The Class is Yours, Hamid
Written by Joan Barker
When I was asked to share a story about my time in Afghanistan, I wasn’t sure where to start, or which one to pick. There were so many connections that we, as Americans, made with the Afghan men and women with whom we worked in Kabul. There were the more routine interactions like the small talk we made with the cashier at the coffee shop on base, who, if he could sense you were having a rough morning, might add an extra shot of espresso to your drink, on the house. Then there was the checkpoint guard we passed each morning on the way to teach English classes; a young man with a serious expression, a kind manner, and a mustache so impressive that we fondly dubbed him “Tom Selleck.”
However, the deepest bonds formed were with our Afghan students, members of the Afghan Air Force and Special Mission Wing with whom we worked eight hours a day, six days a week. One of the first classes to which I was assigned happened to be a batch of crew chiefs. True to their MOS, this group had a, shall we say, a robust sense of humor. There wasn’t a day that went by where they didn’t have me in stitches laughing.
One student in particular stood out as the ringleader of theatrics; more than a class clown, he was a comic’s comic. The kind of guy that showed up each morning, stomped his combat boots loudly at the entrance to our classroom and announced himself with the most exaggerated “Good morrrrrrning!” you’ve ever heard. Then he’d salute me with his signature smirk and I’d lose it.
Even during class, it was hard to hold it together. When we finished a writing exercise, for example, I would have students take turns reading their answers aloud. It was usually a low, monotonous cadence; students carefully trying to get the words out, shy to make mistakes. But not Hamid. Oh no. When it was his turn, you better believe he cleared his throat, stood up, and read his sentence to our class of ten as if he was delivering the final line of a Broadway comedy to a sold-out show. The man was a performer.
Most of the time, I let him have at it. It was the comic relief we all needed in that environment. He also tended to inspire confidence in the other students. Sometimes, however, things got out of hand and the banter was just too much. One day, he was getting on my nerves, interrupting me, and cracking jokes as I tried to explain the grammar point for that lesson. I threatened that if he didn’t stop his antics, I’d make him teach the class.
My jaw hit the floor when, the next day, Hamid showed up with a full lesson plan, in Dari, ready to teach the grammar point. In silent, slow motion I handed him the whiteboard marker and got the other students’ attention. As I turned to find a seat in the back of the classroom, I told him, “The class is yours, Teacher Hamid.”
For the next hour or so, I watched as his wry smile was replaced with a focused expression, his trademark laughter swapped out for a stern tone, his passion for goofing off converted to a passion for teaching. The other students felt it, too. They whipped out their pens, recording notes in a fury as Hamid talked, as he wrote out examples in Dari and English, answered student questions, and assigned them practice exercises.
I watched bewildered, and in utter admiration. At one point, the sound of his voice faded in my mind as my thoughts drifted elsewhere, envisioning these young men in the not-too-distant future, strapped into the seat of an Mi-17 helicopter, gripping the triggers of their door guns, staring out onto the Afghan horizon looking for signs of the enemy.
Most of the time we existed in a cocoon in our classroom, a small trailer, nestled safely on the other side of concrete T-walls from the flight line, separated from the aircraft and weaponry on which these students were being trained by other Americans in the afternoons. But with the constant hum of helicopter rotor blades whirling in the background, and the occasional stray Taliban rocket incoming, the reminder that we were holding class in a combat zone was ever-present.
Every time I hear some far-removed critic comment on the ANDSF saying, “They laid down their arms” or “They didn’t want to fight,” I cringe and my heart breaks just a little bit more. For anyone that trained or fought with these soldiers, those statements are a slap in the face to Afghans and us. They signed up to fight in a country where the enemy wasn’t just metaphorically at their front door, but in their home. As Afghanistan was rapidly falling to the Taliban this summer, Afghan troops saw fellow soldiers being rounded up and shot by the Taliban—slaughtered live on widely circulated videos.
I don’t think many people understand the sheer terror and confusion under which decisions were being made by these soldiers as their government collapsed all around them, their president boarding a plane as their flag came down, the life-or-death calculations they had to make in those final moments, the vulnerable wives and daughters for whom they felt they needed to stay alive.
I say this all—I try to paint this picture, to make people understand, that I never in my 12 months in Kabul met an Afghan who did not want to fight for the future of their country. We knew the men and women who fought. We knew many who died, too. I want the American people to know about them. I want our own President to know about them. To know about soldiers like Hamid, and the place that they will always hold in our hearts, as proud brave Afghans.