‘Where Have You Guys Been?’ POW From Chicago Just Visiting
The allies have captured many Iraqi soldiers, but few were so strange as the man who greeted his captors in Bermuda shorts, a T-shirt and a perfect Chicago accent.
“Where have you guys been?” he asked. “We’ve been waiting for you!”
A resident of Chicago, the unidentified Iraqi man had been visiting his grandmother in Baghdad when he was drafted into the Iraqi army, according to a senior allied military source. He had no further details.
The story had a familiar ring.
On Jan. 21, while helping set up a POW camp, Sgt. Alan Jones of Milwaukee was approached by a prisoner and discovered to his astonishment that they knew each other by sight.
The Iraqi had been a student in Wheeling, Ill., where Jones had belonged to a Veteran of Foreign Wars post, and they figured out that they had passed many times on the street.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
