After the 9/11 attacks, Iraqi immigrant Khuder Al-Emeri’s life was falling apart.

Business plummeted that fall at his restaurant, Rosemary Mediterranean, on Aurora Avenue North in Seattle. He had opened it after years of working in a dry-cleaning business and as a cook.

He was never sure why customers stopped coming: Was it the economy, or backlash against a Muslim-owned business? He abandoned the venture — and looked for work.

In the winter of 2003 came new opportunity: He was hired as an interpreter for U.S. Marines invading his homeland.

This conflict marked a dramatic turn in what President George W. Bush called a war on terror, targeting Iraq as part of an “axis of evil” that included Iran and North Korea. These nations sought weapons of mass destruction, and thus — Bush argued in a 2002 State of the Union speech — posed a “grave and growing danger.”

I spent time with Al-Emeri as he resettled in his hometown of Qal’at Sukkar less than a year after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was overthrown by U.S. forces. The visit was part of a series of reporting assignments for The Seattle Times that stretched over more than a decade. My reporting took me from Algeria to Southern Oregon to Iraq and finally — twice — to Afghanistan, tracing some of the Pacific Northwest’s connections to the U.S. response to 9/11.

I can share in these sentiments. Still, I find this is a time for reflection, on what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, and how our nation’s response changed so many lives here and around the world.

Read the full piece here.

Through the years, these wars went awry, some of our soldiers’ most grievous wounds were those unseen and families were torn apart not only by acts of terror but also the quest for retribution.

Dan Bershinksi