Mr. Muhammad Survives Iraq Long Road to Freedom

I was born in 1944 of a poor family but one that was rich with generosity and humanity. My birthplace is the Kurdish city of Kirkuk in Kurdistan ' Iraq. Despite the fact that my parents and siblings were illiterate because they weren't able to attend school due to the oppressive policies of the occupying regime of King Faisal I embraced high hopes for a bright future and also started my struggles as a Kurd during the difficult periods we went through as a nation. I attended elementary school, thanks to very unique incidents, in 1952. I assertively took steps to overcome economic and political hurdles as well as ethnic discrimination. I pushed forward until I graduated as a math and physics teacher at the top of my class in 1967 at the University of Baghdad. I was appointed a teacher in different schools and suffered unbearable persecution at the hands of the members of the dictatorship of the regime of Saddam Hussein for twenty-three years. I undertook a very risky venture in order to free myself from the suppressing hands of the regime. I pretended to be sick and I was able to succeed in convincing the system of my claim so that I escape certain death by the baath regime and I retired in 1989. After retirement, I had enough time in my hand to plan to flee Iraq. In 1990 my family and I packed and headed for Turkey. However, I was shocked with the kind of welcome we got from the Turkish regime. My family and I suffered unfair treatment and persecution at the hands of the Turkish regime. We almost died in four incidents while in Turkey because we were going to be deported back to Iraq. God was with us and we were saved from the Turks. Fate led us to be refugees at an American led camp in Kurdistan ' Iraq in 1991. We later were able to get asylum to the U.S.I attended school at Minot State University and acquired my baccalaureate in Mathematics in 1994. I then attended the University of North Dakota, and got my Masters degree in Mathematics in 1995. I became a teacher in the states of Montana and Minnesota from 1996-2002. I learned tremendously from high quality professors of math, higher sciences, and educational sciences. While working these years as a teacher I was also able to acquire 65 hours of postgraduate education in math. I then found work as a contract linguist from October 2002 to July 2005 for the U.S. military and I thankfully participated in the effort to topple Saddam Hussein.Muhammad, Taha M. is the author of 'Mr. Muhammad Survives Iraq Long Road to Freedom', published 2006 under ISBN 9781419631597 and ISBN 1419631594.