Norwin grad races against clock to get Afghan interpreters out of Kabul

A Norwin High School graduate who served three tours of duty in Afghanistan attempting to help rebuild the country and its military is on a new mission: to get two Afghan interpreters out of Kabul before the United States pulls out of the chaotic capital.

“It is total chaos,” said Jason Smith, 46, of Peters Township, a 1993 Norwin grad who is a major assigned to the Air Force recruiting squadron in North Strabane.

Smith, who spent three tours of duty in Afghanistan, has been trying tirelessly to get the interpreters out.

He worked with them while serving with the Air Force’s Provincial Reconstruction Team in Panjshir province in 2010, where they lived out of a forward operating base in the Hindu Kush. He also worked with the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar for four months, spanning 2013-14.

One of the interpreters, identified only as “A,” was at the Hamid Karzai International Airport on Thursday night awaiting a plane to take him out of the country. Another interpreter, whom he identified as “Q,” was at the airport on Sunday night, but Smith said he has not heard from him since. He’s not sure if Q and his family made it out.

If they cannot get out of the country, the Taliban will kill them, their wives and children, Smith said.

Smith, who enlisted in the Air Force a year after graduating from Norwin, said he is among a countless number of active and retired Afghanistan war veterans pulling out all stops to secure safe passage for the Afghan interpreters they so relied upon. He has a steady stream of text messages between the interpreters and himself as they search for the path to the United States.

“These are two folks I trust,” Smith said. “I want to help these persons.”

As active duty Air Force, Smith said he cannot comment on the crisis in Kabul. The scenes of the airport as played over and over on television “are way too familiar,” Smith said, who served a year in Kabul from 2016-17.

Smith, who was a public affairs officer, recalled that “Q” saved his life while he was stationed in Panjshir province when he went into a small kebab shop in a village. Two men in front of them had bloody shirts and didn’t look like they belonged there or were part of a local tribe. His interpreter scurried them out of the diner. Smith said it is likely the men were armed.

“I did not realize I was in immediate danger. Had Q not reacted so fast,” Smith said, his voice trailing off at the thought of what might have happened. “The last thing they wanted was a gun battle in front of kids (playing in a nearby field) and a hospital.”

In his last tour in Afghanistan, he was part of a mission in Kabul to train Afghans on U.S. planes — the giant C-130 cargo plane and the A-29 light attack aircraft.

“We had some amazing guys,” Smith said.

Q was one of those “amazing guys,” and Smith’s efforts to get him into the U.S. started about five years ago. Smith describes a tortured bureaucratic nightmare that he and his Afghan friends had to weave through in the past few years in order for them to obtain a Special Immigrant Visa.

“By 2017, he was in a big queue” that did not move much, Smith said.

Smith describes papers being lost and turning to the office of U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley.

“The process was slow and completely stalled during covid,” Smith said.

As fate would have it, “A” was supposed to come to the U.S. in the fall and study for a master’s degree in business administration. But when Kabul fell, he abandoned his business and went into hiding.

Smith said one message he received from “A” said he was en route to the airport when he became stuck in a vehicle and was held for 24 hours by the Taliban.

“I think we all know what the Taliban will do to him and his family,” Smith wrote in a post on Facebook.