WEBVTT

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well . Uh it was Cory's

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a platoon leader for about a year and a

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half . And when he got back to the

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States , he started trying to work the

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issue for uh , to get Ribas , uh ,

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there's Iowa to get surgery down and

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you need some help uh getting our chain

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of command to support it . And to uh

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put his uh ideas into a wait form

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that our commanders would understand

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that this is important because uh

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chance to for us to show the uh the

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kurds that we work with the Iraqi

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citizens that we're not here just for a

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uh , you know , one year tour . And

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then we uh cut out . I mean , we we

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leave them . This is a way to show that

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we're in for the long run and we

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actually do care about what happens to

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them . We're not just here for oil or

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whatever they people say we are . We're

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here to actually try to make their

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lives better . And this was a great

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opportunity for uh , us to be able to

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help them . And I'm thankful to uh city

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Yarrington and uh doc johnson for

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allowing me to be uh part of this . Uh

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yeah , great process they put

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together .

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It's a it's a beautiful town up in the

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mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan . It's

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about a 45 minute drive from the

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Iranian border , say a small village

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surrounded by uh pretty high peaks .

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Uh huh Population . There is uh

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probably about 75% curved in about 25%

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Assyrian Christian . Uh it's a pretty

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nice place . They lived in relative

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prosperity for the last 13 years or so

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after the Saddam's forces were driven

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out in the Operation Northern Watch was

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established allowing the kurds to run

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their own affairs up there . It's a

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pretty prosperous place . The majority

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of the kurds that there were refugees

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in Iran to escape to an island and they

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came back there and they settled in the

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area there and

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uh we're happy to be

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back in their native area .

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That's probably , that's probably about

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average unfortunately for them . But

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that may be better than the other parts

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of Iraq . Uh

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the salary for the average Iraqi border

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policemen , just the regular soldier

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types was I believe $125 per month when

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we were there . And now since these

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have got a little more Harry over here ,

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they added a hazardous duty pay on it

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too . It's around $200 a month now .

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And they said it was that amount of

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money they could pay the rent and they

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can pay their bills and live okay if

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they would be rich by any means , they

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have a enough money to get by . But

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things are quite a bit tougher over

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here than they are we take for granted

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in the stage . It's a different world .

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I'm just amazing that uh

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I've never met dot small but she must

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be a pretty persuasive person to be

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able to get all this done . She , it's

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pretty amazing . There's many times

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that it looked like it come into a

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roadblock and no more progress what's

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gonna happen all of a sudden sheet ,

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make some calls and next thing , you

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know , it's speeding right along . She

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should be very , very proud of number

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of here . So , uh , I was actually

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in uh , in kuwait when I heard about it

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from uh , from Cindy , uh I was pretty

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happy because talking with doc and also

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a city , it sounds like there was a

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chance of this . This might not be able

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to fix the problem that he had with his

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heart . So , you know , I was pretty

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pumped when uh came back with a good

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prognosis on uh uh start there and

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everything will tell you . God , I look

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forward to it . You know , any chance

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we go back to the Iraqi Kurdistan area

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where we have friends up there , you

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know , is a good day for us . A lot of

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friends there . Yes , he's a , he's doc

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jay to everybody in the company

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Sergeant johnson if you want to go

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formal . But uh doc . He actually was

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in uh , I was just for two minutes and

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I gave him the mission of establishing

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a age station to be able to handle

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trauma cases for , you know , any kind

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of lose these uh , the Iraqi border

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police might sustain and also take care

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of their regular day to day , uh ,

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illnesses . They might have

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uh found a building ,

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set everything up . We bought the

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equipment about the medical supplies .

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He trained up the other uh , medics

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that uh , we selected there . He made

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coordinations with the local hospital

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there in town . Did a lot of hard work

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to improve their medical situation for

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the Iraqi border Police University job .

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Happy birthday grandma . So I didn't

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get to tell you on the Groundhog Day

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there grandma , If you tell people that

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it's an army tradition that I get beat

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up on my birthday , they throw me the

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lake or something . So let's keep that

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on the download . Okay , bye grandma .

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I love you guys and thank you for

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coming by tonight . Great . Thank you

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very much for everything . Thank you

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later . Alright . Later . But .