It’s amazing where one might run across an American hero. Take Brannon Hills, the miserable apartment complex in DeKalb County. That’s where I met Gul Agha, a father seeking a better life for his wife and kids. And a brave man who U.S. soldiers call “brother.”
Agha’s comrades fondly call him “D Man.” He was an interpreter for the U.S. Army in his native Afghanistan. Soldiers say he assuredly saved American lives. Their lives.
He is also a Muslim, a Sunni, the kind of person Donald Trump wants no part of.
I encountered Agha by chance Monday night when driving through Brannon Hills, the partially burned-out complex near Clarkston, recently in the news because of its dire atmosphere. It’s a place largely populated by immigrants and refugees.
I had come to chronicle suburban decay and found D Man Agha instead.
Agha, 31, came to the U.S. in May 2013 under the Special Immigrant Visas program, part of the Afghan Allies Protection Act. Last year, 9,000 Afghan allies or their families were given such expedited visas, a six-fold increase of the previous year. The U.S. has allocated another 4,000 visas as our military filters out of the country.
“I came over here because my life was in danger,” he said. Someone shot at his car. He and his family moved frequently to keep from being found. Wiping out a family sends a strong message to those who might think about helping the Great Satan.
In 2007, D Man’s friend, fellow interpreter Farid Noori, didn’t show up for work. His headless body was later found on a roadside.
Guys like Agha knew the dangers going in.
“He put his life on the line,” said retired Army Maj. Bruce Gaffney, who befriended D Man during one of Gaffney’s five tours of duty. “There was no forgiveness for him. If he stayed, he would have been killed, as well as his family.”
In all, Agha worked for nine years as a linguist, but he was much more than an interpreter. He was the eyes and ears and cultural translator for Americans in a strange and cruel environment.
“I was on countless missions where I attributed our survival to the fact that he was there,” said Gaffney. “He, under Candidate Trump’s policies, would not be allowed in the U.S. It was infuriating to hear that from a presidential candidate. It made my blood boil. The first thing I thought of was my interpreters. D Man was my personal interpreter.
“Their job was simply to act as a conduit for language,” Gaffney said. “But they did so much more. They could get the feel of a village.”
Gaffney led teams of soldiers who trained members of the Afghan National Army, an often iffy proposition.
“They could pick up who was really dedicated to us, who would abandon us or who might shoot us in the back,” Gaffney said. “They believed in our mission. He became a buddy, a friend. He was not just a contract employee; he was part of our team. I just can’t say anything more than that.”
Retired Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Strickland admitted he gets emotional talking about Agha and other interpreters who risked their lives. “D Man was so much more than an interpreter. They were friends. We didn’t just talk about soldiering and tactics. We talked about life.”
Eight years ago, when D Man had his first child, “we had a baby shower for him. That shows you how much we thought of him.”
Both soldiers said they have slept as Agha stood nearby — and they didn’t feel the need to keep an eye open.
Once, Strickland’s unit was headed to a village where an informer said there was a cache of weapons. “When he got there, D Man said, ‘There’s something wrong here.’ We stopped. If we had gone another mile, we’d have been ambushed.”
Another time, in 2007, a unit was involved in a hellacious firefight in a town called Shudergay, a battle that was captured in a book written by James Christ. Strickland and D Man were there.
Asked about the combat he witnessed during his nine years, Agha checked down the list: “We were ambushed. There were rocket attacks, grenade attacks, mortar attacks, land mines, anti-tank mines.”
Strickland now drives a truck and says it’s sometimes hard to bite his tongue when he hears anti-Muslim rant. Recently, he brought up the service of Agha and other interpreters in response to a guy mouthing off.
“I got into it the other day when this guy says, ‘Let’s send these Muslims to Alaska and let Obama be their king.’ I told him, ‘When the RPGs were coming in and you were here asleep in your bed, we were fighting over there with them. My brothers.’”
So, I asked D Man, why’d you do it? Why did you risk it all for you and your family?
“Because the bad people came into my country,” he said. “They kill in Afghanistan. They kill in Paris. They kill in America. There are very good people in my country. There are good people everywhere.”
“I did my part, what I did. I did the right thing. Maybe I never get a chance again to do so much good.”
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