>> thank you for staying for part two. i did not give you an option to leave so i'm glad you didn't take it. [laughter] i could not do a very good job of introducing our next two speakers. i can do it a little bit better with matt. i will let you tell your own stories. i will give you a brief thumbnail in the beginning. first on my left, salwan al-toki, first one that served as an interpreter for five years. he worked with the u.s. army, the usaid and the u.s. marine corps. he's credited with saving the lives of at least four marines during his service. he's a graduate of the university of baghdad where he earned a degree in civil engineering. he's quadrilingual, i believe, if that's a word. english, arabic, french and russian. he's a native in southern iraq. he served with various american organizations and units. from 2003 to 2011, and he waited two years to get his s.i.v. maybe begin a little bit by saying, how did you get involved with these crazy americans and are you crazy also to do so? salwan: well, i'd like to stand because i am not comfortable with seats. [laughter] i'm a civil engineer so i have to be on the field. so let me ask you this, guys. anybody accused to be a traitor? in this hall? was anybody accused to be a traitor? raise up your hand. don't be afraid. i am only one here. of course, nobody. oh, my colleague. [laughter] another question is, how many of you guys were standing between his fellow citizens and the american, which is their -- of course, not too many people. the third question is, what makes you sacrifice yourself to the person just eat with him one dish? and you have a good story with him, what makes you sacrifice with yourself to him? you don't know him. just you eat with him one dish and you drink within a locak drink. -- local drink. and not like somebody who is sitting in a fancy restaurant with his fiancee, with his girlfriend asking for a date. we are the s.i.v.'s, guys. we did everything. we sacrificed ourselves. we put ourselves in trouble. and then we are here as s.i.v.'s. on may, 2003, some americans came to visit my shop 100 miles south of baghdad near the iranian border and they were asking for some real food. i told them, what are you eating in the military? [laughter] they told me, m.r.e., which means, meals rejected by everyone. [laughter] and this is a message to general petraeus. [laughter] so anyway, they get involved with me with a speech and they were very interested to have me as a translator. i told them, i don't have any idea that the american's intentions in iraq, so i need to see your general. at that time he was mr. jay garner in the beginning. their intentions were very satisfied and they got involved in steps with with the united states. it means civil affairs group. we got involved through the stations.ater got involved to teach judges teach the police officers. , we get involved in everything to renovate the infrastructure in iraq and to make the local government, elected local government qualified by sending them to training. and we trained them also. then, i worked with the united states agency for international development as a program development officer. at that time we were involved to get women centers, children centers, iraqi chamber of and i was proud that i am the first one who established the iraqi-american chamber of commerce. but they forget me. and then i worked with the company as a subcontractor called e.e.c. which is environmental cooperation company. this company worked with the united states air force and i am a proud -- i was the establisher of the first police academy in iraq. this police academy trained lots of iraqi police and national guard every six months, about 1,600. that was in the south. and finally, i am here as s.i.v., and thanks for the american people and thanks for the investor, and thanks to the gentleman. he was my guest in baghdad and now i am his guest. the only thing is he's getting older and i am getting younger. [laughter] so, guys, i am proud to be here with you. and last thing i want to say is, i served with the united states loyally and to the best of my ability. so i am not afraid of this. we faced death shoulder by shoulder with the united states marine corps and with all americans. it is for this reason i am not afraid of death, but i am afraid of somebody left behind. thank you very much. [applause] paul: just before i introduce the next speaker, what did you did when you first got to washington? >> good question. the first thing i did here was to visit the grave of the first civilian targeted of the war. i was working with his unit and then he worked with the coalition provincial authority. he was targeted and killed and i visited his grave here. in the marine corps cemetery. and also i feel myself proud because i have good friends here like the lieutenant colonel and others. they supported me. they put me with their families. they consider me as a member of the family. thank you so much for them. [applause] paul: our next speaker served as an interpreter for the u.s. military in afghanistan for eight