Nashville is home to the world's largest population of Kurds outside the ME.

I met my first Kurd, Zabari, a Kurd who fled after the '90 Gulf War. Great guy. Friendly, empathetic, knowledgeable. We talked over the years about Saddam and eventually teamed up to raise money to drill wells in Kurdistan, where many had to walk miles to get water. He was glad I was a white guy who knew about the Kurds, Saddam's butchery, etc

He opened a restaurant and worked sunup to close at 10. Gyros and other Middle Eastern food.

In 2003, I was surprised when he told me that over the past 20 years he'd also managed to earn a Masters Degree in International Affairs, and was moving to Mosul to work as a contractor for the the U.S. He is now a multimillionaire businessman there. It couldn't have happened to a better guy.

The Kurds I know here are are wonderful people who've built lives and have assimilated very well.

AU

You might like to see some of this... a recent ride in Kurdistan.

It isn't every day one gets to meet a Peshmerga general.

Happened to me one day while eating at one of my favorite Mediterranean restaurants during the Iraq War. He was at the table next to me and we struck up a conversation. He was in Nashville because he'd been seriously wounded in Iraq and flown to a VA hospital here for treatment, and headed back to take up arms again.

Those are some tough dudes!

#13 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS

Thanks for the very interesting info. I have much to learn about the Kurds! Once Amazon gets their payment system working again, the book you recommended will be on its way here. I'll probably ask you for some more recommendations when I'm done. My reading is typically 50-50 fiction-nonfiction. I love history, but also learning new things. This will provide me with more conversation topics with the various Kurdish people I know in Nashville.

The Peshmerga general wasn't what I'd call affable, but then again he'd just been released from the VA hospital where he'd spent months recovering from serious injuries. I felt, like Zebari (who I knew for a good 25 years, and whose name I misspelled earlier), the general was glad to know a white guy was a little bit knowledgeable about the persecution of Kurds for so long by Saddam, Turkey, etc.

I could tell he'd give any threat a run for their money. Tough as nails.