How a U.S. Marine and an Afghan interpreter forged a bond of friendship in Afghanistan
Zac Zaki was an interpreter for the United States Marines in Afghanistan. The memories of bloody battle are still with him:
“Sounds like whistling by your ear and the minefield that you’re walking through on it. You lost your friend, your partners,” he says. “You saw the pieces of people’s bodies.”
Tom Schueman was his commander.
“We were headed towards the village and Zac was monitoring the radio. And he could hear what the Taliban were saying and they said, ‘We’re going to start the ambush in just a minute.’ But we were in a minefield,” Schueman says.
Today, On Point: Zac Zaki and Tom Schueman joins us to talk about the friendship they forged in Afghanistan, and what it took to get Zaki out of Kabul.
Guests
Zainullah “Zac” Zaki, former interpreter with the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines during the war in Afghanistan. Co-author of Always Faithful: A Story of the War in Afghanistan, the Fall of Kabul, and the Unshakable Bond Between a Marine. ()