years. he's credited with saving the lives of at least five u.s. soldiers in combat. he's received numerous u.s. military commendations for his extremely honorable service. he's a graduate in the university in kabul with a degree in business administration. he's a native of jalalabad and supported the u.s. forces from 2005 to 2013. he spent four years waiting for his s.i.v. he speaks six languages. aboutn, urdu, hindi, he'll address us in english. [laughter] can you also begin by describing what got you involved in this teachers venture? dangerousenture? janis: thank you so much. thank you, everybody, for coming and thank you for having us here. actually, there were a couple of reasons why i became an interpreter. the first thing was because we just came from pakistan. when the taliban attacked afghanistan, we moved to pakistan and that was the only place where we could hide from the taliban. when we heard that the taliban is no more in afghanistan and there is a lot of opportunity to go and work, at least we could go back and when we heard that the taliban is no more in afghanistan and w. i came back to afghanistan because my english was not that much good because i learned my english from one american movie and that's all. i just went back and got a couple of classes. after a couple classes, i became an english teacher for a couple years. in 2005 i decided to go and work with the u.s. military as a translator. and i went there to camp phoenix in afghanistan. i passed the test and i became an interpreter. the first day was -- i do not remember when i was there the first day, but i did my job honestly. as the general said before, the translators were not allowed to carry a gun. i don't know. i was allowed to carry a gun. [laughter] they gave me an ak-47 with an american pistol. i could take it everywhere. because they know that i am one of their trustworthy interpreters. and i was in each fight with them shoulder to shoulder on the front line and fighting against the bad people. and one day i was really mad at the american commander. i was like, sir, why you sending me to each war, to each fight? whenever something happens, even if it's not in my team, but you guys are selecting me to go, do you guys want me to get killed? why? like he looked at me for a couple minutes and said, janis, no, that's not what you think. because we trust you. you are one of our trustworthy interpreters. that's why we are sending you to any dangerous nation. we know you are a good person and you can look after our soldiers. and i was like, oh, ok. [laughter] and we trusted them because we -- we were waiting for some people to come to our country and save us from the disaster , and finally when we heard about the u.s. military and that's why i went. i could support my country. i could support my people. and the other thing i could get some good benefits, salary, to , support my family. and the first person that i saved his life, i didn't know him. i didn't do him for a reason if i saved his life, he will take me to the united states, that was not my goal to come to the united states. he asked me a couple times if i ever go to the united states and i said, no, sir. i'm good here. i want to support my people, my country and i don't want to go to the united states. when i saved his life, as i say, i didn't know him. i only met him for a couple of minutes and seconds. i met him forll, a couple minutes. he said, hi, my name is matt zeller. i am one of the translators and i am looking forward to you -- working with you guys. i was at the tactical operations center. we received a radio call that the unit lost a truck by i.e.d. same thing. i was not in his team that time. somebody called janis, put your body armor and get your weapons and let's go. and i was like, again, me. [laughter] >> thank god. janis: i got my body armor, my pistol and i was ready for a fight. long story short, after about 30 or 40 minutes i got to the objective. first thing i saw from the windows of the humvee, the big truck was destroyed by i.e.d. and the engine was all gone. and i thought somebody is dead in this truck because the truck is damaged. and i jumped out of the truck. even the driver didn't know, i left the truck and the first question i asked the captain. i was like, everybody's ok? he said, everybody's ok. i started shooting at the enemy direction. i know where the bullets are coming from. somebody called me, do not shoot in this direction. i was like why. we have friendly guys over there. i said, are they dead or alive? they said, we don't know. i was like, i'm going to see if he's already dead, i will bring his body, god forbid. and if he is alive, i will bring him alive. i start moving, and when i get -- i got close to him. like he didn't see me but i saw him from his behind. i had a different uniform, if he sees me, he might shoot me and would think i'm a taliban or somebody. i was thinking for a couple seconds and i thought two things are moving behind him. when it passed my eyes, two taliban were coming a couple meters behind him to get him, kill him or get