Graduation Guest List Included Veteran Who Saved Her Life

Retired Army Officer Invited to Graduation of Girl he Saved 18 Years Ago
The Huffington Post
By Katie Sola
Posted: 06/05/2015

The family hadn't spoken to Pepin since that day. That changed when Lava decided to track him down as part of a language arts class.

A Kurdish-American teenager invited the soldier who saved her life to her high school graduation.

Lt. Col. Greg Pepin first met Lava Barwari 19 years ago, when she was just a month old, ABC6 reports. Lava's mother Awaz was fleeing political persecution in Iraq.

As a Kurd who had worked with an American NGO, Awaz was on Saddam Hussein's "kill list" and had a bounty on her head. In December 1996 she fled to the Turkey/Iraq border, where she could get out because of her persecuted status.

But when the 22-year-old Awaz arrived at the border with baby Lava, Iraqi soldiers refused to let Lava through because her name wasn't on the list of Iraqis permitted to leave.

“He actually pointed to the window and said, ‘You can toss her to somebody who can deliver her to your family,’” Barwari told the Gwinnett Daily Post. “She’s not a sack of potatoes. I’m not giving her to anybody. That’s my baby."

Pepin was stationed at the border crossing, and he came up with a novel solution. “I told them if the baby's name was ‘Greg,' she could come with me under my passport,” he told FOX 5. "They didn't understand what I was trying to do at first, but then they realized I was trying to help.”
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From ABC News