Marine veteran returns for an update
LAUREL — Marine Veteran Bob Koenig just wanted to help.
And help, he did.
He journeyed through a 140-mile ‘Ruck for Refugees” walk last October that wound through Laurel before ending in Hartington.
He is the nephew of Hartington residents Tom and Sue Lange and the grandson of the late Owen and Mary Anne Koenig.
The Ruck for Refugees journey was set up to help raise awareness and money to find suitable housing for his Afghan friend and past interpreter Deputy Mubarak and his extended family. They were some of the first Afghanistan refugees to make it out of the country during the August pull-out of American troops in August and which turned out to be a grueling experience for the refugees who literally had nothing but the shirts on their backs.
Mubarak was Koenig’s interpreter during his first two of four deployments to Afghanistan and he credits Mubarak with saving his life and the lives of his unit on countless occasions. Until recently, he had not seen Mubarak since he left Afghanistan in 2004 on his last tour of duty, he was able to reconnect after the U.S. departure and he felt obligated to do what he could do to help his friend and family get settled in America.
Koenig told Laurel area residents Monday that the funds raised here were combined with donations raised elsewhere and were then used for a down payment of a house in Sarasota, Florida for Mubarak and his family.
They now own a house and have retrofitted it with enough beds for the 33 family members to live together under one roof. They are located in a quiet community, central to shopping and other establishments to provide easy access to daily needs.
As of February, most of the working-age adults have jobs. They are developing their English language skills and are getting driver’s licenses. They’re settling into life here in the U.S. and successfully integrating into society.
On his trek through Valley, Fremont, West Point, Wayne, Laurel, Coleridge and other towns along his route, he took the opportunity to visit all the veteran memorials he could along the way. He was so impressed with what he saw and so proud of how Nebraskans are remembering their veterans.
“As Americans, I feel we are obligated to get not only all the Americans who want to leave Afghanistan out of the country as soon as possible, but also help those Afghans and their families get out of the country and settled in the United States who worked closely and side by side with the American troops during our 20-year stay in the country. If they are not able to get out of the country, they and their families will be targeted for helping the Americans and they will surely be hunted down by the enemy now in control and most likely all killed,” he said.