him alive. and i was like, no, i should make a decision. i can't go back. i can't leave my american friend here and there's two more guys that are about to kill him. and i did what i was supposed to do. i just shot at those two guys and i run at him and i was like, brother, you are not safe. let's go back. and he was like, who the hell are you? [laughter] he didn't remember my face. i was like, i am janis, i am one of the translators. you are not safe. let's go back. long story short, we went back. we came back to the base. the next morning, i went to the chow hall to get my lunch. he came with my plate and said, brother, can i sit here? i was like, sure. and he had me -- he said, thank you for saving my life. he said he's going to ask me a question and i was like, what? he said, what i did, what i did to him, he said he was expecting this from one of his own friends, one of his own americans but nobody came. nobody came to rescue him. why i did, why did i put my life in danger and save his life? i looked at him and i said, brother, you know you are a guest in my country and this was my responsibility to look after my guest. and that was my responsibility to save your life and now you are alive. you can go back and that's all i did. that's how afghan people, generally muslim people are. they don't want their guests to get hurt by everybody. we will put our lives in danger but save our guests. because he was my guest in my country and that's what i did, i put my life in danger and saved him. still, he asked me when he was leaving at the end of 2008, he told me if i come to the united states, he gave me his phone number, email address, everything. i can talk to him. he will help me come to the states. i was like, no, brother. i will be fine because i love my country. i love my people and i want to be here with my people. in 2009, afghan national army, the intelligence officer and said, janis, do you know now the taliban has their picture, your name, your address. and you are not safe here anymore. you have to quit your job or you have to get transferred from here to anywhere else. i said, ok. let's talk to my american commander because he is my boss. if he tells me to stay, i will stay. if he tells me to go i will go. we talked to him. he contacted the company. in 24 hours i was transferred to kabul. when i came to kabul i said, now i am in the safest place because the minister of defense is here, the ministry of intelligence is here. hundreds of thousands of troops are here. i will be safe here. but i didn't know those people were coming after me even to kabul city. when i came to kabul city i was interpreter manager. i was managing like 250 interpreters. started getting phone calls in afghanistan. they said hey, we are here. we know where you work. we know where you live and we will kill you or your son, anybody from your family. i was a couple miles away from my home, but like most that time, i stayed at the military base because i was safe there. and in the meantime, i talked to my brother and said, brother, now i am in a high risk, what should i do? he sent me a letter and said, submit this. send it to the s.i.v., apply for a visa. i sent everything to the s.i.v. that was in 2010. but i never heard anything back. in 2013 i did my interview but still they told me to wait for your visa. in this time i received the worst news in my life. one of the u.s. commanders said, this base is going to be shut down at the end of the year. not end of year but in september. and because we didn't get any replacement, you guys should go home because we don't have enough troops to assign you guys with. and that time i contacted matt and said, brother, i need your help. you need to get me out of afghanistan because now i lost my protection and i don't want to die or i don't want my son to get kidnapped. a lot of translators my friends , were kidnapped by the taliban. they were tortured, killed. and they sent their body parts to their family and friends to the end start -- friends to see and start working with the taliban. and i said i don't want to be one of them. i want to go because now i'm married, i have children. and my brother, then he will tell his part, but good thing i received my visa after two months. now i'm here. i'm safe and once again, i am thankful for my brother. he helped me a lot. i got my visa, my family. i owe him a couple lives now. and thank you so much. thank you for everyone. [applause] paul: janis, two quick questions. who was the movie you learned english from? it had to be a pretty good one. janis: it was an old one. i don't know if you guys marched this movie. the movie star is arnold schwarzenegger. the movie is "commando." [laughter] fights,how i learned and english. paul: so how did you get rid of your german accent? janis: still my accent is like schwarzenegger. like broken english. paul: serious question. i am told your mother had a lot to do with helping the americans. elaborate on that? janis: in a muslim culture, especially in our country, if a? mother is not educated, then their sons can go to the