On June 25, Forward Defense Nonresident Senior Fellow Tammy S. Schultz published a book review with Noah Ramsey in War on the Rocks titled “Interpreters on the run: Baghdad underground railroad.” Schultz, the Director of National Security and Professor of Strategic Studies at the US Marine Corps War College, reviews Steve Miska’s book, Baghdad Underground Railroad, a memoir about the connection developed between US units and their translators, and discusses the violence perpetrated against Iraqis who worked as US interpreters during the Iraq war since US forces withdrew from the country, a fate now facing similar translators in Afghanistan.
Miska also provides clear evidence of the importance of these translators for U.S. national security. In Baghdad Underground Railroad, translators prevent costly choices. […] In Miska’s account, interpreters are not just communicators, but in many ways the eyes and ears of their teams.
