p the faith, a character trait valued in others, given the grim realities of fighting on distant battlefields.

Today's guests know the bond born of shared battlefield experience, and can help us understand what recent Hollywood portrayals get right and what they get wrong.

They are Shafiullah Sahil and Matt Watters, this week on "Story in the Public Square."

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music continues) Hello and welcome to a "Story in the Public Square" where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller, also at Salve's Pell Center.

- This week, we're joined by Matt Watters, a US Army veteran who deployed the Afghanistan in 2020, as well as being a member of the board of directors of the nonprofit organization, No One Left Behind.

Joining us also is Shafiullah Sahil, who worked as an interpreter for Matt and his unit in Afghanistan, and now lives and works in the United States.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today.

And before we get started, we should note that Matt's views are exclusively his own, but really thank you for being with us.

- Thank you for having us, Jim.

- You know, so we wanted to talk about this experience of service members and their interpreters and the bond that grows between them.

And our point of entry for this was actually Guy Richie's film "The Covenant."

So Matt, you've served, you've worked with interpreters in a war zone.

What was your take away?

What was your impression of the film "The Covenant"?

- I loved it.

I mean, it's a guy Richie movie.

It's got a lot of shooting.

It's fiction, just wanna be very clear about that.

But I think it beautifully tells the story, which, you know, Shafiullah and I know quite well, which is that bond that develops through going through combat together, especially when you're in two different worlds, right?

So I came from the United States.

You know, Shafiullah was from Afghanistan, but he wasn't necessarily from a combat zone in Afghanistan.

And we went through that together.

And you develop a bond when you go through something like that, and that bond doesn't end at the end of the experience.

It continues throughout life, and the movie really tells that well.

So I really enjoyed it.

- And, Shafiullah, you worked as an interpreter for the US military in Afghanistan.

What do you think that the film got right and what do you think it got wrong?

- I think the whole idea that the movie has is on a true base story because like when I was working as an interpreter, I was also trying not to just translate.

I was trying to help the forces with showing them the culture of that area that we are going.

We were like different languages, different cultures, and the movie was showing all those, the true image of the work as an interpreter.

So the movie shows the reality, and it shows like how the interpreters work, and how they held the US forces in Afghanistan.

- So I think there's one scene that really stuck out to me where Jake Gyllenhaal talks to the interpreter, and the interpreter is saying, you know, there's more to this story than you might understand.

And Jake, who's a US Special Forces sergeant, master sergeant, says, "I just want you to translate.

Translate is transactional.

I want you to say hi, and you tell me how to say it in Pashto."

But what the interpreter says is, "I'm actually here to interpret," which means there's a lot of subtleties that I'm gonna pick up and help you understand, which is much different.

And the story that, you know, Shafiullah and I have is definitely one like that.

And that I think the movie does very well.

- The movie also really makes a point of demonstrating and portraying the process of building confidence between two people who are sort of forced into the situation really by circumstance and orders, right?

So can you talk a little bit about that, Shafiullah, about building confidence with the team that you worked with?

- Yes, so as I said before, like my job was to translate, but during the mission, like we were all one team, and we were doing everything together.

So during the mission, I was not thinking about that I should just translate.

Sometimes we were having injuries, and I was having blood on my back, and I was having some guns also, all the important things that our team needed.

So the movie was showing all these things that as an interpreter you are just not only translating, you are working, like as I said before, like we had different kind of situations.

Like we were having ammunitions, we were having the blood with ourself.

If there was any injuries, I was helping the medics to carry the injuries also.

- And that blood just to, it's basically we would carry spare blood in case any of us got hurt.

And so somebody has to carry all that blood, and, you know, Shafiullah would volunteer to do things like that, which was super helpful to the team.

- So Shafiullah, I a question for you, actually two questions.

What was your background before working with the US military and then what inspired you to work with the US military?

- Yeah, that's a nice question.

