SABAH (66)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami
Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

2021-6-29

SABAH (66)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami

Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

Published by Soore Mehr Publishing Co.

Persian Version 2019

Dr. Mostafavi took two gauzes and placed them on the wound and was trying to insert it inside the wound with bayonet. He wanted to stop the bleeding. The hostage who was sitting and leaning to the trench wall, dragged himself to the rear and started saying: Khomeini the intruder. Dr. Mostafavi ignored his fear and inserted the bayonet into the wound slowly. The Iraqi started shouting.

The eyes of the poor hostages were protruding. His body was shivering. The others were almost like him. They are were very terrified. He had thought that Dr. Mostafavi wanted to push the bayonet into his chest and kill him. I noticed that he will die of terror any minute. I told Dr. Mostafavi: “What are you doing?!” He said: “I am bandaging his wound!” I said: “Like this?!” He said: “Then how should I do it? I have to tampon it with gauze and stop the bleeding.” I said: “With bayonet?! Can’t you see that he is dying of fear?!” He said: “What is it? Do you feel pity for him?! Do you expect me to bandage him with kind words and cuddling?!”

I was surprised at his words. I said: “No! I do not expect that. But you should not behave like that. Either you should kill him or if you have taken him hostage you should tolerate him. You should not torture this poor creature like this!” I said again: “Look at his face and eyes. He is dying of terror. God would not like if you treat him like this.” He said:” These people who act like dead mouses now are those who are killing our children and you expect me to have tolerance?!” I said: “They are now hostages. The situation is different now.”

The hostages stared at us. Maybe they were thinking that we are discussing the method of their killing. Dr. Mostafavi put the bayonet aside and said: “you do it.” I said: “I will not touch them. You bring him a bit to the front and ask him to life his hand up. Then put a handful of gauze on his wound, cover around his chest with a band. You know better than me.”

Dr. Mostafavi treated the wound of the hostage as I told him. Pour man was feeling a bit better but was still terrified. We have to send him to the rear of the front along with our own wounded soldiers. Dr. Mostafavi lifted him and they walked out of the trench slowly. He took him to the injuries trench which was a few trenches back from us and returned to us quickly.

They had taken an infrared camera as trophy. Alivand gave the camera to us along with the hostages. We each took it and tried it. We were very happy. A camera was added to our military equipment.

Next day was a rather calm day. Iraqis fired every once in a while but received our reaction. The number of injuries were not much. Around noon, Mr. Hashemi received the news of the birth of his child through radio. They started chanting God is great with a loud voice. One of his fellow soldiers said: “I wish you were besides to your wife now.”

Mr. Hashemi said: “my wife’s loneliness has no value compared to Aba Abollah Hossein … Khomeini’s karbala is no different from Hosseini karbala. This is a big happiness and pride for me to be here. Pray for me so that God will accept this.”

Then he came towards us and said happily: “sisters I want to give you a happy news. I was just informed that God has granted me twin boys.”

We congratulated him. Colonel Kahtari joined us and shook hands with Mr. Hashemi, kissed him and congratulated him. We returned to our trenches. Mr. Hashemi started praising. He had a good voice.

After one hour, in a situation that the Iraqis had started firing, we received the order of progress. Colonel Kahtari was running in the middle of his forces and shouting: “Move! Hurry! We should not waste time!”

I ran inside the trench with Elaheh and Keshvar and took the two boxes of ammunition in which we had placed our aid supplies. I had grabbed one part of the box and Keshvar was holding the other side, Elaheh and another soldier were holding the other side of the box. The boxes were heavy and slowed us and made us tired while walking. We also had to be alert to fight with Iraqis when necessary. When we moved further, three soldiers saw us with the heavy boxes and offered to carry them for us.

We handed the boxes over to them and moved. We had barely moved a few steps forward that a mortar bomb bullet hit the ground and the quiver hit the RPG support bullet part of one of the soldiers ahead of us. The reserve part set ablaze. At the first moment, all those around him, were shocked and stepped back being afraid of the explosion of the bullets of the RPG. Right at that moment one of the soldiers shouted: “separate the reserve part from the gun!”

One of the soldiers ran towards him. It demanded a lot of courage to do so. The bullets could explode any minute. The young soldier who was maximum seventeen eighteen years old was lying on the ground on his back and was shouting. Poor guy was thinking about saving the others. He was lying on the burning reserve part so that the bullets would not hit those around him if the bullets exploded. The soldier who ran to help him, opened the waist carrying the bullets of the RPG from around his body and started opening the reserve part. Thanks God he acted very quickly and did this task very well.

