Troops Build Home In USA For Widow Of Iraqi Tipster

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
USA Today
March 31, 2008
Pg. 2
By Associated Press
WEST FARGO, N.D. — A woman and her seven children have a new house as part of a promise made to her husband, killed in Iraq after he helped American soldiers.
Two North Dakota National Guard soldiers stood this weekend in the newly built Habitat for Humanity house beside Fatima Ali, the Iraqi woman they call "Mrs. M." Each touched the wall in a blessing.
Mrs. M's husband, Majid Ali, had invited the North Dakota soldiers into his home in north-central Iraq and provided them with lifesaving information about roadside explosives planted by Iraqi insurgents.
"This family here saved American lives," Sgt. 1st Class Shayne Beckert said, choking up as he looked at the children. "If it hadn't been for their father, there would have been more parents in North Dakota with hurt in their hearts."
Members of the North Dakota National Guard's 141st Engineer Combat Battalion were on hand three years ago to greet Mrs. M and her children when they arrived in Fargo. "My children have lost their father," she said. "But I think they will find they have many fathers here."
The North Dakota soldiers had arrived in Iraq in 2004. Capt. Grant Wilz's platoon of B Company was deployed near Tikrit. Its primary assignment was to clear roads of roadside bombs.
The bombs killed two members of B Company: Sgt. Lance Koenig, 33, Fargo, and Specialist Phil Brown, 21, Jamestown. In all, the 141st lost four men in Iraq.
Wilz's platoon was on patrol one day when it happened upon an Iraqi man whose truck had broken down. The Americans searched Majid Ali, grilled him about a weapon they found, and soon were sitting down to supper in his house. When their new friend began providing them with intelligence about where insurgents were placing bombs, they called him Mr. M in reports, hoping to protect him — but he was pulled from his truck and shot 30 times in the arms, legs, chest and head. His 11-year-old son had to watch.
The soldiers had told Ali to be careful. He smiled and dismissed the warnings, they said, and asked only one thing: "If something happens to me, take care of my family."
This weekend, they did.
 
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