So when I was a child, I was a school student in like 2023, or sorry, 2003 or 2004, I was going to school.

So I was seeing the US Army, the forces that they were coming to our village, they were coming to our streets, and they were having the interpreters.

As a kid, I was meeting with them, and they were giving me a lot of love.

They were giving us like the chocolate and water, and I could see the interpreters working with them together.

So from childhood, I just wanted to work with the US forces.

And then when I grew up, and I started teaching, I started teaching at private schools, like as an English teacher.

So I was always trying to work as an interpreter and help the US forces and the previous Afghan government forces.

- Did you have any fears or concerns as you worked with the American military?

I mean, you talked about seeing combat.

You talked about blood.

There must have been some part of you that had some concerns or fears, or maybe not.

Tell us about that.

- So I didn't have any concern because I believed in democracy, and I believe that the Taliban and the ISIS are the terrorists, and this is the hell that I'm helping my country also.

And I wanted to free, I wanted to free my country from those terrorists.

- Matt, you mentioned already the sort of the power of the bond that that's forged between people who serve in harm's way together.

Can you expand on that a little bit and talk to us a little bit about, from a more personal perspective than what we saw in the film, what was that experience like for you and the kind of bond that you felt for him with Shafiullah and the other men that you served with combat?

- Yeah, definitely.

You know, my wife works in a hospital, and she used to work in a trauma ward, and she calls 'em trauma buddies, and she had deployed to Afghanistan years ago as a nurse as well.

And I think that's actually a good way of thinking about it.

It's true for Shafiullah and I, obviously going through combat.

It's true on, you know, my team as well, all the different soldiers that I worked with.

When you go through something really hard that's quite traumatic, there's just a different depth to the bond that develops because you see kind of people's true colors.

You see when they really stand up for you.

You see, you know, what they're willing to put on the line to help you in that moment.

And there's really nothing else like it.

To know that you can depend on somebody to that level is incredibly meaningful, and it doesn't, you know, fade over time.

- So Matt, I kind of put the same question to you that I did to Shafiullah.

You must have had concerns about your own safety.

I mean, every soldier who goes into war does.

Talk about that and how you dealt with that and how you have dealt with that since combat.

- Yeah, that's a great question.

I definitely had fears, you know, but in the moment, you don't really allow yourself to experience them.

It's more after, you know, you have kind of the shock of what you went through, and before when you have the anxiety of what you're about to go through.

But in the moment, you're kind of just thinking about the next task that you have to complete.

And that's, I think, how a lot of soldiers process it, is that they kind of compartmentalize.

Compartmentalizing is pretty normal for people who are managing through crisis.

And I think, you know, probably the scariest thing for me personally was driving down the street and just seeing all these different colored patches of dirt or, you know, bags of trash that could be signals of an IED, and just constantly having to accept that that could be, you know, the explosion that would, you know, affect you for the rest of your life.

And you're just gonna have to go through that zone because you don't have time to check everything.

And that was pretty nerve-wracking.

But you still have to just say, "Okay, all I have to do is drive, right?

I just have to drive safely.

I have to get to the next point, and that's what I have to focus on."

But the downside of compartmentalizing is your body still has to process those emotions.

And so if you don't do it when the kind of crisis is happening, you will do it later on.

And you know, for some people that develops into PTSD.

For other people, that develops into what they call PTG, post-traumatic growth.

But you definitely, you can't ignore your body's need to process that emotion, but how you process it can make a real difference for the effect it has on you afterwards.

And I was fortunate in that my wife had kind of gone through that experience beforehand, and she was able to coach me through kind of how to do it in a very healthy manner.

But I definitely, you know, struggled with just the intensity of that emotion afterwards.

I think everybody does.

- So Matt, can you kind of expand on that?

I mean, obviously you come back from war, everyone who comes back from war brings part of that war back with him.

We've had other guests on the show who have talked about what you were just mentioning, PTSD.

