He fought for Afghan Army and with U.S. forces. Now he and family are safe in Jacksonville community

Matt Soergel, Florida Times-Union
·6 min read
Kaihan, who was an Afghan Army helicopter pilot and a combat interpreter for U.S. forces, is now living in a Beaches apartment with his wife Shamila and their daughter Dunya, who was born aboard a U.S. C-130 aircraft as it evacuated them from their home country. The family is not publicizing its last name to protect relatives in Afghanistan who are being hunted by the Taliban.

Kaihan and Shamila's baby girl was born inside a U.S. military transport airplane after the couple fled a collapsing Afghanistan, just as the plane landed safely at an airbase in Qatar. A simple piece of printer paper produced by a U.S. airman serves as her birth certificate, but she has no citizenship, no country yet that she can claim.

So her parents named her Dunya, which means "the world." For it is the world they said to which she belongs.

Thursday evening, not quite 5 months old, Dunya and her family made it to their new home, a comfortable apartment at the Beaches. Her father Kaihan — an Afghan Army helicopter pilot and interpreter who fought alongside American forces — already has dreams for her: He hopes she'll grow up, in this new country, and become a pilot for the U.S. military.

An organization called Save Our Alllies helped get Kaihan and his family out of Afghanistan and to the Jacksonville community. Staying there was just too dangerous.

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The group asked that the family's last names not be used and that their hometown in Afghanistan not be identified. Family members are still in Afghanistan, and the Taliban is actively hunting them down, said Sean Kilbane of Save Our Allies. They're currently being moved from safehouse to safehouse, he said, with the goal to get them out of the country.

Save Our Allies, a nonprofit founded last year, has evacuated about 17,000 Afghans who worked with the United States.

Kilbane, who served two tours in Army Special Operations there, said Afghan forces fought and lived alongside Americans, and the U.S. has a commitment to help them. "We view them just like any other member of our military unit," he said.

Kaihan shows a cellphone photo of himself from when he was in the Afghan National Army.
Kaihan shows a cellphone photo of himself from when he was in the Afghan National Army.

Kaihan, who is 30. attended the National Military Academy of Afghanistan, the country's equivalent of the U.S.'s West Point, and became an infantry officer in the Afghan National Army in 2015.

In 2017 the U.S. government invited him to an English immersion program at an Air Force base in San Antonio and in 2018 invited him to train as a helicopter pilot at Fort Rucker, Ala.

Kaihan then returned to Afghanistan and the next year was certified by the U.S. Army as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot. He led Afghan troops on the ground and in the air and fought with U.S. troops as a combat interpreter.

Save Our Allies said that led to him and his family receiving special consideration for an expedited Special Immigrant Visa.

Shamila steadies 4-month -old daughter Dunya in their Beaches apartment Friday. In the background is a cousin, Monira.
Shamila steadies 4-month -old daughter Dunya in their Beaches apartment Friday. In the background is a cousin, Monira.

For Kaihan, it was painful to leave his homeland, though he knew it was necessary. And when he saw the Taliban taking down the black, red and green flag of Afghanistan, it hurt even more.

"I couldn't stop my tears," he said.

Blessings from the First Coast

In the U.S., Kaihan, Shamila and Dunya, along with a cousin named Monira, found supporters waiting for them, led by Ponte Vedra resident Carol Williams who was determined to help.

Her mission, she said, began in 1968 when her comfortable life was upturned by the death of her 10-month-old daughter.

"Through that unmeasurable, unbearable pain, I decided I would change the direction of my life, that her life would come to mean something, that people's lives would be changed for the better because she existed," she said. "So whatever I do, I do in her name. Her name was Amy."

She began doing fundraisers and other acts of charity, and later she devoted her energy to fighting HIV/AIDS. In the 1970s she saw on Vietnamese families on TV fleeing their country, wading through water to boats, desperately passing their children to others for safety. She was so moved, she sponsored a Vietnamese family to come to the United States and then helped with several more families.

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Then last year she saw that same desperation in Afghanistan.

"Those images from Afghanistan of people climbing on the planes and falling to their deaths and the scenes of the babies handed over to strangers — I just felt my daughter screaming at me again: 'Mom, you're not done.'"

She was put in touch with Save Our Allies, and Kaihan's family. She then reached out to the community and to her church, Christ Episcopal. She found willing helpers, and now the family has a used car and an apartment at the Beaches that's paid for a year.

One backer is Soo Gilvarry, a developer who plans to develop the old Furchgott’s Department Store building downtown into 40 apartments.

"I think we underestimate American citizens," said Gilvarry, an immigrant from South Korea. "They love America. They want to help people who fight for the United States."

'A new Afghanistan'

At his new apartment Kaihan vividly described his last mission for the Afghan Army in which he was sent to evacuate military and police members from the airport in Kandahar, which was surrounded by Taliban fighters. "Those people needed to be saved," he said.

He told of the confusion and violence that followed as he tried to direct planes in, and the panic as passengers tried to cram into the aircraft while under fire. He pleaded with his higher-ups, begging to send more planes. Finally he had to bargain with the advancing Taliban, using a mix of bluster and negotiation to get the final planes out to safety.

During all that, he learned that Kabul, the capital city, had collapsed with surprising speed. It was nightmarish, he said, like the end of the world. And while he got many people out to safety, some were left behind. He still thinks of them, and he still thinks of his native land.

Kaihan describes his last mission for the Afghan Army, in which he evacuated people from an airport in Kandahar that was under assault by Taliban fighters.
Kaihan describes his last mission for the Afghan Army, in which he evacuated people from an airport in Kandahar that was under assault by Taliban fighters.

"It hurt," he said. "We built this country together. America and Afghanistan. We worked very hard for 20 years to build a new Afghanistan. We had everything. We had a government, media, universities, hospitals. We had human rights, women's rights, we had education ministries. Everything just collapsed in a second. That was a very hard feeling."

Still, he already has plans for his life in America. He wants to get his green card, his permanent resident card, then join the U.S. Army. "This," he said, "is my country now."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Afghan Army helicopter pilot and family now safe on Jacksonville coast