In Afghanistan, Nasrat Shafiq commanded a platform, military terminology for leading a defensive position and the soldiers who hold it. He graduated from the Indian Military Academy as a commissioned officer. When he spoke, men followed.
In Sacramento, he depends on a friend from his apartment complex for rides to Sacramento City College.
This is what arrival can look like. It is also what beginning again often looks like.
Nasrat is one of 21 recipients of the America’s Allies Scholarship Program (AASP), a joint initiative between No One Left Behind and the Afghan Future Fund. Over 800 allies applied. Nasrat was selected to receive funding for his studies in Mechanical-Electrical Technology, a field he chose deliberately. The work is portable. The skills transfer. He can eventually work for himself, on his own terms.
Shafiq states that observing the American military structure, discipline, and professionalism deeply shaped him. He wanted to bring that same integrity and reform to Afghanistan’s armed forces. “I was proud to serve my country,” he says. “I was happy I could contribute.”
He never imagined a life outside the military. He never imagined the collapse.
He served as an interpreter alongside U.S. and NATO forces from 2009 to 2012. He still carries a four-digit ID number issued by American forces, the number he used to prove his identity when he reached the Kabul airport on August 19, 2021, his wife and three children beside him.
At the airport, in the suffocating summer heat, his family joined the crowds of thousands waiting in fear and uncertainty. They slept outside for several nights, too afraid to return home. His children did not fully understand what was happening. His oldest daughter, now 11, asked difficult questions. The youngest was just a toddler.
What followed was not a rescue. It was four years of waiting. It was Italy, where he taught himself Italian in eight months. It was Germany, where the winters were brutal and the language even harder. His SIV approval came at the end of 2023. Then, the January 2025 executive order froze travel for approved allies.
Nasrat borrowed $6,000 to $7,000 from friends to buy six plane tickets before the window closed. His family landed in the United States on February 15, 2025.
He arrived knowing one thing: they would have to rebuild through education.
“When we arrived, I told my wife we must focus on learning before money,” he says. “It was a hard decision to manage a family of six while starting from zero. But I want to equip myself with knowledge so I can contribute here.”
Now he sits in classrooms where instructors assume he understands English at the same level as students born here. He does not. But he earned an A in every course his first semester.
The discipline that carried him through military training still sustains him. “In the army, when we ran 50 kilometers, we would want to stop at the last 10,” he says. “Our trainer would tell us, ‘Don’t stop. Run slow. Run with pain. But run.”
That lesson has followed him across continents.
His wife, who holds a high school diploma from Afghanistan, has enrolled at American River College. “She doesn’t want to waste her time,” Nasrat says.
Neither does he. The AASP scholarship means Nasrat can focus on his coursework instead of choosing between tuition and rent. It means the debt he took on to reach this country doesn’t have to define what happens next.
“I want to be a good personality for the community,” Nasrat says. “To serve the people, to help the people, and to be the one for those who have helped me.”
Three of their children are in school; the youngest attends preschool.
He admits there are moments of doubt. Sometimes his children ask what he did before America. They want to know who he was. He tells them the truth. In Afghanistan, he was educated, he served, and he led.
Success, he says, now looks different. “Success for me is my family’s peace. Seeing my children become independent.”
A platform commander learning to rebuild. An ally keeping his promise, again.
About AASP
The America’s Allies Scholarship Program provides up to $15,000 in funding to Afghan and Iraqi SIV holders pursuing accredited degrees, vocational training, or professional certifications in the United States. The program is a partnership between No One Left Behind and the Afghan Future Fund. To learn more about the program, visit No One Left Behind Website.