My girlfriend informs me that actually most Americans know someone in the military, (a service person), as they say. And most Americans, from the states, know someone who has died in the war in Afghanistan or Iraq. She told me everyone in her family knows someone who has died in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I have a pretty big family, and I am sure there are some friends of friends or distant relatives that I know, who might have served in the military, but for the most part, I have stayed pretty far from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which I was against after 9/11 when I was a high school freshman. The majority of my peers in high school went to college and not the military.
I have not read very much about people loosing friends and family to war, in terms of reading about their specific type of situations. I assume it’s like all the other stories I’ve heard or seen in movies or in books. A soldier brings a mother an American flag and its awful, painful, crippling, etcetera.
But just recently I have had the unfortunate displeasure of becoming, not a member of American society who has lost a family member or friend in the armed services, but who has lost a friend who was an Afghani national.
Last December I made a friend from Afghanistan, Mehri Azizi. It took me forever to finally talk to her on Facebook, but I saw she had been in a really interesting documentary called Behind The Veil a bbc style documentary about three women in Afghanistan, Mehri, of which, was one.
I am a songwriter by trade, and decided maybe she could help me get some kind of cool music video with scenes from Afghanistan. I thought that would be really cool. She said that people in Afghanistan don’t like to be filmed because they are afraid the Taliban will find out.
I sent her some of my songs, she said she liked them. She had made music style videos for commercials she had done with Tolo television for the Afgani national soccer league. The camera work was very high quality and the editing was amazing. Everything was very professional.
That was a big draw to me, because there are plenty of cheap music videos where I live, in Portland, Oregon. And there are also many very expensive high quality music videos and videographers.
I thought this was great, she is interested in doing it for free for the love of her craft, and she is going to help me make a video for my music.
We were working together on a music video and group of documentary style interviews, from people around Afghanistan.
The interview questions were as follows:
- How has life changed for you since the war started.
- Are there things you would like to tell Americans about how the war has affected your life? — what?
- Do you think Americans interpret the war differently than you do, and if so, in what ways?
- How do you think Americans view the war?
- What would you like to tell Americans about life in Afghanistan?
- What do survivors of war need to live happily?
On January 12th 2016 she told me she had filmed the skylines in Afghanistan, and interviewed many folks, and was working on the voice-over and video editing. She was excited, she had just gotten engaged.
On Jan 21st 2016, Mehri was working with her television studio when a Taliban suicide bomber drove up beside her bus in a car, and blew himself up, murdering her and seven other of her colleagues.
She was a kind, gentle, compassionate, person, an inspiring journalist, a fearless activist, and a beautiful person, who will be missed by her family, her co-workers, her country and me. She was 22.
Unfortunately, the world will never get to hear Afghanistan’s men and women answer these questions. And I wanted to be angry at Bush, and Cheney, and Obama and the CIA and I wanted to be angry at the army generals, and I want to be angry at the Taliban. I want them to die. I want to take back all the years of war and pain from Mehri’s family. I wanted to take Afghanistan away from itself. I want to take America away from itself. I want to take me away from myself and go back to not being affected by the war.
When I saw that Mehri had been murdered, I immediately blamed Obama in my mind. Why wasn’t her bus kept more safe? She lived in Kabul for goodness sake, it’s the biggest metropolis in the whole blasted country. How come my friend who was a non combatant was not kept safe? Why did my government not protect my friend? Why is the Taliban so prevalent in Kabul? Who am I going to be inspired by and learn new things from now?
No matter how much I know it’s not Obama’s war, I just thought that it was THE WAR itself that murdered my friend. And I am still offended. What right did the war have to take my friend away? What right did the war have to impose itself on me? Why did this happen to me?
The war finally found a way into my life, into my bedroom, where I write and think and enjoy my freedom. The war found its own special way, to disrupt everything and kill my only chum, and take away all my chances of having a friend in Afghanistan.