wrong ways. i'm telling you most of the taliban and al qaeda because in our country, if i go do anything, i will get my mom's permission first to do it. if she says no, it's no. if she says yes, that's yes. without her blessing, we don't do anything. and the one who is like taliban because their mothers are uneducated. they don't even know what the koran says. they say, ok, i am going to fight and i am going to kill americans, anybody that works for the government. because the mother is uneducated she says, ok, go ahead. god bless you, my son. but if i say the same word to my mom, trust me, she will slap my mouth and say sit down. but when i told her i am going to support my country, i'm going to help the u.s. mission in afghanistan, she was like, ok, my son. that's good. go ahead and do it. and that's how i started working with the americans. if my mother said no, i wouldn't be able to save my brother's life. paul: let's hear it for your mother. [applause] >> last but my no means least, the cofounder of "no one left behind." he abandoned a promising career to take on this mission. hopefully, you can go back to something else but whatever matt, of time it takes, give us a little bit about your story. >> thank you all for being here. thank you to general petraeus. another round of applause for them. i can't thank them enough. >> [applause] >> and to my amazing team. the only reason we have been as successful as we have been is because of them. they have followed me through this crazy endeavor with a labor of love. to understand how this got me isd, the guy next to not just my guardian angel. he is a saint. i will spare you the long story get him hereok to but when he arrived here we made such a stink about it in the press that cbs news sent a prominent journalist to cover our union at the airport. they ended up showing it nationally the next day on their morning program with charlie rose. what a lot of folks didn't see was what happened after the cameras turned off. the cameras were packed up and i turned to janice and said "what's get the rest of your luggage. tonight you can stay with my family." anus turned and pointed to these small rollaway suitcases and said open out brother, this is all we have." pounds ande under 50 sit in the overhead flight b in. he arrived with the clothes on ver was innd whate koran.itcase, the family the only black and white photo of his father that he owns. the tangible items in his heritage that are the precious family heirlooms that will never get stolen because he and his children can never return to their homeland. when i realized that was all they had, that they didn't even have linens for a bed and they didn't have any sense of what it was going to take to survive in our country, i was dumbfounded at how expensive the challenge was going to be to get this family integrated. i look for someone else to help and i realized it was on me. i was going to have to figure out where he was going to leave and find him a job. i didn't have the ability to do it independently. i grabbed the reporter and said, would you let folks know i'm going to start a gofundme page to raise money. three days later, i found him a modest two-bedroom apartment just down the road from where i was living. thanks to the generosity of friends and family, we were able to furnish it with wonderful donations of a bed and a couch and so forth. every night in afghanistan we would have tea together and talk about our cultures. i don't know if you ever had a chance to play the beatles for someone for the first time but it is pretty cool to see them and how they take to it. and it over to have chai took out a check because i had been to the bank to see how much money we had raised and what i found was shocking. $35,000 from the american public , from complete strangers, to support him and his family. i put that down at the dinner table and pulled out a check. i have a gift from the american people. your eightanks for years of frontline combat service. the only difference between me and him is twofold. one is stupid. i won the birth lottery and he didn't. i am a one tour combat veteran and he is an eight tour veteran. despite our differences i got to win the birth lottery. if i walk into the walmart tomorrow, i get a job. he has to plead his case and hope he gets considered. otherwise they ask him to buy something or move along. i didn't think that was right. i wanted him to know the american people were standing with him and more importantly that the money is covering the next year of his life, rent and food. i said, this is the first night in your life that you have had a chance to rest. he was born in 1978. the soviets invaded the next year. he has been facing a war ever since. he thought about accepting this but for all of half of a heartbeat he said "i can't take this." i said there wasn't a refund button. he got serious and said, what about his son? don't they deserve to be here too? he was listing off everyone else that was that on our base in afghanistan and he had a good point. even someone i didn't like deserve to