Hawa Haidari Oral History

title:

Hawa Haidari Oral History

creator:

Haidari, Hawa

subject:

Afghan National Army | Female Tactical Platoon (FTP)

description:

Hawa Haidari was born in Bamyan, Afghanistan and moved to Kabul when she was 4 or 5. After graduating from high school in Kabul she trained in Turkey for six months to become a police officer, and then joined the Female Tactical Platoon (FTP) after graduating from that program. All of her family is from Afghanistan and ended up in Kabul, although not all at the same time. They moved to Kabul so she and her five sisters could go to school and continue their education. She was initially just going to be a police officer, but saw how many women were working in the FTP after getting back to Afghanistan and joined them. The FTP worked alongside military men on night missions, and her job when they'd get to a targeted house was to help search and provide security for women and children in the house. She worked with the FTP from 2015 until 2021, and working in this position she saw American servicewomen for the first time. They trained and went on missions together with women on the Cultural Support Team (CST) all the time. The training was quite challenging, but every time she wanted to stop, she'd see the other women around her training and push herself to keep going. She also had to go through language training for English and Pashto (the second language of Afghanistan). While on one mission, they had gotten into position and were told to get through the apartment in five minutes, but in the rush she and her FTP partner tried to get out quickly and ended up in a river below. They got picked up after about ten minutes or so, but she was scared in that wait. She didn't tell her family about joining the FTP because it would scare them, so all they knew about was her police training in Turkey. The FTP had spent years fighting for their country, so the Taliban taking over Afghanistan was quite a shock to all of them. The women still in Afghanistan are now being searched for, and after she had gotten to the US the Taliban searched through her brother's house because of her military history. The CST helped provide support to get herself and 30 to 40 other FTPs out of Afghanistan on August 18th, 2020, and they made it to the United States by the 20th. She brought all of her sisters with her to the US. She wants to return to Afghanistan when the Taliban is no longer in control of the country. Her uncle was also in the military but was unable to get to the United States after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, so he fled to Iran with his family instead. She feels very proud of her service and it made her feel quite strong. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Gill, Dennis

date:

2022-10-07

type:

Moving Image

format:

Born Digital

identifier:

1362; 2022.1362

source:

CST - FTP

language:

English

relation:

NR

coverage:

Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)—2001-2014 | 2015-2020

rights:

Unrestricted