Patrick Opene is an immigrant originally from the French speaking West African nation of the Ivory Coast who now owns and operates a successful real estate company that has been in continuous operation since 2016 in which he oversees the purchases moribund residential structures and renovates them and they are subsequently conveyed to families and individuals of modest incomes in Oklahoma City on a “rent to own “ basis. He recently told of how in is youth he had to flee his homeland due to a period of political unrest and sought refuge to the neighboring state of Ghana where he resided for approximately half a decade. While there he obtained a university degree in computer science from National Institute of Information technology in computer science, and in the process he improved his English skills to the point that he was hired by two different companies there to serve as a translator from French into English. He subsequently was admitted to the US to study at the of University of Central Oklahoma with a degree in finance and real estate, and obtained his undergraduate degree from that Edmond institution in 2020. A desire to serve his adopted country prompted him to join the US Navy, and he was sent to Pensacola for training and later to Virginia where he served as a translator from French to English and vice versa. Histories of the Second World War that involve the interaction between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his nominal ally, General Charles De Gaulle of the Free French entity tell of frequently stormy meetings between the two leaders, and how Churchill, who spoke a degree of French, would often banish the translator from their meeting and request another one because he did not think that his words to De Gaulle were not being interpreted with sufficient force. There is one surviving transcript in which the British leader is correcting the translator who had said “I have invited you here because..” and Churchill interrupts him to say. “I did not invite him, I demanded that he come to my office…” But Opene reports that the immediate translations that he did for US Navy officers and occasionally civilian personnel and French speaking officials were usually of a more gentle proceeding even though some of them consisted of confidential nature that involved the assessments and opinions of the strength and capabilities of some US adversaries. The translator also spent a considerable amount of time translating documents between the two tongues and many of them were classified as top secret. And said that he I grateful to the US Navy for the skills that he acquired while in it’s service and the American citizenship that he acquired as a result. Opene also expresses gratitude to the state of Oklahoma for the education he acquired at UCO and the prosperity he has enjoyed as a small business owner here.
Against the Grain 