be here. he was a good guy we just didn't get along so well. >> he is in now. >> yes, he is here now. i said, what do you want to do with the money? we do it to start an organization. you can clearly find someone a house and furnish it in a couple of days. i thought, sure. we could do that over a couple of years. as we found out about more translators, secretary robert gates's personal translator. when he arrived in the country, no one was there to greet him. when asked where to go he was directed to homeless shelters. his wife, himself, his four-year-old son and his two-year-old daughter walked up the 101 freeway to fulton street where they remain homeless. he spent seven years in the valley. that is a veteran. on the day he got here we allowed him to become homeless. that is unacceptable. when i realized the challenges these people were facing, that there was no other organization out there stepping up to meet that problem, my army training kicked in and i started calling jason, our coo. he was an army veteran for a decade and he said -- i called bill to arts. can you help me as well? we started putting a team together and four years later we are in eight cities and we have helped resettle 4000 people. that is just a drop in the bucket. there are still tens of thousands of people left behind. we want to get them all their visas. we want to get them and honor flight welcome at the airport, present them with an american provide them a place to live, furnish it at no cost to ave, buy them a car because car is ultimately the most transformative thing we can do. it opens up a world of employment. a first friend, an american to help mentor and guide them. after we have done this for all the people we made this promise to we don't want to be in business. how many organizations say they don't want to exist? if anything, we would like to see dod take on this responsibility because frankly, the solution should not be a 35-year-old with a nonprofit and a startup. but that is what it has become. that if we unify as a country and throw some resources behind this we really could solve this problem. otherwise, this is going to be one of those never again moments that we ultimately regret and all you have to do is ask a vietnam veteran to understand what that is going to do to not just our generation of veterans but -- i will finish with this. i enlisted right after 9/11. i'm proud new yorker. i was a sophomore in college on 9/11. i had no intention of going into the military but i walked into the first recruiter i saw a couple of weeks later and said, where do i sign? at the end of a i.t., there was a recruiter for rotc that said the army is a lot of leadership, we would like to send you back to school to get a commission. .wo years later i commissioned you get your first salute from an nco. the sergeant who gave me my first salute pulled me aside and said "sir, do you know what your responsibility is? " i said, it is to lead. he said, it was to take care of your soldiers. that is the best piece of advice anybody gave me. my commander at the time pulled me aside and said, do you know what you're response ability is now that you're taking off the uniform? he said it was to take care of soldiers. just because you take off the uniform doesn't mean you advocate -- abdicate that response ability. the only reason i'm alive today is because of him. because at some point he believed that we would keep that promise. so what happens to our brothers and sisters ike the major -- like the major who might end up war?ing in a future is it our response ability to make sure he goes off with the same resources i had if not better? who arehat means locals ready and willing to stand with us because we honor our word. that is the goal of our organization. to ensure that no one is left behind. >> [applause] >> just a warning, i want to ask you to tell the congressman what you will tell them if they follow general petraeus's device -- advice. if i might bring something on you, it is about the vetting process. suppose someone were to say, we've got this bunch of -- not interpreters -- who have been through this experience but unknown refugees. what would be the most important things to find out? do you have any ideas? it is a tough question. but it is what we are supposed to spend the next 90 days figuring out. i would advise -- from someonechly who has a friend in new york who was an immigrant from sicily 60 years ago. sicily is the home of the mafia. in order to get into the united states he had to do something like for interviews with the consulate. they interviewed all of his family, they had to check with people because he had the same name as a certain mafia family to make sure he was not actually related. they checked if his relatives were communists. this idea that extreme vetting wasn't invented yesterday -- it is more difficult in a place we know so little. we know more about sicily today than we know about iraq or afghanistan. if you want to confirm a refugee, i think when you call us a refugee we are not refugees. >> i'm not comparing. likely