They fought alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Now in Madison, they find comfort in veterans support group

When the members of an Afghan men’s support group gather for regular meetings in Madison, they don’t always walk away with solutions to their troubles.

Many of the discussion topics are well-worn at this point: the status of their visa cases, when they’ll be reunited with family members left in Afghanistan.

Go around the circle, and every man will speak with anguish and urgency about visas and family reunification.

It might feel hopeless: Everyone struggling with similar problems, at the mercy of sluggish American bureaucracy, nothing to do but wait and worry.

But the group, run by the Madison refugee resettlement agency Jewish Social Services, provides a measure of comfort for the men, all of whom worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan as soldiers or support staff.

“When everybody around the table can nod their head and know exactly what you're saying and what you mean, it changes the nature of that burden,” said Benjamyn Deneen, the JSS case manager who leads the group alongside an Afghan evacuee-turned-case manager, Mohammad Din Hajizada.

Of the 14 men who joined the group, many are the patriarchs of large families. Several were Afghan special forces soldiers who served under U.S. command. They may have spent their entire adult lives in the military.

The stress of making the switch to civilian life – in a vastly different culture than Afghanistan’s – while supporting their families as the sole breadwinner can be overwhelming and socially isolating, Deneen said.

Benjamyn Deneen, case manager for Jewish Social Services of Madison, leads an Afghan men's support group for evacuees who worked alongside the U.S. military as soldiers or support staff. Deneen, who served in the Iraq war, modeled the group after a veterans group he's in at the Veterans Affairs hospital.
Benjamyn Deneen, case manager for Jewish Social Services of Madison, leads an Afghan men's support group for evacuees who worked alongside the U.S. military as soldiers or support staff. Deneen, who served in the Iraq war, modeled the group after a veterans group he's in at the Veterans Affairs hospital.

Deneen understands the difficulty of that transition: He served in the Iraq war himself. He’s part of a support group at the Veterans Affairs hospital and knows the value in feeling understood, less alone, as a veteran.

He modeled the Afghan men’s group after his own.

“It can be really, really helpful – really a big relief – to be able to sit down in a room full of people who all share that perspective,” Deneen said. “You feel a little bit less alien.”

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'Tremendous amount of stress' after evacuation

For the men in the group, little has been easy since the Taliban took over in August of 2021.

The chaos of the evacuation meant some had to leave family members behind.

Naserdin, 38, made it through the Taliban checkpoints at the Kabul airport, but his wife and nine children still remain in Afghanistan, he said.

Thirty-year-old Ahmed’s new fiancée was left behind too. He worked as a safety officer and interpreter for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and spent three months at a base in Doha, Qatar waiting for his visa to be processed.

It was like a “fancy jail,” Ahmed said. He had nothing to do but eat his meals and return to his room.

Here in the U.S., concerns about reuniting with family members and their legal status dominate the men’s thoughts.

They are living in a safe place, but their families aren’t. Famine, natural disasters and economic collapse loom large in Afghanistan.

“On a day-to-day basis, I feel like this occupies a significant amount of the mental space for a lot of my clients,” Deneen said. “The worries about family are constant.”

And because of delays in visa processing, the men aren't sure if they'll have to return to their home country, where they’d be targets of the Taliban for having worked with U.S. forces.

“It’s a tremendous amount of stress,” Deneen said.

Afghan refugee girls watch a soccer match near where they were staying at the Ft. McCoy U.S. Army base on September 30, 2021 in Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin.
Afghan refugee girls watch a soccer match near where they were staying at the Ft. McCoy U.S. Army base on September 30, 2021 in Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin.

The government has been slow to process their applications for special immigrant visas, which are for people who worked directly with U.S. troops or the American government.

The vast majority of Afghan evacuees have been left in limbo. CBS News reported last month that fewer than 5,000 of the 77,000 Afghans resettled in the U.S. have been granted permanent residency so far, either through the special visa process or through asylum.

There is concern they could lose work permits and deportation protections as early as this summer, at the two-year mark of many Afghans’ arrival in the U.S., when their initial legal residency period runs out.

