Veteran seeks asylum for Iraqi man
‘The Captain’ saved my life: Millsap Remains found in PNG
LOS ANGELES, May 23, (AP): After three military combat tours in warn-torn Iraq, Chase Millsap returned home to get on with a civilian life, but there was one thing he couldn’t do: leave a comrade behind, certainly not one who had saved his life.
Especially not the former Iraqi military officer who, because he had worked with the Americans, was now living a precarious existence as a refugee dodging Islamic State militants seeking to kill him.
So for the past two years Millsap has been fighting a different kind of battle, one to gain asylum for the brother in arms he simply calls The Captain.
“The Captain is the epitome of my personal commitment to take care of people,” said Millsap, 33, who served in the Marine Corps and upon reenlistment joined the Army and became a Green Beret.
For the time being, The Captain lives in southern Turkey, struggling to obtain refugee status in what he hopes will be the first step toward seeking permanent asylum in the United States.
“If I go back, I’m sure I die,” the 37old Muslim and married father of two said recently during an interview over Skype. He agreed to speak, but, fearing for his safety, only wanted to be identified by his former rank.
As he spoke his 3-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son played in the family’s living room.
Millsap visited his friend last year at his cramped apartment, hoping he might help him expedite his refugee application.
After running into one obstacle after another — The Captain couldn’t get an interview at one government office because his papers were in English, not Turkish — Millsap returned to the United States and, with a handful of other military veterans, formed the nonprofit Ronin Refugee Project.
It’s dedicated to helping those who fought alongside Americans find safe harbor here or in other Western countries. After helping The Captain, they hope to turn their attention to others.
“He’s one of millions that’s stuck in a system that is broken and he’s just gonna continue to wait,” Millsap said. “And so we decided to step up, me and a few other veterans.”
On Tuesday, he will be in Washington to meet with members of Congress and others to discuss just how the US might go about doing that.
“That’s really become my mission,” said the newlywed who after obtaining his master’s degree from the University of Southern California went to work this NEW ORLEANS, May 23, (AP): More than seven decades after being killed during World War II, Pvt Earl Joseph Keating is finally coming home to his native New Orleans after his remains were discovered on the Pacific island where he died in 1942. It’s a journey long in the making. Keating’s nephew, Nadau “du Treil” Michael Keating Jr, was only 6 months old when his 28-year-old uncle was killed Dec 5, 1942. The private died at a place that came to be known as the Huggins Roadblock on the island of New Guinea just north of Australia — part of the bloody campaign to defeat the Japanese in the Pacific theater.
But the nephew remembers his grandmother’s message to him when he was just 12 years old and she was on her deathbed.
“She said ‘I want you to remember to please find Earl with your Dad. Help your dad find Earl,’” he said.
Pvt Keating was part of a group manning the roadblock when it came under withering attacks by the Japanese. The group repelled the onslaughts but suffered heavy casualties, including Keating and fellow Pvt John H. Klopp, 25, also of New Orleans. Fellow soldiers
month as a community liaison helping US veterans reintegrate into civilian life.
Friendly and outgoing, Mills was a fresh-faced 2nd lieutenant when he arrived in Iraq in 2006 to lead a contingent of US Marines and Iraqi soldiers. The Captain, a lieutenant himself then, was among the latter group.
“When I met The Captain I was unimpressed at first,” Millsap said, chuckling now. He was a Marine, after all, he is quick to add, and no decent Marine thinks anyone can do the job better than he can. Never mind that they were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by danger in a foreign country where they didn’t know the culture.
His attitude began to change as The Captain patiently explained why he and his troops weren’t getting buy-in from the locals or the Iraqi soldiers. It changed dramatically, however, after a sniper tried to take Millsap’s head off during a routine patrol.
buried them together.
But for Keating’s mother back home, the loss of one of her three sons never left. She wrote the military repeatedly, beseeching them to find her son’s remains, and the family frequently remembered him in prayers.
It wasn’t until decades later that the younger Keating Jr, who lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, was able to answer that death bed request with the help of villagers in Papua New Guinea. A villager out hunting came across the remains of the two men and some personal effects.
“He dug around and found a helmet and some artifacts such as the dog tags,” said Tyler Lege, Michael Keating’s young nephew. Word that some remains and effects had been found was eventually passed along to the US military, which sent a team to investigate.
The US military runs an extensive effort to recover the remains of missing troops from conflicts around the world. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency investigates reports of service members missing in action from Vietnam, World War II, the Korean War and other conflicts. There
“He quickly pushed me down and ran towards the gunfire and because of that saved my life,” Millsap recalled. The sniper, seeing an angry Iraqi soldier charging at him, chose to run rather than shoot again.
“And that,” Millsap added with a laugh, “is when I truly realized that this guy’s OK.”
It was coincidence the two crossed paths a year later during Millsap’s second tour. He was again in charge of a Marine contingent and The Captain was now his Iraqi counterpart. The bearded soldier stared at him, incredulous that he’d returned to that hell.
Millsap left the Marines after that tour to join the Army’s Green Berets, rising to the rank of captain himself. The two didn’t cross paths but kept in touch by phone and email until one day the communications stopped.
The Captain, Millsap would learn a year later, had nearly been killed when an IED blew up his Jeep. He recovered and soldiered on until ISIS began
are 82,729 people unaccounted for from all conflicts, according to the organization’s website. Yet troops from World War II make up the vast majority — 73,159.
To help identify Keating’s remains, the US military needed more DNA, said Keating, a search that eventually led him about a year and a half ago to Tulane University where he tracked down a cousin, Sue duTreil. Both she and her brothers also provided DNA samples and eventually the military was able to positively identify the remains.
“I’m so glad that he’s getting the attention that he deserves. He went through a lot from what we’ve learned,” said Sue duTreil. “I wasn’t born yet when Earl died and du Treil was only 6 months old but somehow we have become the ones to help bring him home.”
Pvt Keating will actually be buried in two places. Some of his remains were so intertwined with that of his friend, Pvt Klopp, that they were buried side by side with Klopp’s remains at Arlington National Cemetery in March. The remains that were positively identified as Keating’s are arriving Monday.
moving in and the death threats began. When calls to his home began identifying his children by name he gathered up his family and fled to Turkey.
Now a typical day begins with physical therapy on his right arm, still damaged by the IED. That’s followed by tasks like teaching his children the English alphabet, then studying English grammar himself so he can finetune his United Nations application for refugee status.
The last time he met with a UN official, he said, he was told a decision might come within three months. That was four months ago. Now he’s heard maybe in a month or two. Or maybe a year.
He and Millsap check in by Skype once a week. During a recent call he praised Ronin Refugee Project for not forgetting him.
“I feel like you are my family. You are my brother. You and the other group of Marines are really gentlemen,” he said before his voice began to break.