Old Gulf War ‘foes’ share memories over cuppa in BallyB

CONNECTION MADE DURING LOURDES PILGRIMAGE BRINGS EX-SOLIDERS DANNY & NAMIR TOGETHER

TWO former combatants of the opposing sides in the first Gulf War relived their memories in an extraordinary meeting this week that came about quite by chance - in Lourdes of all places.

Former US soldier Danny Finucane, from Tarbert, and former Iraqi soldier Namir Karim have been living only miles apart for the past few decades.

But they only made the connection when Danny happened to strike up a conversation with Namir’s Lisselton native wife Kay during a recent pilgrimage to Lourdes.

“It was extraordinary really to find out that Kay’s husband had been a soldier on the Iraqi side and we arranged a meeting as soon as we possibly could,” Danny said.

The pair hit it off immediately as they connected over their memories of a conflict they each played a role in. Danny was responsible for transporting aviation fuel - driving a massive moving target that would have blown to high heavens if struck over the border into Iraq as they chased Saddam’s forces out of Kuwait.

Namir, meanwhile, was stationed in Baghdad as an engineer for most of the War having also served throughout the gruesome Iran-Iraq War.

“That only finished in 1988 and we thought ‘here we go again, another war’ when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990. I was about to have been discharged but had to serve another two years then,” Namir - an Iraqi Catholic - recalled this week.

But it was while stationed as a solider in Baghdad, just prior to the outbreak of the war, that Namir had a major encounter with destiny in the guise of a young Kerry nurse.

“My mother had suffered a stroke and was dying, really, and in an Iraqi hospital where the facilities weren’t great. But I managed to get her moved into the Irish hospital - I even had to get permission from the President Saddam himself to do so – and it was there I met Kay (née Carr) as she ended up nursing my mother,” Namir recalled. It was clear to both before long that something special was in the air but the war was to put every obstacle it possibly could in their path.

“Kay was to have left in August, but when the war broke out that month all the nurses became hostages, human shields effectively and I had to go on and serve another two years.” The nurses had no idea as to what was happening but for Namir, who risked his life to sneak into the hospital and keep them up to speed on developments outside.

Kay and her colleagues eventually made it out of Iraq, but the pair vowed to wait for each other and - sadly after Namir’s mother had passed away – were eventually reunited when Namir made it to Ireland in 1991; heady times that came flooding back this week.

ABOVE: Danny Finucane and Namir Karim cast their minds back to a far darker time over a cuppa in Namir’s café in Ballybunion. The pair were technically enemies in the first Gulf War as Danny was serving in the US forces and Namir was in the army of his...