In January, after nearly a year and a half with no path to reunite families separated during the evacuation, the government allowed Afghan evacuees to apply to bring their spouses and any children under 21 to the U.S.

The men in the group are eagerly awaiting word their families can join them in the U.S.

For them, “it's impossible for it to happen fast enough,” Deneen said.

More:A year after evacuating, Afghans in Wisconsin must ask to stay in the U.S. permanently. Here's how corporate attorneys are helping

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Life in U.S. is a 'mental shock,' but group is adapting

When they arrived, nearly everything about American life was novel to the men. Many had to learn how to use a bank, keep a calendar and schedule, and more.

Some of the fathers worry that their children aren’t keeping up in school as English learners. Others worry that they’re the ones whose language skills are lagging while their kids are getting acquainted with American culture.

And they’ve found it’s difficult to financially support large families here, with the high costs of food and rent and their mostly entry-level jobs. (Cultural norms mean that few Afghan mothers work outside the home.)

“It’s a kind of mental shock for us,” said Shir Akbar, 32, a father of five. “Things over there and here are way different.”

After years in the military, the men are finding their footing in a range of jobs, including at Walgreens, a hospital laundry, a printing company, a bakery and in-home care for older adults.

They are contending with a downgrade in social and economic status, as many new immigrants do.

Mohammad Din Hajizada, a case manager at Jewish Social Services of Madison, is an Afghan evacuee himself.
Mohammad Din Hajizada, a case manager at Jewish Social Services of Madison, is an Afghan evacuee himself.

“We had very good positions and we had very good salaries. We were very respected,” Shir Akbar said. “Everything is upside down right now.”

The goal is to help the men move into higher-paying jobs as language skills improve, Deneen said.

Deneen recognizes just how new everything is for them. But he gives the men credit for how they quickly they’ve adapted.

“I really can’t imagine missing a home that is that different,” he said. “These guys have roots in the places they come from that go back likely thousands of years.”

More:Afghan evacuees in Wisconsin process relief, uncertainty, stress and trauma. A network of helping hands eases the journey.

The last family of Afghan evacuees departs Fort McCoy Feb. 15, 2022.  The base housed nearly 13,000 Afghans as they awaited resettlement in communities across the country.
The last family of Afghan evacuees departs Fort McCoy Feb. 15, 2022. The base housed nearly 13,000 Afghans as they awaited resettlement in communities across the country.

Former Afghan soldiers have little control over fate

Also weighing on the group are lingering feelings that the U.S. government betrayed the Afghan people by withdrawing from the country so suddenly.

“Some of these men gave over 20 years of their life, taking some significant risks, in cooperation with our military,” Deneen said.

Deneen has looked into whether these Afghan soldiers who fought alongside U.S. forces would be eligible for veterans benefits but doesn’t have a clear answer.

Similarly, advocates in Wisconsin have pushed for years to extend benefits to Hmong veterans who served with the U.S. during the Vietnam war. The CIA recruited Hmong people in Laos during the war to fight Communist forces. State lawmakers this legislative session reintroduced a bill on the issue after it died in committee last session.

Deneen, an Army and Army National Guard veteran, was deployed in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. In his work today as a case manager, he helps refugees from around the world get a new start in the Madison area.

It’s clear, he said, just how necessary it is to lend support to refugees like these men who were forced to flee their homes.

“As powerful as these guys can be as part of that larger military,” Deneen said, “when that's pulled out from under things, they’re just on their own.”

The Afghan men's group "is part of an array of psychosocial services that we host with the intention of assisting vulnerable communities as they navigate challenges and rebuild their lives," said Kai Gardner Mishlove, executive director of Jewish Social Services of Madison. "Individuals and communities are resilient and our support is vital to acclimation success."

When they boarded planes out of Afghanistan, the men left behind one world for an entirely new one. They have little sense of peace in Madison, but their outlooks are slowly improving, Deneen said.

When the challenges of their current situation seem insurmountable, they’ve found that sometimes the best thing to do is sit down in a conference room and simply talk about it.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Afghan evacuee men find support, solidarity in Madison veterans group