October 6, 2008 (Vol. 8, No. 4)

Former Lehman Staff Shares 'Postcard from Iraq'

Former Lehman staff member Daniel Cahill, who worked in the Purchasing Office from 1994 to 2000, has been a contract specialist in Iraq with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for more than three years. Recently, he penned an article for the GRC (Gulf Region Division) News about his experiences there from a New Yorker's perspective.

After leaving Lehman, Cahill was the IT purchasing manager for Adecco, an international company that specializes in human resources services. He signed on for his work in Iraq in 2005.

Since then, he has spent all his time in Central Iraq—half in Baghdad and the other half in Al Anbar Province. As a contract specialist, he routinely works with U.S military services, government organizations, and contractors from around the world and also has worked with Iraqi citizens, sheikhs, and other foreign nationals. He credits his background as a New Yorker with giving him a solid foundation for working with different groups of people.

While Iraq is still a dangerous place, Cahill writes, a semblance of normalcy has returned. One reason for that, he believes, is the efforts of the GRC, which "contributed greatly to showing the Iraqi people that we were here not only to build prisons, which is what Al Qaida told Iraqis we were doing, but we build schools, medical facilities, and bring 'clean drinking water' to villages residing only a few hundred meters from the Euphrates River for the first time in their history! We showed Iraqis, by example, that we were trying to help them and that was worth more than bullets and bombs."

Read his postcard by downloading this PDF file.

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