RECOVERY FEATURE
Leaving our home by ROBERT MITCHELL
Massood still tears up when he recounts last year’s harrowing struggle to get his family out of Afghanistan and into the United States. “It is very emotional to leave your home country,” he says with profound sadness. Massood worked with U.S. and Afghan military forces in his homeland, which made him a prime target of the murderous Taliban. Last August, as bombings and shootings happened around him, Massood was able to get his wife, Aaina, and their four young boys, from Kandahar to the airport in Kabul, during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Due to his militar y status, Massood managed to get his family on a C–130 cargo plane with a few thousand other fleeing refugees, who sat shoulder–to–shoulder. Massood was worried the plane might be shot down, but once the craft left Afghan airspace, his thoughts turned to the fact that he was leaving Afghanistan for good. He hadn’t seen his parents and siblings for months and realized he may never see them again. The family first reached a sweltering Qatar, where they stayed in a hangar with a few thousand others. “It was very difficult that first day,” Massood told SACONNECTS, pausing several times to compose himself. “The food was limited, and it was not enough. I get emotional remembering everything.”
Reza/Getty Images
“… I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” —Matthew 25:35 (RSV)