Some have had successful outcomes and some have not.

Just give us a general overview of what is happening now to veterans of Afghanistan and also Iraq.

You must know many of them, and you certainly know the field, and, of course, your wife as you mentioned, is in that arena as well or that line of work.

- Yeah, I think, again, everybody processes it a little bit differently, but everybody does process it.

You can't go through something like that and not experience intense emotion.

Not all of it's bad.

You know, there's a thrill to combat as well.

There's, you know, a sense of adventure to going on a deployment with people that you really care about and to accomplishing a mission that matters for the country, and all of that's very positive.

But when you go through very intense combat situations, you can also have kind of negative side effects.

And I think, you know, I think it's Bentel Shahar who's a professor at Harvard who says there's only two people who don't have negative emotions.

It's either, you know, sociopaths or psychopaths, and it's people who have passed away.

So if you have negative emotion, it's good to realize that that's a positive.

You're not a psychopath, and you're alive, and you have to acknowledge that that emotion's just gonna exist.

The next thing though, I think for veterans to work on is, you know, reminding themselves of why they went through that experience, and that that negative emotion or just intense emotion is not necessarily bad over the long run, it's just a necessary byproduct.

Doing things that really matter to them again, finding that community, finding purpose, you know, being healthy with good sleep, you know, working out, eating healthy, all of these things really matter to kind of process those emotions in a productive way after you go through combat, and the VA, you know, the services, the Department of Defense, they put a lot of energy into helping people acknowledge what the path should look like afterwards.

Gone are the days post Vietnam where you're expected to come back and kind of just deal with it on your own.

That leads to alcoholism.

That leads to a whole bunch of negative things.

There is a real science to how you deal with the intense emotions of combat, and, you know, turn it into a productive thing for you afterwards.

Hopefully that helps a little bit.

- That's super insightful and super helpful.

Shafiullah, I'm curious, at some point you decided that you needed to leave Afghanistan, and I wonder if you could shine some light on what ultimately led you to that decision to leave the country of your birth?

- Yeah, actually, I never wanted to leave Afghanistan, but I had to because I and my family were not safe.

After my work was ended because of the Covid 19 in Afghanistan, I went home back and started teaching.

And after started teaching, the Taliban started threatening to death, and they came to the school where I was teaching.

They also came to my house, and then they took the country.

When they took over the country, I went on hiding.

So I didn't have any other choice except to leave Afghanistan.

So Matt and his team members, they contacted me, and they helped me with the evacuation.

On the 16th of August, I had to leave my house with my family, with my two kids and a pregnant wife.

And we went to the airport, and we were outside of the airport for a week trying to get into the airport.

And then with the help, like I had my daughter, she had a red shirt, she had a red dress, and I put her on my shoulder, and I was sending that picture to Matt and the team members so the soldier can come out, and they can recognize me.

And that really helped me.

And that's how we got into the airport and we left Afghanistan.

- That's remarkable, It's remarkable.

You know, the movie ends with the rescue, and Hollywood always makes it a lot neater than reality.

So when you get to the airport, what happens next?

What's that process like then from getting to, you're flown out of the country, where do you go, and what's the process of resettlement like for you in the United States?

- Yeah, so as soon as we got to the airport, actually we didn't have any passport.

We didn't have any visa, and we never thought this would happen.

But at the airport actually, we felt a little bit safe, and we thought now that we are leaving Afghanistan, so there's no dangers for us.

And after we flew from Afghanistan, we flew directly to to Doha, to Qatar.

And in Qatar, we were there for a week, like three or four days in a hangar, in a big hangar.

And we did all the screening and all the fingerprints, all these important things.

And after that, they took us to the Washington.

So we landed in Washington, DC, on the 26th of August, 2021.

And then I didn't know where to go, but the government, the forces, they took us to the camp, and we were in the camp for two months.

And after that, we didn't know also where to go because I didn't know anyone in the US.

I didn't have any friend, I didn't have any family.

