The Bridge That Wasn’t

In the Prologue, I wrote about The Line - the queues we stand in without questioning who built them or why we’re there.

Sometimes, though, the line doesn’t look like a queue at all.

Sometimes it’s an open door, framed as an opportunity, with a salary number big enough to make you think twice about what your life is worth.

In my final months of university abroad, I was standing in what I thought was the threshold of my dream. I had spent some of the last bits of my undergraduate year in conversation with people I had once only read about - Wesley Clark, Thomas Friedman, Tarik Yousef, Fareed Zakaria, Fouad Ajami, Hanan Ashrawi, as well as other diplomats and thought leaders. For a student eyeing a future in foreign policy, international law, and development, this was the vision coming to life.

Then came the email. It was from a U.S. military recruiter - Western first name, Middle Eastern last name. Representation, right?

The message congratulated me on my upcoming graduation and offered me a role: translator for the U.S. military, based in Iraq. The Salary: a whopping 180,000 a year. In 2006. With the war still raging.

The details were clear: live on base, translate in the field. And there, in the middle of the email, the “death pay” clause - exactly what my family would receive if I were killed in action.

For a moment, I wondered if this was my purpose finding me. Could this be my way of being a bridge between worlds? But I knew enough to see the truth. People like me - with my background, my name, my face - wouldn’t be seen as a bridge in that environment. They’d be seen as a traitor. And I wouldn’t be alive long enough to collect a single paycheck.

I never replied.

And I’ve carried that email with me in memory for years - its timing, its calculated reach, and the uncomfortable realization that not every “bridge” is meant to be crossed.

Sometimes the work is not about stepping into the role offered. It’s about seeing the architecture of the system offering it...and having the clarity to step away.




sincerely,
amber eltaieb