received this letter from the taliban, written piece of paper addressed to him. with the americans on their way out, the evacuation under way, the taliban making it clear in this letter to zak that they know where to find him because they wanted and intended to kill him for having worked with the u.s. forces. so they have got his cell phone number. they have got his address. they know how to find him. they re telling him they re going to kill him. zak is essentially being hunted. so he can t leave his house, let alone work outside his house to support his family. he told the new york times last month he, quote, can t find a way to live a life. i can t find a way to have a life. after he got that threatening letter from the taliban, zak and his family did go into hiding. the province where they were living was taken over by the taliban. their hope was to somehow miraculously, almost impossibly,
confirms, yes. that s us. we will get your boy. but no. major schueman posted this photo yesterday. the caption says we, meaning zak and his family, we were this close today and didn t make it. this close. you can see there s a marine at the photo helping at the airport but they could not get on a plane. major schueman also posted this video of zak and his family. this close and didn t make it. you hear his kids crying. at one point it sounds like a gunshot goes off in the background. i mean this is literally how this is going right now. call every person you know who has any influence. dial every number in your phone. call the contractor who turns out to be surrounded by the taliban. call the marine that s near the checkpoint or could maybe get to the check point. get a picture of his exact location. keep texting that officer that stopped returning your messages.
he had already worked with so many different interpreters, but zach was different. he was physically fit for one. his english was excellent. most of all, he was willing to go to sangin, which many interpreters avoided. he said i immediately recognized that he was a special guy and i was very lucky to have him. marines in other platoons began to eye this new addition with envy, but major schueman had no intention of sharing him. the patrols were long and terrifying as the marines made their way through mined territory toward villages, often being ambushed in a campaign that killed and severely injured scores of troops. at one point zak overheard two taliban fighters from a distance talking on their radios as they organized an attack on the group of marines plodding slowly toward them in formation behind an engineer with a metal detector. a metal detector to detect mines. major schueman recalled zak s next actions.
zak is because major schueman has been chronicling his effort out loud and in public, specifically on instagram, not just to provide a record of what s happening to zak, but also as a way to beg for help to anyone who might see his posts and might be able to help at all. so here was major schueman three days ago. quote, if zak can get an escort to the airport, we can get him on a plane today. he is 7.5 kilometers from the airport. if you have someone on the ground who can transport his family right now, please let me know. and if you swipe to the side on that post, you would then see that the second thing that he posted in that post was also this little video of zak s young kids. two of zak s four young kids. then one day later we get another update from major schueman. quote, zak is at the airport. he is trying to find the abbey gate. anyone who can escort his family to ramp 8, please let me go.
immigrate to the united states in exchange for the sacrifice he made for our country. there is a special category for men like zak who helped u.s. troops so they could come to the united states. zak first applied for that visa six years ago, but it hit a snag because overall zak spent about three years working for the u.s. war effort in afghanistan. in addition to working for major schueman and that battalion of marines, he also spent time working for a u.s. government contractor that was supplying translation services to the u.s. army. in order to get this visa, this special visa that was created for people like him, he needed to prove that he had worked for u.s. troops for two years or more. in order to do that, he needed a letter from everybody he had worked for, including that contractor who set him up to translate for the u.s. army. he needed that attestation to his service so he could get credit both for his service with the marines but also for his time in the army. he needed cr