So the only person that I knew was Matt, that I had worked with him closely, and I was asking him like, okay, now what would I do?

How can I find a house?

What I don't know what to do.

So he helped me.

He took me to his parents' house, and right now I'm still living with his parents, and they gave me the opportunity to do some IT trainings, and they gave me the opportunity to get my driving license.

They gave us the opportunity for my kids to go to school.

So currently, after doing all these important trainings and these things, like I did, right now, I'm working for a company, and my kids are going to school.

My wife is learning English, and we are all happy because we are set now.

- Shafiullah, you're happy, and you're safe now, which, of course, is a great thing.

So we're talking about you and your immediate family, but you clearly left behind other relatives or family members, friends, neighbors, acquaintances.

How are they doing?

Do you have any communication with them, and what is is it like to leave, I mean, basically your whole life behind somewhere?

- As I mentioned before, I never wanted to leave Afghanistan.

And it's not easy to leave my homeland where I grew up, but I had to because I was targeted by the Taliban, and the day I was leaving, that was a very difficult day of my life.

My mom, my dad, everybody was crying, but they were pushing me because they were also didn't want me to stay there.

They didn't want me to be at home, just staying at home day and night.

So right now, I do have a contact with my family members.

Until now they're doing well, but I'm still concerned about them because the situation is not good, and it's very dangerous for them too.

- Hey, Matt, Shafiullah's story is really remarkable because your support, your family's support, he's got opportunities that have set him up, right?

To sort of live the American dream, as it were.

What, how common is that?

And did you have any appreciation of the challenges that he would face once he arrived in the United States?

- I don't think it's very common, which is unfortunate.

And I just wanna say, I think my parents are complete saints for letting Sahil, his wife and three kids stay in their house for almost the last two years.

- I'll give you an amen.

It it's a beautiful, amazing story.

- [Wayne] Yeah, it really is.

- It really is.

I think the sad truth is, for a lot of people who have come here, they kind of feel stranded after, you know, just a couple of months.

And what we realized pretty quickly with Sahil was that, without having some level of sponsorship, he was gonna be, you know, potentially without a home.

He didn't have a job.

He had a high school degree, and that didn't lead to a lot of employment opportunities in the US.

I had no idea how difficult that journey would be.

And I'm incredibly, you know, blown away and impressed by how Shafiullah has approached it all, the resilience, the determination, the persistence through all the struggle.

But I didn't realize, you know, the journey it would take to claim asylum in the United States.

I didn't realize it would take him a year to be able to find a career that could be an entry point into a middle class upward mobile opportunity.

I didn't realize that housing would be such a challenge for somebody who doesn't have a credit history, who doesn't have previous addresses in the United States.

He's just moving out basically next week.

And we had to go through probably 10 different applications because apartments were not comfortable taking on somebody without those previous credentials.

So it's been a real learning experience for us both, but he's just done an incredible job with it.

- So Matt, you are both involved with an organization called No One Left Behind, and in fact, Matt, you're on the board of directors.

Tell us about the organization, what it does and how it came to be.

- Yeah, and the organization has been around for a while.

It's gone through a couple of different iterations.

Right now it's focused on essentially its core mission, which is making sure that we uphold the promise to people like Shafiullah, who we told that if they were in a dangerous way after working with us honorably, that we would be able to help them get to someplace safe, right?

And that's with the special immigrant visa program.

And so No One Left Behind is still focused on that.

So far we've gotten 2,500 former interpreters out of Afghanistan, some of them to the United States, some to places like Pakistan where they're waiting for a visa to come to the United States.

The second part though is we're focused on helping people like Shafiullah with the next journey.

So in the United States, going through all those challenges I just talked about.

And so we're helping them go through job retraining or, you know, language lessons or trying to get, you know, a license, a home, things that are necessary to be a productive tax-paying member of society.

