[Vision2020] Idaho Family Fights to Help Afghan Immigrate

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Army Times.

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Idaho family fights to help Afghan immigrate

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — The sweltering sun sets on another Thursday in
Kabul, Afghanistan, and Doug Welch takes his usual seat at the safehouse
computer in the Green Zone military base.

The screen fizzles, and his wife’s beaming face appears through the Web
cam, their Coeur d’Alene home in the background.

“So how was your day?” Marilyn greets.

“Fine,” Doug replies, and recounts a book store he visited.

“What?” she bristles. “You’re telling me you were out off the base, where
you’re not supposed to be? It’s not worth the risk!” And then: “Was
Baktash with you?”

“Yes, yes,” he assures.

“Oh,” she sighs. “Well, OK.”

Doug knows why his daily chats with the family have focused less and less
on fears of bombs and kidnappings since his contract work swept him
overseas last year.

Baktash is there.

“I was absolutely terrified until I got to know who Baktash was, and that
he was with Doug,” Marilyn says of Doug’s assigned translator, a native
Afghani. “I know if someone were to try to get my husband, he would fight
them off.”

In the beleaguered, war-torn country that hasn’t seen peaceful days in 40
years, the turf would seem barren for friendship, least of all between an
American contractor and a quiet native.

Yet after Doug’s 13 months training native troops amidst a growing Taliban
influence in Kabul, the 55-year-old has forged the most unlikely victory.

Side-by-side every day for 12-hour stints, the Coeur d’Alene man and his
soft-spoken translator Baktash Afshar have fought more than the ostensible
battle of artillery and suicide bombs that still crater the countryside.

Bonding as dads, as husbands, as lovers of hard work, they’ve helped one
another fight to salvage a semblance of daily life amidst a war zone.

As Doug has learned how so many things are in Afghanistan, the bond is
intense.

“Once when we were standing on the street and I heard sirens, I joked,
‘Baktash, don’t let them get me!’ ” Doug remembers, speaking over the
Internet service Skype. “He turned to me and said, ‘I would stand in front
of you and protect you to my death.’ I sincerely believed him.’ ”

Now they face the hardest battle yet: Getting Baktash out of the country.

Marilyn recently held a rummage and bake sale out of their home to fund
plane tickets, but it remains to be seen if Baktash will be able to land
visas for himself and his family.

“I know he just wants to take his wife and children to a place where
they’ll be safe,” Doug says. “He would make a great contribution to this
country. I would welcome them as my neighbors.”

Doug hadn’t known just what to expect when he accepted the contract job as
an operations trainer for the Afghan military a year ago.

Addressing classrooms of camouflage-clad troops at the Ministry of
Defense, the former lieutenant colonel found the language barrier was the
least of his worries.

“They have a very different sense of time, a different way of looking at
things,” he sighs. “We put everything on a timeline — three months, six
months. They’re not used to doing that. They look at this afternoon.”

Always at his side, helping unravel lectures and cross cultural chasms,
was Baktash.

The lanky and polite 27-year-old wasn’t like the other translators who
often proved unreliable, spotty at showing up and prone to lie.

Instead, Baktash was a quick and efficient translator, never objecting to
lengthy shifts.

“We [the contractors] think in terms that if we stay late, we can just hop
in a car and drive home,” Doug says. “When they [translators] stay late,
they may have a 4-hour walk home, and through some dangerous
neighborhoods.”

Their reliance on one another grew as they swapped histories, finding the
duties of father and husband universal.

If Doug ventured into crowded marketplaces, Baktash walked beside him, his
status as a Kung Fu master enough to protect against kidnappings that are
common for Americans.

When Doug wanted to meet his wife in India, the young man stood in line
for hours at the Indian embassy to ensure Doug obtained a visa, even
interceding when a Taliban member tried to cut in line.

“I wouldn’t have made it without him,” Doug admits.

Back in Coeur d’Alene, Marilyn became a regular at the post office to ship
over beans and rice — sometimes 30 pounds of it — when Baktash’s family
couldn’t afford the staples.

“Thank heaven for the post office flat rate box,” she chuckles.

She hastened to ship prenatal vitamins in January, when Baktash’s newborn
proved too weak to nurse.

“Doug told me the statistics, that one in four children in Afghanistan die
before 5 years old,” she says, shaking her head. “I thought, ‘If I can
save one child and one little family, it’s a start.’ ”

Now healthy at 6 months, Baktash’s baby carries the name Maryam, which
translates to Marilyn.

“She’s like a grandmother to her,” Baktash said over a staticky phone
connection recently, the baby wailing at 5 a.m. “We want to remember her
all the time, whenever we are calling to Maryam. I don’t want to forget
her.”

Baktash knows too well his job could be his undoing — as well as his
family’s.

Outside Doug’s gated and guarded green zone, Baktash lives with his wife
and two young daughters across the city, in the more bomb-strewn chaos
consuming his home country.

“Every day, I don’t know if I will be coming home safely or not,” he says.
“When people find out about you working with Americans, your life is in
danger.”

In mosques, Taliban threats are painted across the walls that anyone
working for the U.S. military will meet a grisly end.

“They will kill not only you, but your family, your children,” Baktash
said. “I am not so worried about myself, but my family, day by day.”

For the past seven years he has ducked below the radar, telling friends he
works as a shopkeeper and commuting over two bus rides and an hour walk.

It seemed to work, until recently.

A few weeks ago his brother — almost identical to Baktash — was shot in
the arm outside Baktash’s home, the marksman unseen.

Baktash has no doubt the bullet was meant for him.

“I report to the police, to the government, and they do nothing for us,”
he says. “Corruption is a common thing here. The Taliban just gives money
to the security organizations, and they do nothing to help honest people
losing their lives.”

He speaks of fleeing to America, where he dreams of working for the U.S.
military.

His daughters, the oldest still a toddler, could go to school and have
jobs, he says. His wife could finish high school without fear of
harassment.

“My family’s concept is different — we want to live freely, I want my wife
to be a free woman,” Baktash said. “I want my daughters to live freely,
equally with men.”

He admits he keeps his mouth shut when other Afghanis talk about such
things, though. Rumors travel swiftly of locals with Western allegiances.

“In front of a pistol, you can’t use your Kung Fu,” he admits. “This is
why I’m always worried and nervous.”

For now, Baktash’s application has been tossed into the swirling bingo
tumbler that is Afghanistan’s visa application process.

He has a chance at landing a visa set aside for military translators, Doug
says, but visas are only dispensed to those with thousands of dollars in
the bank for airfare.

“I think Baktash just lives paycheck to paycheck,” Doug says.

But just like the bond between Baktash and Doug, great things can bud from
unlikely ideas.

“All I can do is pray for them,” says Doug, who returned home June 23.
“He’s been the most enjoyable part of being here. He’s a good kid.”

Perhaps one day, Doug will show Baktash a sunset in America.

And both will know, at last, that their battles are over.

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http://tinyurl.com/MarilynWelch

Marilyn Welch, left, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, prepares items for a rummage
and bake sale June 18 with the help of her 14-year-old granddaughter,
Taylor Patrick. Welch, whose husband, Doug, is a contractor in
Afghanistan, is hoping to raise enough money to help Doug's Afghan
translator, Baktash, get out of the country. He has a chance at landing a
visa set aside for military translators, Doug Welch says, but visas are
only dispensed to those with thousands of dollars in the bank for airfare.

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"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the
heaven."

Thanks to people like Doug and Marilyn Welch.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown