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Show j Native of Iran Visits in Milford; Wants to Become U. S. Citizen Wars are fought and lost; fought and won, and out of each war comes a story of human interest, love, and emotion, and' Milford Mil-ford is not without such a story. The story dates back eight years and the setting takes place on the other side of the globe 12,000 miles away in the land i of Iran where certain American G I's were stationed, and were operating ,the Iranian State Railroad through the Persian Corri-j Corri-j dor, delivering supplies and materials for our ally, Russia. The I year was 1944 and the setting was Doroud, Iran, a small village , where a detachment of railroad men were living and operating ' their particular section of the life-line into Russia. Here Bill Tribole was stationed as an acting first sergeant and where he IRANIAN VISITOR : - .. i h 1 ! I first met a young Iranian lad of about 15 years of age. This par- j ! ticular lad captured his interest ' since he was different from so many of the usual type of individual indi-vidual he encountered daily in that he was particu'arly clean in his appearance and particularly dependable and trustworthy attributes that are lacking greatly great-ly in so many of his countrymen and in consequence he went out of his way to make an acquaintance ac-quaintance and perhaps give some assistance to this promising lad who was rapidly gaining the 1 American way of life from silent observation and practice of what was being shown him by American Amer-ican soldiers in the camp. This lad of 15 was Reza Ba-harie Ba-harie Najad, but to all of his friends in the camp and among his acquaintance he was called Ronnie, and so it has been to him even to this very day. Thus it will always be to those who have known him. Although only 15 years old he had been the chief bread-winner for his family consisting of his little sister, an older brother, and a widowed mother, his father fath-er havihg died as the result of a railroad accident and a lingering illness of malaria. It had been, therefore, the responsibility of this lad to be father, brother, and Reza Baharie Najad i provider for his family, so work was nothing new to him, but more important even at this age he knew and practiced thoroughness thorough-ness in his work, how insignificant insignifi-cant or how apparently unimportant unim-portant it seemed to be. Whether Wheth-er it be merely sweeping an orderly or-derly room, dusting, or running an errand to the village bazaar for an officer or for a G I, it j (Continued on Page Three) was now with the older son, so at long last Ronie's dream was ahead of him. America was at long last within his grasp. The American friend had not forgotten forgot-ten their mutual desires and transportalon was made available avail-able to him. From Teheran to Baghdad and Damascus ; thence to Cairo, Naples, Geneva and Paris by air. From LeHavre to New York City aboard the S S United States, the new luxury liner recently completed com-pleted and breaking the Atlantic Atlan-tic crossing time. By air New ifork City to Chicago and thence overland to Salt Lake City, and I then after eight long years of longing, planning and praying they were together again in America. Time had melted in,to nothingness and the years were as short as a breath of air. A prayer had been answered. Ronnie is now in Milford and has met many of the Milford people. They have liked him and he them. America to him early age of 15 years the value of being bi-lingual and who was progressing by leaps and bounds. To make the instruction even more practical, it was thought by his buddy Trib that Ronnie could learn his English and his alphabet at one and the same time by the use of the typewriter, typewrit-er, so the lad was placed at an Army typewriter and he began to learn the touch system of typing typ-ing and began to learn the coordination coor-dination required of the typist reading from sight. A chart for progress was kept and during the short seven months time these two were together, he attained at-tained a record of 40 words per minute, which is enviable as most beginners can realize. But it was not all study and work and there were times when thoughts of war could be cast aside and time when they could participate together in the recre-' ational facilities offered them. In the nearby hills of Doroud they spent many hours hunting the various wild animals which I and the letters came regularly telling of his many activities, his difficulties, his hopes and aspir-j aspir-j ations, his many apparently un- surmountable difficulties that l were so ever present and which ' made his desires seem as utter impossibilities. World War II ended and the soldier returned to civilian life again, returning to his civilian job and wondering and concerning concern-ing himself with what could be done to assist this lad to come to the land of America and participate par-ticipate in the life that he had grown to think of more of his own than the life that was ever surrounding him in his homeland home-land of Iran. Correspondence with embassies, embas-sies, consuls, State Department followed. Plans for entry into schools were made, but it was always the same story: Not practical, prac-tical, not feasible at the time. Red tape, affidavits, certificates followed, but again it was the same: unable to materialize at the time. has been the fulfillment of a dream and truly the land of opportunity. op-portunity. No American can appreciate ap-preciate more than he what it means to be able to see democracy democ-racy at work. He loves America and hopes that soon he, too, will be one of its sons. (Editor's note: The above is Bill Tribole's report of the coming to America of Ronnie Najad, Iranian native whom Bill met while serving with the U S Army in Iran during World War II. In an early issue we will publish an article by our visitor from Asia, telling tell-ing his impressions of the land he dreamed for seven years of Visiting.) Here's More About IRANIAN Continued from Page One) was done in completeness and in thoroughness to the best of his abilities. There were no half measures with him, a thing in itself which began to capture the notice of all friends and soldiers in the camp. Soon he became a sort of an institution for Camp Gillies and was outfitted in G I clothing, tailored by his mother, to fit this mascot of the camp. Next it was arranged by the first sergeant that he be allowed to eat in the mess hall with the regular detachment de-tachment of soldiers and from the supply sergeant he obtained the required mess kit