A Cambridge man and former member of the Galva National Guard is battling plenty of red tape to try and seek freedom for someone who he says saved his life when he was deployed to Iraq.
John Taylor fought in the foreign conflict from 2004-2005 and says Iraqi “interpreters,” like the one code named “Jaguar” who helped him has not been able to flee.
Interpreters patrol with American soldiers to help with language, but Taylor tells our sister station FM 95 that they do much more than that.
“They were the ones who would tell us like ‘OK, I’ve got a gut feeling about this, that this guy’s lying to me or that this guy is telling the truth,'” Taylor explains. “That was the only sort of gauge that we had to tell who was telling the truth or who wasn’t.”
The issue, Taylor says, is interpreters and even their families are seen by some Iraqis as traitors with bounties on their heads.
Last year, the Cambridge man found out “Jaguar” survived after 12 years of living in danger. Now, Taylor is trying to get the man in hiding, out.
“You know, I’ve contacted a whole bunch of different people,” Taylor says. “Senators, congressman, congresswomen, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the International Organization for Migration. The list goes on and on.”
Taylor adds that he feels there needs to be legislation enacted for interpreters to seek asylum and that “the current system is broken.”
So far, it’s been unsuccessful, but Taylor says he’s not giving up.