notost veterans. we served in the united states army and marine corps. we served under different circumstances. sometimes we were allowed to carry a weapon. to be a veteran is better than to be a refugee. we don't ask for any privileges. we did, we didn't ask for any privileges. we just asked that our country would be strong enough. we didn't ask for any privileges from the americans. only that we build our new country. i would tell a story on this. , are you working for the americans? i said, yes. ofould get the last version the code and maybe they would or me work with halliburton the u.s. army corps of engineers. yourld me, don't expand allegiance. they let us down in 1991. i told him, no, don't be so mean. 2003 is not 1991. in america and waving to my uncle from washington. he told me that as the americans at 711 -- friends towant our be here as soon as possible. i have friends fighting in most school now. -- in mosul now. i have friends fighting isis. we need them all here. no one left behind. behind buts are left now we are looking towards the future. if -- what are your thoughts iout the vetting process? >> don't know what to say about this. >> that is fair enough. matt has some ideas, i know. what do you want to tell the congress? to beginoff, we need accepting new applications in iraq. we have not accepted a new application since 2014 which might shock people because we have 4800 military troops otherng in iraq and contractors. most of those people don't speak arabic or kurdish and are relying on the support of local nationals who, once they have served with us, have fundamentally excommunicated themselves from the society around them. they are going to need some pathway to get here. pockettion, there is a -- it is not large -- but it can't submitiraqis applications because isis prevented them from getting to baghdad to file the application in time. afghanistan, the backlog is in the thousands, anywhere from 7000 to 10,000. there is only a current allocation of 1500 vehicles to cover that backlog and we are accepting new applications so when we get out we receive a new application in its place. get these people here, they are going to die. congress ought to restart the program in iraq. , service, cap and say if you qualify for your service and you can pass the most extreme form of vetting anyone can pass, they ought to earn the visa that they have, in fact, been promised because of their service. finally, we believe that they ought to be called veterans. they don't have to get v.a. giveits but shouldn't we them an honorary designation as veterans? this is not a bridge too far. the quarter ii, million filipinos who fought with armed forces in the south pacific were declared as honorary veterans. we actually gave them the a benefits and built a hospital in manila for them. we have done this before and in designating them as veterans not only would the world of philanthropy finally open up to support them getting back to the the general asked before, but in addition, think of all the lawyers who like to pride themselves on hiring a veteran. they like to do that on a population that is just as vulnerable. how many times have you been blown up? six? he doesn't get to talk to anybody about that. he doesn't get the chance to have his head checked out. anybody exposed to a concussion might have medical things. a guy in maryland has a bullet in his arm. ninealiban put it there years ago and really way he gets it out is with pro bono surgery. they come home with injuries but no access to facilities to help. if the congress designates them as honorary veterans that would go a long way in changing how our country integrates them and how they are perceived to be fellow veterans of our wars. >> [applause] >> that is a great note to conclude on. i think, if our interpreters are willing to stick around, they can come and talk to you. thanks for coming. you have been a great audience. >> [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. saturday morning, senior iran analyst with the foundation for defense of democracy. he joins us to discuss u.s. iran relations under the trump administration. will talkson klein about possible changes to u.s. education policy under the trump administration. and a pending confirmation vote for betsy devos. wired senior writer emily dreyfuss will discuss the executive order on immigration and the medical and high-tech fields. watch c-span's washington journal beginning live at 7:00 a.m. eastern saturday morning. join the discussion. monday on capitol hill, the bipartisan heroin task force will look at abusive synthetic opioids and how to treat drug users. the hearing will be live at 4:00 eastern time on c-span3. watch online at c-span.org and stream on the free c-span radio at. -- radio app. wayse chair of the house and means committee, kevin brady, outlines old for overhauling the tax code during a tax policy forum hosted by georgetown university law center and cosponsored by the international tech policy forum. this is half an hour. >> we have had a great morning of discussion. it is