Elaheh and I ran towards him after the reserve part was separated from him. There was blood coming from his waist. The quiver had hit his waistline. He was breathing regularly and his face was not pale and this showed that the quiver had not hurt his heart and lung. I put a few gauzes on his wound and pressured. His whining turned to God is great. I rotated the bank around his waistline for a few times and fixed the tampon. Thanks God the bleeding stopped. The ambulance was there. We were still at the bank of Khezr road and had not progressed much. We got him into the ambulance and sent him back.

We continued our progress. Two hours later, we passed a few dykes and stationed in a new location. We had reached the Iraqi trenches. The trenches were firmly built and even some of them were covered with the carpets of other people. Their trenches were full of cans and edible things like chocolates.

Two days had passed from our presence in the new location. We, girls returned to base. We stayed in the base for one night and rested and then returned to our location. Belgheys also accompanied us this time.

In the morning of our return, we heard two Iraqi tanks approaching us from two hundred meters away roaring. For one minute my body started hot fleshing and my heart rate increased. Our forces started chatting when we saw them. If they reached us, the whole team would be destroyed. The tank could destroy us all with cannon bullets and artilleries and its tires. Besides this, the tank had soldiers in it and a few soldiers were walking around it and shooted at us and covered the tank. We had to stop their progress as quickly as possible.

Hunting a tank required big courage. Ghasem Farrokhi and Hassan Sorkhou each took one RPG without waiting for one minute and decided to stop the tank. They also placed anti-tank grenades on their G3s; grenades in the shape and size of an eggplant. Dr. Mostafavi also took the shooting and accompanied them. I went beside Ghasem Farrokhi. He was fixing the reserve part of the RPG. I told him: “We are coming too!”

He was shocked and said: “Where?!” I said: “Wherever you are going to.” He said: “What can you do?! It is a tank. What can you do?” I said: “At least we can create fire line for you.” He said: “we are not alone. Our soldiers are with us and they will do it for us.”

I said nothing anymore. Colonel Kahtari prepared some of his forces to fight the tank. All of them ran towards the tank chanting God is great and stood one hundred meters ahead of us. We held our breaths. Those inside the tanks and those walking besides the tanks shot constantly towards us. I whispered prayer and sent Salavat.

The first RPG of our forces did not hit the target but a few moments later, the second RPG set the tank ablaze. Our God if great slogan was heard all over the desert. The second tank turned back to their location as soon as they saw the first tank burning. The walking soldiers also ran away. God has created a strange terror in their hearts otherwise they could succeed in destroying us with the one tank they had left. Their forces shot towards us while escaping and recessing. A few of our forces rushed towards Ghasem Farrokhi and the rest of our forces and started shooting towards the Iraqi forces. A few moments later, our forces returned happy and smiling. Colonel Kahtari welcomed them and hugged each and every one of them. Those were beautiful moments. With the kindness of God, our line had been saved. Colonel Kahtari commanded to progress.

We took our supplies and set out. We passed the burnt tank and went forward. We progressed about two to three hundred meters. Iraqi trenches could be seen. Some of the equipment had been left behind in the trenches. This showed that they recessed hastily. By the command of Colonel Kahtari we stationed there. The forces started digging trenches. The Iraqi trenches faced our front and were useless to us. Colonel Kahtari instructed his forces to dig trench for us too.

We stayed there for one day. Next day, near sunset, we decided to return to base and rest a bit. We walked slowly. We were all very tired. We hadn’t had enough sleep and the progress had taken lots of energy. We dragged our weapons behind us. Ghasem Farrokhi started joking again and said: “They told us in the military that these weapons are your honor, your pride. You should take care of them like your blood … where are those military people to see that the honor and pride is being dragged like a shovel on the ground!” Then he started whispering a new poem which we heard for the first time:

We have to swim in the river of blood                      we have to travel by train

We passed Prophet Khezr and Zolfaghari. Ghasem Farrokhi said: “God I wish for a broken bicycle with a flat tire so that we walk less?! We are really bad luck!”

The spirits of these two brothers were worlds apart and different from each other. One of them was very serious and the other one was funny with a sense of humor. I could not tolerate any more and said what I thought. I said: “You brothers are so different! Late Mahmoud was so serious that we did not dare to do anything wrong when he was around and you are so funny!” He said: “Yes! You are right. Mahmoud and I twere quite difference since childhood. He behaved so seriously and officially since childhood. I was always joking. When we grew older, we stayed the same.. I was so funny that many of my friends did not thing that I could be religious and took them a while to know me.”

When we talked, the path seemed shorter. When we reached near Khosro Abad, we saw a car coming towards us. Ghasem Farrokhi waved and stopped the car; it was a pick-up which was going towards the city. We got in. I told him: “Your prayers have been answered by God. He sent you a pick-up instead of a broken bike!”

He said: “Yes, you are right! I wish my prayers could be answered so quickly all the time.”

To be continued …