consideration because of his work with the military, he's considered just "a normal refugee," he says. So far the letters of recommendation from U.S. Army officers haven't helped him get a green card.

Al-Bayati is a talkative, sociable man. "Would you like coffee? Tea? Coke?" he asks his guest as soon as she steps inside his apartment. He wheels himself over to the sink and begins filling a teapot, using only his left hand. He can't bend his right arm at the elbow, and several fingers are injured.