ALWAYS FAITHFUL

A Marine officer moves heaven and earth to bring his interpreter to the U.S. from Afghanistan.

Schueman’s memoir, jointly written with in-country interpreter Zaki, opens with a death threat, as a Taliban militiaman threatens Zaki: “We are coming for you, infidel.” He had good reason to take the threat seriously, for, as Schueman notes, the statistics are grim. “Advocates for Afghan interpreters,” he writes, “put the number assassinated by the Taliban over the course of the war somewhere between 300 and 1,000.” For all his faithful service, which saved the lives of many Americans in the field, Zaki faced formidable bureaucratic hurdles. For one thing, his term as what is called “mission essential personnel” was supposed to last for a year, but he fell short by a couple of months even though he worked as an interpreter for three years. The recommendation for a visa also had to come from a general officer, though Schueman, working every angle, found a workaround. Still, it took some potentially career-ending skulduggery, recruiting high-powered allies and building a strong network among the brass, to move Zaki ahead in line. The Taliban threat continued to the very end as he and his family tried to get inside the gates of the Kabul airport. Schueman makes a strong case in support of the argument that finally won Zaki his deliverance. “Zak was another attachment with a capability I needed, like a machine gunner or a sniper,” he writes in the utilitarian way of a war fighter. For his part, Zaki wanted to go to the U.S. less to save his own life than to be able to make a living. “In Afghan culture,” he writes, “a man’s value is tied to how he provides for his family. If I could not do that in Afghanistan, I would have to try to do it somewhere else.”

An affecting memoir that weaves its way through bullets, explosives, and red tape.