Lina and Afrah Al Asadi, two Iraqi sisters who risked their lives providing language interpretation services to the U.S. military during the Iraq war have become naturalized American citizens in Great Falls, Montana.

Their work was extremely dangerous. Unarmed and without any military training, they often put themselves in harm’s way in order to carry out their mission — to provide language interpretation services to the U.S. Army in Baghdad. That was six years ago.

Today, the two Iraqi-born sisters live quietly in Helena, Montana. Lina, 29, works by day at a department store, and by night she pursues a college degree. He older sister, Afrah, works at a government office in the state capital.

But while they were working as language interpreters in Iraq their cover had been blown and their lives were in danger. The two sisters began yearning for the remote possibility they would be allowed to relocate to the United States. Luckily with the help of an American colleague, Lina and Afrah made it to Montana where they found solace.

Flashback again to 2006. On the afternoon of Aug. 5, the sisters were riding in a taxi on their way home from work in the heart of Baghdad when their driver suddenly started accelerating.

The driver said they were being followed and asked the sisters if they worked for the U.S. military.

They insisted they didn’t work at the U.S. military base — they knew keeping their work secret could be the difference between life and death — but the driver asked again, “No. Are you working there?” Lina remembers the fearful driver asking. “Because somebody is following me. I’m not worried about you anymore, I’m worried about my life.”

Two cars were indeed chasing them, and as they continued speeding, the taxi driver veered around a corner, lost control of the car and smashed into a wall.

The would-be assassins stopped and inspected the crash. The taxi was totaled. Gauging the damage to the car, they apparently assumed the occupants were dead and left.

Lina suffered a broken ankle, and Afrah had some burns on her back; but both sisters survived.

“Many interpreters lost their lives over there along with the soldiers because they go through small arms fire, the IEDs, the bombs, the mortars, they’re right there with you and they don’t have a weapon so you have to protect them. So if something happens to you it happens to them too,” explained CSM Phil Johndrow, who’s retired from the U.S. Army.

“There were men over there that wouldn’t serve to the capacity they did, and go to the dangers they did, and they did it all willingly every day,” Johndrow added.

Johndrow was serving in Iraq when he met the two sisters, they formed a lasting friendship but everything changed in the blink of an eye.

“I found out they got hurt, they stuck by us through thick and thin, and I made a pact that day that nobody would ever hurt them again,” Johndrow recalled.

So on Thursday, January 17, 2013, Lina and Afrah took their oaths and became American citizens. They finally have the freedom to pursue their own dreams and happiness. And in fact it’s a freedom they have certainly earned.

“I didn’t think I would be so emotional,” Lina Al Asadi said wiping tears away from her face. “Finally I am seeing my American/Iraqi dreams come true. Thank you to everybody who supported us, and everybody who has been so helpful in our lives. Thank you so much.”