and eating equipment, A complete medical examination by the camp doctors doc-tors proved his cleanliness of body and Ronnie lined up with every other G I in camp when it came time for the regular medical med-ical shots for typhus, smallpox, I cholera, tetanus and yellow fev-1 er, and a record was kept for i him by those in the dispensary. ! At all recreational programs he could be found sitting next to the first sergeant and enjoying fully the American films as they passed on the screen before his eyes, and even at this early stage he was dreaming that one day he would come to America and see those things for himself with God's help. This dream of a lifetime continued con-tinued to grow as his American buddy Trib began to instruct him daily in the use of the English language in its written form. Ronnie had been with American soldiers enough to be able to speak some of the language at least to understand the usual directives di-rectives given him and to make more than his wants known but even at his early age he could understand the advantage of ! knowing the written language as ' well, so regularly each day he came for instructions in the lan-1 guage that was gradually becom- j ing his new tongue and which he was beginning to handle well, i From the very beginning of j English fundamentals he started and wrote as any learner his first ABC. Each day he studied with the acting first sergeant and each day the instructor could note a gradual improvement in his learning. New words appeared in his vocabulary and fell surprisingly sur-prisingly into correct form when put into sentence usage. Spelling Spell-ing took on its appearance and a weekly examination would reveal re-veal the success and progress made by this interested young lad who could vision even at .the were plentiful: bear, leopards, mountain sheep, gazelle. In the swamp areas near the village were wild boar, ducks, geese, which they hunted together, using us-ing an old German-made 12 gauge shotgun borrowed from Ronnie's uncle in Sultanabad. There were a few U S O shows, regular movies presented by special spe-cial service division of the Army, and an occasional opportunity to get to the capitol city of Teheran, the meeting place of the "Big Three' conference. The acting first sergeant had by now met Ronnie's family and I been in their home, eaten Per-I Per-I sian food prepared so deliciously ! by the widowed mother, and had begun to feel a part of the life of Iran as he had not been able so to do before because of inability in-ability to contact Iranian families fami-lies because of military restrictions. restric-tions. The desire to help the young lad come to America and participate in a better life was fermenting and beginning to take on form and shape. It was hoped by both of them that the required papers could be filled the legal technicalities overcome, out, the necessary releases found, but then, as is so often the case, the Army transferred the soldier and within a matter of a short few weeks he was on the high seas headed toward America, the land he and Ronnie had hoped would be both their land one i day. ! The inevitable should have happened, but didn't. Normally the contacts that were made at that time would be severed, the spanse of land and sea and half a world away would engulf the two and contacts automatically die. Any plans for a trip to America that might have been made would die with the debarkation debark-ation of the soldier for his home and country. All plans for studying study-ing a foreign language like Eng-I Eng-I lish would be forgotten and the 15-year-old boy would settle down into his normal way of life as an Iranian subject. This is what should have happened, but this boy was not the usual boy and his interest in America and in his study of English did not die. He began to write letters let-ters in his own hand to this selfsame self-same soldier now in America and spurred on with encouragement I from his buddy Trib he contin- ued on with another study entirely en-tirely on his own and amid , criticism of his own countrymen who would chide him no doubt about the impracticability of his l ever coming to America or ever , seeing his friend again. This criticism acted only as a stimulus Fall turned into winter; then into spring and again into summer. sum-mer. A year rolled around; then another, and another, and still the situation was hopeless. Prayers Pray-ers and hopes and aspirations crumbled as Ronnie now revealed re-vealed that his brother was being conscripted into the Iranian Army for two years and he must remain with his mother and little lit-tle sister and care for them. 1948 died and 1949 arrived and still regular correspoindence arrived ar-rived from Iran and departed from Milford and Ronnie was no further than he was when he said goodbye to his friend in 1945 when he departed from his land as a soldier in khaki. Then the final blow arrived. Ronnie, too, must serve his two years in the Iranian Army as a conscript, as any other Iranian : male citizen, so once again all hopes of coming to America were gone. As an Iranian soldier sol-dier he made 20 rials or the equivalent of about 50c per month, so what chance had he of ever arriving and seeing again the friend whom he had known so well and thought so much of those many years ago, but he never gave up faith and prayed deeply to his God whom he called Allah for those of the Moslem Mos-lem faith, but it was a prayer deeply rooted and one from the heart. He was no longer the 15-year-old boy as of the days in Doroud but was now a 20-year-old young man, a soldier, and a conscript in the Iranian Army. Ingenuity and perseverance with his English was beginning to pay its dividends, as he was now able to translate, could speak English well enough to justify a position of importance to high ranking officers in both the Iranian Army and to those in the American Army who were now in Iran acting as advisers to a Military Mission. Ronnie had begun to study, too, the international interna-tional code for radio operators and could send and receive either eith-er in Iranian or English and translate ino either. He was finding the value of the English he had begun to learn as a 15-year-old boy during the years of World War II. July of 1952 arrived and his service was now behind him. Once again he was a civilian and the fire of desire to come to America was still as much alive in his body as ever before. There were still a few problems ahead, his little sister had to be cared for; also his mother. September arrived and his little lit-tle sister Sooroo had grown up and was married. His mother |