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A retired Marine from St. Louis heroically saved the lives of three Afghan women when the country fell to the Taliban, two years after meeting them and staying in contact via Facebook Messenger.
Andy Bass, 53, is a former U.S. Marine who thanks to his hobby of competing in international marathons, traveled to Afghanistan back in 2019. In the time leading up to the Marathon of Afghanistan, runners headed to the province of Bamyan, northwest of the capital, to acclimatize themselves to the elevation in preparation for running in the mountains.
It was there that Bass happened to meet the Nazari family—a chance encounter that would change all of their lives. 18-year-old Zahra, her younger sister Fatima and her mother Bilqis ran an all women-operated shop at Bamyan market, a move practically unheard of in Afghanistan.
"My mom was the first woman to open a shop in the Bamyan market," Zahra Nazari explained to KSDK.
Over the following days, Bass continued to visit the shop and buy products, and eventually, he began to get to know the women. When it was time for him to return to America, Bass stayed in contact with Zahra Nazari through Facebook, where they kept track of one another's lives.
When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August 2021, Bass was unsurprisingly concerned for his long-distance friends, who had reportedly been placed on an "Active Woman List," according to the GoFundMe page made by Bass himself.
Zahra Nazari knew she had a friend in Bass and reached out to him for help, as she and her family fled their home in Bayman. "I said if you can get to Kabul, I should be able to help," Bass told KSDK.
Using his Marine contacts and with the help of an organization named Save Our Allies, he was able to source the women the correct visas to get them to safety. After hiding out for days, the women managed to get behind the gates of Kabul International Airport.
"Mr Bass, I'm in [a] military plane. Me, mom and sis," Zahra Nazari messaged Bass. Nine days of radio silence went by before Bass received the next message from her. "We are somewhere named Dulles, where is this?" she wrote.
The women had made it to Washington D.C., but it wasn't long until Bass brought them home to St. Louis, where they now live with him.
"As soon as they get their worker ID and social security card, they want to jump right in and get jobs," he said.
According to a social media post by Bass, the women have since received their papers and the job hunt has begun, while the sisters are also enrolled in community college classes.
"It makes me feel very, very happy," said Bass.
In a heartwarming post shared online, Zahra Nazari compared Bass to the superheroes she watched as a child, only better.
"I loved superhero movies and Captain America because for me they were heroes who saved people's lives, but they were all movies and imaginations," she wrote.
"My friend is a hero to me, he is braver and stronger than a superhero, Captain America, and my hero," she added.