And then the last thing that No One Left Behind works on is essentially advocating to fix this problem legislatively so that it's not a continual issue, which matters obviously 'cause it's the right thing to do, but also just because, you know, as a Green Beret, work in Army Special Forces, you cannot do the mission without an interpreter very often.

And we can't really ask interpreters to work with us without this kind of a program because it's so dangerous.

And so we need to make sure that this is fixed.

- Are are you focused strictly on refugees from Afghanistan or are there other countries in war zones or previous war zones that people you work with?

- So we're working to essentially help the special immigrant visa program incorporate countries like Syria, Somalia, Niger, where essentially we are conducting very similar missions, and we use interpreters all the time, but right now we're focused on the special immigrant visa applicants, which technically exist from Iraq and Afghanistan, where we had Title 10, you know, combat engagements.

- You know, so we had former extreme sports skier.

- [Wayne] Jamie MoCrazy.

- Jamie MoCrazy on the show recently, and she talked about an investment that the state of Utah had made in her recovery after she'd suffered a traumatic brain injury.

And the way she put it was, look, the government could either pay for five years of recovery or they could pay for 60 years of essentially, you know, her living on the dole, right?

It sounds to me similarly, that not only do we have an obligation to the people who served with our armed forces in harm's way, but there's a modest investment that we could make upfront that would pay huge dividends, not just for those individuals, but for the society as a whole with contributing members, tax-paying members of society.

Is that the basic, is that parallel right in your mind?

- I think so.

I mean, I just look at Shafiullah's example, right?

By my parents and, you know, a couple of other folks volunteering to help him out over the course of the last year and a half / two years.

He has a job that pays a middle class income.

He has a new career with upward mobility.

His kids are enrolled in school.

He's no longer on social services, and he has savings that are allowing him to eventually, you know, work towards getting a house.

And so I see that upfront investment as paying dividends later on.

And I wish he wasn't a unique example, but hopefully No One Left Behind can help others kind of replicate that concept so that they can stand on their own pretty quickly afterwards if you stand by them throughout that process.

- So, Shafiullah, what is your life like now?

- I'm doing great now.

Because in the beginning, as I mentioned, I didn't have a driving license.

I was using Uber to go somewhere.

Life was very difficult for me.

So right now I got my license, and I'm working for a great company, Pfizer, as an IT support, like in my case, they're learning English.

In the beginning, I had to translate for my kids also, but now my son is learning, and my son can speak English, and now I don't need to translate for him.

My wife, like she never went to school before, and now she's learning English.

So life is getting easier, and we are doing great.

- That's outstanding.

Hey, Matt, we got about 30 seconds left here.

I know you did some work too with the International Rescue Committee on this.

What's their role in all of this?

- So the International Rescue Committee is one of the eight resettlement agencies that works cooperatively with the State Department to resettle immigrants when they come to this country, or refugees rather.

And my employer, McKinsey & Company, basically sponsored a pro bono effort to work with the International Rescue Committee to help them.

And kind of the advent of all these Afghans coming here back about two years ago, it was just an influx of people.

And so we helped them think through, you know, after Covid the housing market was very different.

The job market was very different, and we helped them think through kind of some of the new ways that you can get people plugged into new careers, like Shafiullah with IT, and what areas kind of are very helpful for refugees to live in given social services, given kind of housing and communities and things like that.

It's a fantastic organization.

They're still very hard at work at that mission, and No One Left Behind is doing very similar work, but for a very specific subset and not at the scale of the International Rescue Committee.

- Well, you're both doing remarkable things, and we're grateful to both of you for your service and for spending some time with us today.

Shafiullah Sahil, Matt Watters, thank you so much.

The group, again, it's No One Left Behind.

That's all the time we have this week.

But if you wanna know more about "Story In The Public Square," you can find us on social media or visit pellcenter.org.

We can always catch up on previous episodes.

He's Wayne, I'm Jim, asking you to join us again next time for more "Story In The Public Square."

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