Ali Mustafa finds that the scars of war stay with him even at his new job in the lab.

Ali Mustafa is an undergrad student for a second degree at Boise State University, in the Material Science and Engineering program, expected graduation is spring 2020. He had earned honors from the dean in Materials Science & Engineering program for the spring 2018 semester. Ali’s first bachelor degree was in chemical engineering with emphasis in chemical industries from the technological university – Baghdad, Iraq. Ali has joined the magnetic shape memory alloys research team at Boise State University, in February 2018, and he had been assigned for the crystal growth research team using Bridgman method to grow Ni Mn Ga single crystal. Ali worked in technical business development, sales, management and engineering professional with 10+ years of experience with multinational companies like HITACHI heavy machinery, and he worked in the technical engineering support office for BASF chemicals in Dubai - UAE. Ali is also a volunteer at Community Trust Partnership Program - Boise Police Department, Boise, ID (2017).

This story originally aired on February 1, 2019 in an episode titled “Danger: Stories about life-threatening situations”.

Story Transcript

I used to work with the U.S. Air Force in Iraq as a civilian contractor back in 2006 until 2012.  I did a lot of data analysis and logistic support for our troops over there.  My office was an underground bunker and I spent most of my time facing my laptop and reading emails trying to fix a lot of screw-ups that we did over there.  

One day, I was running upstairs and holding my super hot, microwave lunch, so excited and so determined not to waste any minute of my precious lunch time.  It’s my time with the Middle Eastern sun, the sun that will make you one hundred percent sure that the global warming is not a hoax. 

I didn’t care how hot and how dusty it was.  I just enjoyed it.  I enjoyed seeing these soldiers struggling with their gears and their armors.  I’m counting how many Black Hawks landing and taking off.  I just freaking love that. 

While I was talking to two new officers and I was actually briefing them about their mission in the Red Zone, the sirens went off.  It was so loud and so disturbing. 

Somebody shouted “Incoming.” 

I said, “Who’s coming?” 

One of the soldiers shouted at my face, “It’s mortars, you moron.  Run, run, run!”

I didn’t have time to think.  I just ran to nowhere because I couldn’t hear the explosions.  I just felt the buff in my chest, and a lot of them.  I didn’t know where to go or where to hide until I saw one of the birds not far away from me.  So I threw myself underneath it, crawled to the middle, hugged my legs and squeezed my neck into my body armor trying to protect myself. 

But I didn’t know the bird was already on fire.  It was a direct hit.  Until I started to smell the plastic.  The metal was deforming and it’s cracking.  Heat just started to rise up.  I turned my head into the ground and started to dig a hole by using my fingernails.  I tried to bury my head there but I wasn’t fast enough.  The heat rate was so fast. 

I didn’t know what to do so I unbuckled my body armor and held it up and tried to protect my head from the dripping, molted metal that started to drip as like hot, red lava inches away from my head.  Suddenly, I felt like I've been struck by thunder in my hand as one of the drops hit my hand and burned it. 

I've been trained to control pain mentally and not to show any emotions.  I was like blank.  But I know that’s it.  This is it.  This is the end and I’m done. 

So I told my Shahada or my prayers and tried to escape away from the moment and I just started to think about my lunch and how the bugs and the explosions are going to ruin it for me now.  Then everything went blurry and I stopped feeling the pain on my hand.

Actually, I don't remember when the medics pulled me out, but I surely remember like when I looked up and I tried to see the sun, but it was so dark because of the smoke coming out from the helicopter.  I tried to answer all the silly questions that the medics tried to ask me, like ‘What’s your name’ and ‘What day are we in’. 

There was one dude.  He would start poking me with needles everywhere in my body and asking me if I felt them. 

I was like, “What the fuck, dude.  Just stop hurting me.”  It just pissed me off. 

I didn’t feel happy when they pulled me out.  I felt my life was going downhill.  I don't know if they pulled me out or I’m still there.  I didn’t feel it. 

I couldn’t see my son for two years after that.  I tried to quit my job and become a civilian again.  I moved to the U.S. and tried to get away from Baghdad madness and escape to a city where there are no sirens and there are no incomings but the dark smoke followed me to Boise.  I was stuck in low-pay jobs and no employer will accept my degree in chemical engineering.  There's no fun, no life.  I go to work, go to bed.  That’s it. 

But deep down I know I can make the future.  I’m a fighter.  It’s a war and I have to win it.  This is nothing for me.  For God’s sake, I survived a mini holocaust by only a small scar on my hand. 

So I decided to go back and do a second degree in engineering at Boise State and, during my second semester, I applied for a job, a research assistant job with one of the most distinguished professors at BSU. 

I know I’m not going to get it.  It’s far away from me but, anyway, I did the interviews, I applied, I did whatever he asked me to do and I just like forget about it.  It’s not going to happen.  I just focused more on my classes. 

While I was studying for my midterms at the library, I received an email from my PI.  He said, “You got the job!” 

I was like no emotions.  That’s my training.  I literally walked down from the library and crossed the street to the church and started jumping like a kid.  I couldn’t believe it. 

I love this job.  It opened a lot of doors for me and it’s an opportunity for a new life here in Boise. 

So my PI assigned me for a new experiment where we will cast single crystals and I have to melt my alloys to 1200 centigrade and cast them into a mold.  The first time I did the experiment, I turned on the furnace and I see the material getting hotter and hotter and it turns into bright yellow, thick liquid dripping into a mold. 

A flashback hit my brain when I remembered the melting metal of the helicopter dripping inches away from my head and suddenly the scar on my hand started to hurt me again.  I panicked.  I freaked out.  I turned off the furnace and stepped back.  I didn’t know what to do. 

But I have to do it.  I have to prove myself.  I’m not a quitter.  This is my life now.  I've survived everything.  I've survived car bombs.  I've survived mortars.  I've survived hostile environment, discrimination, language barriers.  You name it I survived it.  So why should I stop? 

I kept doing it.  Next day, I went back and tried again and tried harder.  But it’s not happening.  We’re not getting what we are supposed to get.  The science, the math, the saying we have to get it, but it’s not doing it. 

So I went back and I asked my professors very stupid questions and I didn’t care.  I flipped every stone and I just tried and tried and tried.  Two months later, BK, my research teammate and I were doing an x-ray imaging for one of the latest ingots that we got and, boom, we got something.  My eyes froze on the monitor.  I couldn’t talk. 

I turned to BK and told him, “Dude, we got it.” 

I went back and I started to take my lunch outside my lab near the Engineering Building.  The dark smoke is going to fade, is fading and soon I’m going to see my sun again. 

Thank you, guys.