Sher Mohammad Haidari, a 26-year-old from Afghanistan, spent the last nine years known simply as “Mike.”

Haidari worked as an interpreter for United States military troops and security contractors in Afghanistan. The nickname was his protection from the Taliban.

“If they know your real name, when you go home, they’re going to find you and cut your head off,” Haidari said.

He said several of his friends had been caught helping the U.S. and were decapitated by the Taliban.


Haidari started working for the U.S. military in 2007 with the promise that, after two years, he could apply for a visa to relocate with his family to the U.S. After working for the U.S., it would not be safe for him to remain in Afghanistan. It took nine years and persistent lobbying by Dave Sossaman, a San Diegan who ran contract security details for the state department and department of defense in Afghanistan, to realize that promise.

“They’ve had all these things going on with just a ridiculous amount of wait and bureaucracy,” Sossaman said. “He was pretty much marked. There was a bounty on his head from the Taliban because he worked for us. I had to make quite a few calls and write quite a few letters.”

Haidari received a special immigrant visa in exchange for his service. About 500 immigrants from Afghanistan and Iraq with such visas resettled in San Diego County in fiscal 2016, according to state data.

Sossaman picked up Haidari, along with his wife and now 8-month-old son, at the airport in Los Angeles in late September. The Haidaris spent the weekend with Sossaman before settling into an El Cajon apartment that he found for them. Sossaman helped stock the apartment with everything they might need to start their new life.


“There’s a lot of back-and-forth now about bringing over refugees. Guys like Mike, we have to separate all that fodder from guys like this,” Sossaman said. “The fact that we had him saved American lives.”

Haidari said he came to San Diego because Sossaman was here.

Sossaman, whom Haidari calls “Big Dave,” hired Haidari in 2012 to lead a group of Afghan nationals who worked on a security detail escorting U.S. contractors.

“They got ambushed all the time, but they were able to get their equipment through when nobody else could,” Sossaman recalled of Haidari. He said Haidari’s job paid $600 a month.


Sossaman remembered the first time he and Haidari went on a mission together. They were traveling through a dangerous area controlled by the Taliban. Sossaman was driving.

Someone started shooting at them.

“I looked over, and he’s opened the door and shooting back screaming ‘he’s a gangster’ at the Taliban,” Sossaman said with a laugh.

Haidari has scars of his time in combat. Shrapnel tore through his right arm in 2009 while he was working for U.S. special forces. He has more than 34 letters and certificates from U.S. military officers commending him for his loyalty and recommending that he be given a visa to the U.S. He keeps them in plastic protective sheets.


He has the stories of a veteran. He recalls losing all of his leg hair on his lower legs because of long days in military boots. He recalls the brotherhood he felt with American troops. He recalls friends losing their limbs, their lives. He recalls the smell of dead bodies.

He recalls going on a special mission with 24 Americans a couple of hours after Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl disappeared. As he was getting off a helicopter, he heard the Taliban on the scanner he held talking about seeing 24 flowers. He realized quickly that the soldiers were being referred to as flowers. He told the platoon leader, and they all hit the ground moments before shooting began. All of the soldiers survived, he said.

He said he knows other interpreters still stuck in Afghanistan fearing for their lives while they wait for visas to come.

Matthew Makowski, a volunteer with the San Diego chapter of No One Left Behind — an organization that helps military interpreters get settled after they arrive in the U.S. — said that people often forget about the interpreters.


“In this country, rightfully so, veterans issues get a lot of focus,” Makowski said. “These guys, people don’t think of them as veterans even though they’ve fought alongside many of our soldiers.”

Makowski helped Haidari move in furniture and worked toward getting him a drivers licence.

“He just seemed like a nice guy, very energetic and very grateful to be here and to have any bit of help,” Makowski said of Haidari. “It seemed like the biggest thing in the world to him.”

Haidari moved to San Francisco recently to be closer to some of his wife’s relatives, but he knows he and Sossaman will stay in touch.


“I told him, ‘When you are old, I will come as a brother and help you out,’” Haidari said.

Haidari plans to enroll in school and work either as security, police or military. His focus is to raise his son with better opportunities than he had and to put his wife through school so she can learn English. She wants to be a fashion designer.

He said he has no intention of ever returning to Afghanistan.

“Our country is finished, man,” Haidari said. “Our country is finished.”


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kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate