Mahnaz Akbari Oral History

title:

Mahnaz Akbari Oral History

creator:

Akbari, Mahnaz

subject:

Afghan National Army | Female Tactical Platoon (FTP)

description:

Mahnaz Akbari was born in Iran and grew up there until she was 26, moving to Afghanistan in 2011. She moved there because she was facing limited employment opportunities in Iran due to her parents being from Afghanistan. The presence of the US in Afghanistan also made her feel like there would be better opportunities for her generally. Right after arriving to Herat, Afghanistan she noticed there were many people who looked, dressed, and sounded different from each other and her, but she still felt incredibly close to them in a deeper sense through their connection as Afghani people. From Herat she moved to Kabul, and she found the culture and people quite different from what she grew up around in Iran. After searching for a job for four or five months, a friend of hers from Eritrea pointed her towards the army and KKA because she could speak English. While there, she worked with Afghan joint special forces on missions since, culturally, men would avoid searching and questioning women and children. She did all the same training as men in the Afghan army. In her family, she was the first to join the military and her family was very proud of her, with her mother directly encouraging her to join. She didn't tell her family the details of her missions because they were already worried about her safety, so all they knew was that she was in the military generally. On her first mission, she remembers being the first person on the helicopter and the last off, and because she is so light she remembers the turning of the helicopter blade pushed her towards the wall. Her job involved traveling around many different places in Afghanistan, and she always found the different cultures, accents, practices, and languages were quite interesting, even when it may have posed a challenge. On one mission, she remembers having a 13-year-old stare at her and ask if she was a woman, because she had never seen a woman in full military gear before. Before they left, that girl asked if she could have something from her, so Mahnaz gave her a pen. She thinks that this moment gave the girl hope that she could do anything she wanted when she grew up. She served in this role for 3 years before being selected to organize training for FTPs on the base. Her parents found out the details of her job well after the fact, although she did tell her brother the details of her service in case something serious happened to her on a mission. On the day Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, her advisors helped lay out a plan to get to the United States, and Mahnaz was brought to the airport to make the trip around August 17th. She had no choice but to leave Afghanistan because she had worked with the US military. She came to the United States with two nieces, but the rest of her family are still in Afghanistan and she talks to them every day. She knows that some of her colleagues in the army have been arrested and tortured, and others have been killed for their military service. She wants people in the future to continue trying to help each other, and not just focus on what's going on in their own country's borders, especially considering how many wars are going on around the world. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Gill, Dennis

date:

2022-09-09

type:

Moving Image

format:

Born Digital

identifier:

1356; 2022.1356

source:

CST - FTP

language:

English

relation:

NR

coverage:

Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)—2001-2014 | 2011-2020

rights:

Unrestricted