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LEBANON – Zac Conaway spent just over a year in Afghanistan, from Christmas Day 2008 to January 5, 2010.
As an army logistics officer, he spent much of that time moving materials around Kunar Province in support of battalions operating in the Kunar River Valley. The scenery passed through the windshield of a truck, and sitting next to him in that truck was a translator named Jamil.
“He has been my live interpreter for most of my deployment,” Conaway said this week. “He was neck and neck with me. He was one of the guys in the peloton. This is how we thought of it. “
They have stayed in touch and Conaway – who is now director of environmental services at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center – is doing what he can to help Jamil, his wife and seven children leave Afghanistan.
Leaving one’s homeland was a long and arduous process even before the Afghan government collapsed in mid-August. Now it is also dangerous.
“When I contacted him on August 14, he said, ‘I didn’t get my passports,’” Conaway said. The government fell the next day, leaving no one in authority to issue passports.
Conaway, who served with the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division, based in Fort Drum, NY, was in contact with Jamil by phone until September 3, when the translator went into hiding, far from his family.
His best chance to escape now is to cross the border and find an American outpost. The United Nations has set up crisis centers for people seeking political refuge, Conaway said.
Even then, there is documentation that needs to be sorted. Applicants need letters of recommendation that confirm their service to the US government. The US Departments of State and Homeland Security screen Afghan citizens who apply for special immigrant visas (SIVs), and then embassy staff conduct interviews with potential immigrants.
“There are several complex pieces that still need to be sorted,” said Conaway.
Jamil started the SIV process in 2013, but didn’t hear from the State Department until June of this year. He was expecting an in-person interview, Conaway said.
During the two weeks leading up to August 31, Conaway had been in contact with Jamil every two hours. He and his family were near Kabul airport, but he is now hiding in a place with no cell service.
The documents the translator now carries with him are evidence the Taliban would use against him, Conaway said.
Conaway tried to keep the issue out of public view and put Washington officials to work. He has contacted via social media, contacted people from his vast network of former military colleagues and he called “everyone from the office of the President of the United States all the way down,” he said.
He spoke to the office of U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Which tracks and assists several cases, David Carle, Leahy’s press secretary, said on Friday.
“There are a lot of individual cases that we’ve been working on for quite some time now,” Carle said. However, “we cannot confirm that we are working on this or any other case.”
The Afghans trying to flee the country and its Taliban leaders include a wide range of people beyond those who have worked with the US military.
They include human rights defenders, women and girls, people who have worked for non-governmental organizations or have family in the United States, and academics, intellectuals, judges and others who have contributed to the formation of civil society in the country.
It is unclear how many cases Leahy’s office is working on. Helpers are in regular contact with the State Department.
“Helping those who have helped the United States … is an obligation,” Carle said.
Conaway feels the weight of this burden.
“We have evacuated nearly 100,000 people from Afghanistan in two weeks,” he said, calling it “a monumental undertaking.” (By the time the last military flight left Afghanistan on August 30, around 122,000 people had been evacuated, according to reports as of today.)
But, “there are still thousands of people who remained in Afghanistan and now fear for their lives.”
So Conaway, who lives in Groton, Vt, and travels over an hour to the DHMC, is still working with his contacts for any information that might be helpful.
“There isn’t a lot of information about success stories,” he said.
Its main concern is that Afghanistan is moving away from national consciousness.
“As much as we want to say that the war in Afghanistan is over, it is not,” he said.
There are a lot of people who have received a commitment from the United States, he said. “They need our help.
Alex Hanson can be reached at [email protected] or 603-727-3207.
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