Voicing the Eagle

by Amanda Matti

Aide to the United States Military. In his own words, Fahdl recounts his story of going from life as a twenty-one-year-old, upper-middle class student at the University of Baghdad to being recruited right off his neighborhood streets to serve as an interpreter for a United States Army unit just days after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Over the next two years, Fahdl goes on to translate for U.S. drill sergeants training new Iraqi Army recruits in Ramadi , serves alongside U.S. Marines during the first Battle of Fallujah, and eventually lands a position as a linguist with Iraq’s newly formed national intelligence agency in Baghdad. Along the way, he suffers combat injuries, faces the challenges of integrating with American soldiers in the U.S. camps, is hunted by local insurgency groups for assisting the ”infidels” and eventually falls in love with an American service member. Voicing the Eagle is a unique, firsthand perspective on one of the United States most controversial foreign conflicts.

224 pages, Paperback

Published August 30, 2017

About the author

Amanda Matti served six years in the U.S. Navy as an Intel Analyst and is an Iraq War Veteran. She is the author of three books: Her Iraq War memoir, A Foreign Affair, tells the story of her 2005 deployment to Baghdad where she met her husband, an Iraqi national who served as her translator. Her second book, Voicing the Eagle, chronicles her husband's story of working as an interpreter for U.S. forces in Iraq. Her latest book, New Dawn Underground, is a counter-terrorism thriller about a female CIA analyst who poses as a Washington Post journalist to infiltrate a terrorist organization in Iraq. Amanda lives in San Diego, CA with her husband, Fadi, and their two daughters.

Reviews

[Megan Westfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, US and international forces could not have operated without assistance from Arabic interpreters. Sometimes these were US citizens working for federal contractors who would go on “deployments” to Iraq. More often, the interpreters were local Iraqis who served alongside US service members. They took all the same risks but got almost none of the compensation, protection, or benefits. In fact, the risk was even greater for the local-born interpreters, seeing as they and their families were under constant surveillance and faced murder and murder-attempts by enemy operatives.

Voicing the Eagle is the story of one such interpreter, Fadhi Matti, as told by his wife, a former U.S. Navy linguist, as a prequel to her 2017 debut memoir, A Foreign Affair.

The aspect I most enjoyed about this book was Fadhi’s observations about US culture and US soldiers and marines, as he had quite a unique vantage point after spending years living among our military forces on US bases and during US military operations in his home country. His insights are poignant as well as humorous, and they shed light on how individual members of US forces viewed middle easterners during those years.

Additionally, this book illuminated the complex relationship of contract companies doing work for the Department of Defense, and gives an Iraqi-American’s perspective of the effectiveness of the war, as viewed from the front lines, on and off for nearly a decade.

[Jeanie Loiacono · Rating 5 out of 5]

Voicing the Eagle is an eye-opener! I am so glad Amanda Matti wrote the prequel to A Foreign Affair. Now we know what happened to Fahdi before they met. More people should know what life was and is really like in Iraq. Most think terrible things about those in the Middle East when they are just like the rest of us with dreams and goals, love their children, want to have the freedom to education and religion, career aspirations, and PEACE. Fahdi is such a brave man on so many levels, and a great husband and father. We get to hear in his own words about the trials, hardships, being shot, and how he helped his country and the United States as a translator. Well written and real page-turner.

— CJ Loiacono

[Ellen Mae moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book and it really gave the reader an in-depth view of what it was like for Fadi growing up and working in a war torn country! It is definitely a MUST read and a book I couldn’t not put down when I started it!