The 370th Night of Memories – 1

Iranian Oral History Website
Translated by Mandana Karimi

2025-8-21

The 370th Night of Memories program was held on July 24th, 2025, with the theme of "Muharram at the Front" in the Soura Hall of the Hozeh Honari. In this program, Reza Afsharnejad, Seyyed Saleh Mousavi, and Ramin Asgari recounted their memories. The performance of this Night of Memories was led by Davoud Salehi.

The host initially said: After the 12-day war, we vowed that from this week, before the program, we would remember those who told their memories and now have passed away. This week, the memories of Haj Issa [Jafari] were broadcast. The same merchant in Shush Square who had a liver-cooking shop. When Haj Hassan called him, he told his partner that he did not want anything from his shop. He served Imam Khomeini for 8 years. The host continued: In the 369 program, our entire planning until the 90th minute was to be virtual, but on Wednesday we decided to be in person and the places for those who were not there were empty. We are happy that nothing has happened to extinguish the narrative light of the Night of Remembrance throughout all these years.

The first narrator of the program, Reza Afsharnejad, was born in Khordad 1349 (June 1970), and was born in Khorasan Square and Tir Dogholoo. At the age of 11, he was exposed to the atmosphere of the front. He tried hard, but because he was young, no one would let him go to war. According to his own words, he was a well-known figure in the so-called deployment bases; for this reason, like many of his contemporaries, he managed to place himself on the list of fighters of the Holy Defense by changing and tampering with his identity card. In Kurdistan, he was in Jundallah unit and in irregular wars during Ramadan; but his main work was in the 27th Division of Muhammad Rasulullah (PBUH) and in intelligence and operations. After the war, he returned to Tehran University. He continued his studies and received a master's degree in political science.

A very important point is that he has a medal of valor from the hands of Hazrat Abolfazl (PBUH). They passed electric current through his brain 18 times, but he insisted that none of them be mentioned.

The narrator said at the beginning of his speech: I was 11-12 years old. The country was in a state where the atmosphere of the front had spread to everyone. I was also in the mood for the front. Even my own uncle, who was a commander of the IRGC, did not help me go to the front. I forged my identity card very clumsily. I added 5-6 years to it. I did not make a bad photocopy of it, but I made the identity card very badly. I still have it and now that I look at it, I see that I made it very clumsily. Well, at the very first stage, when the dispatching officer saw this, he said: "Go, son. Go home"!

I went to every base around us, such as Malek Ashtar, Beheshti and Miqdad, but this trick of mine did not work. There are many stories about me going to the front, and perhaps time will not help. I will tell you two or three episodes. For example, once the fighters were being sent by bus. I very subtly and secretly got on one of these buses to go to the front. When the cars started moving, they headed towards Qom Street. Two or three buses turned this way. Including the bus, we were on. It went and ended up at a barracks that I later found out was the Imam Hussein (AS) barracks. I quietly said to the seat next to me, “Are we here at night?” He said, “Yes. We will be here at night for two months.” I asked, “Why two months?” He said, “Well, it’s training course. Do you want to go to the front without training?” I said, “Wow, we came to the barracks.” They took us out and lined us up. I would sneak from one row to the next. They called out our names to sort them. This group, go to this Soldiers' sanatorium. That group, would go to that sanatorium. In the end, everyone left. We were left like a pile of rubble. They said, "Who are you?" I said, "I wanted to go to the front." He said, "Go home." I didn't even know the way home. Because I didn't know where the Imam Hussein (AS) barracks was. Now it's Imam Hussein (AS) University. They brought me in an army car and took me to Tir Dogholoo.

I went again at night and hid in the roofed part of the Prophet's Mosque (PBUH). They wanted to send aid supplies to the front at night. There were also a series of dispatches. I hid myself among these aid supplies to the front so that I could leave in the morning. He was sweeping the mosque floor in the middle of the night when he saw me. He thought I had stolen it. They called and the Basij guys came. The head of the Basij there said, "You are a very clever person. Go get a consent letter from your mother. By God, I will send you tomorrow. We will take you with us anyway. I ran from the mosque to the house out of excitement. When I arrived, my mother was not there. I asked Aghajun (my grandpa) where my mother was. He said, "They have gone to Qom with your uncle." "When will they come?" "Tomorrow, God willing." At that time, there was no cell phone or anything like that. My mother came the next day at noon. It took me an hour to convince her. I took the consent letter from her and ran to the mosque. The mosques gate keeper said that they had been gone for an hour.

In general, my first deployment took a year or two. In the end, my mother's prayers helped me. The story is long because I was completely focused on the war. My studies were not bad. But because I was focused on the front, I had failed a lot of exams. She said, "Pass your exams. I will pray that you go to the front." That was it. I started studying. I was passed school with good grades. I was not even 13 years old then. But my mother's prayers worked. Because one day when schools opened, we did not go to class as usual. All our thoughts were on the war. Suddenly, an idea flashed in my head to get someone else's ID card and go. I had a local friend named "Bahram Ghani". He was born in 1966, which means he was 4 or 5 years older than me. I convinced him and got his ID card. I went to Malik's base, where I was already a soldier. They knew me and where the Khodadadi Mosque was. There was also a district there. I said I wanted to go to the front. He said, "How old are you?" I confidently gave him my ID card. He opened it. He looked at it and gave me the forms.

Fearing that they would check these again, I wrote the name, surname, and the names of Bahram Ghani’s mother and father on that form from the ID card. I was at the front for almost a year during the first year of the war under the name Bahram Ghani. That’s why it was very problematic for me. For example, at the morning ceremony, the commander said Bahram Ghani, I looked at him silent. One of the pals said “Bahram, are you deaf? Answer!  I said: Yes, Allah. I mean, I had a lot of these stories. I mean, if I had been martyred in this one year, I don’t know what would have happened. Bahram Ghani had been martyred.

After a year passed, I had gradually become friends with the pals. I had told the story of my name to one or two of them. Of course, they were martyred later. Now Bahram Ghani has a year of experience at the front. I saw him a few years after the war, but I haven’t seen him for years now. May God protect him wherever he is. He wasn’t involved in the front or anything like that, but he was a gentleman. In short, I came back after a year. I tried the same trick again. But because this time I had self-confidence. I would say I’d been at the front for a year! If that didn’t work, I would use the same name as Bahram Ghani. I went to another place, deployed under the name Reza Afsharnejad, and left. This is the summary of our going to the front, which was a two-phased process.

To be continued …