Like many Nebraskans, Jonathan Shradar has made the long trip to Iraq. But unlike most of them, Shradar doesn’t wear a military uniform. He’s a Bush administration civilian employee with his own role to play.

Shradar, 29, accompanies the news media on trips to Iraqi development and reconstruction sites and scenes as part of a U.S. State Department GO (Global Outreach) team, making the case for progress and hope.

“It is a rough place,” Shradar says in an e-mail interview. “Nearly everyday, we hear explosions in the city. And people you know and care about are under intense threat, and others pay for their work with their lives.”

But “there is hope, and we see that as well everyday in the eyes of Iraqis whom we work with and Iraqi children we see on our tours and missions,” Shradar says.

He lives in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone and works out of a ballroom in the center of the Republican Palace. 

That’s a long way from Omaha Central High School and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, on a journey he began when he went to work in President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.

That led to his appointment as spokesman for the Department of Energy’s office of energy efficiency and renewable energy in Washington. Now, he is on four-month loan to the State Department in Iraq.

“I arrived in Iraq the second week of December — I got to spend the Christmas holiday with my new ‘family’ here in Baghdad — and I am set to head back to D.C. at the end of March.”

Shradar and his team members live in “hooches,” or half-trailers, surrounding the palace. They venture out from the protected zone on team missions.

Earlier this month, he was part of a team that visited an elementary school in central Baghdad to provide 800 children with basic dental hygiene instruction and hand out free toothbrushes and toothpaste.

“These are children that face unbelievable circumstances every day just to go to school, and we had the opportunity to give them something small in way of education that could have a lasting impact,” Shradar says.

“During the day, I kept thinking of my three nieces and nephew in Nebraska and how these Iraqi children are having a much different childhood. But I am hopeful that this generation of Iraqis will do something significant and be key in securing their nation.”

Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.