Memories of Davoud Molaei

Machine translation Edited by Mandana Karimi

2026-9-16

Davoud Molaei, a fighter during the years of the Holy Defense, was a guest on the 289^th Shab-e Khatereh (Night of Memoris) program (March 2018). He spoke about being deployed to the Kurdistan region with two of his classmates. Molaei said: “When my brother was martyred, they came to our house and said that Hassan was wounded and that we should go see him in the hospital. Mr. Ghorbani came and told me that Hassan was martyred, go and bring his photos. We need them. I was a child and I did not know what it meant to be a martyr. I thought to myself that something had happened and then when my brother came, I would tell him. I brought the photos and handed them over. It seems that when my parents were on their way, they had quietly told me that he had been martyred and taken them to the morgue. At that time, Mr. Reza Mobini was with my father. When he returned, when my father was impatient, my mother would console him and say, "We had five sons and God took one of them from us. It's not like we paid their Khums[1], it is like we returned this trust to its rightful owner." After a while of me going back and forth to the front, my parents agreed to talk to me about whether I should go to the front less or not at all during the critical situation of the war. My father said, "We have done our share enough, and you have also been to the front a few times." During operations, due to security issues, communication with the rear was completely cut off, and when my parents saw the children who were with us being martyred or injured, they would get worried. Rumors would spread a lot, and they would look for me in the hospitals among the wounded. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that they would enter into negotiations with me. My father spoke and tried to convince me not to go. At this moment, my mother said that if all the families with a martyr and a wounded person think that they have done their part, then who will stand before the enemy? I was worried, what answer should I give my father, but my mother settled the matter with this word. These were the Fatimid mothers who raised heroic children. We are the product of the shrines of Imam Hussein (AS) and their Quran sessions that were able to stand before the enemy that the world supported at that time.

We were in the same class with Mr. Boluri and Mr. Fadaei. I was the senior of the class and when I came to the region, they came. In the next series, we went to the front with a mass deployment. When we entered the army, we were in a unit, in a company and in a platoon. We first went to Kurdistan and then to the Salt Lake line in the Valfajr 8^th operational area. Where the martyrs of the division were left behind, they carried out an operation to bring them back and to some extent straighten the line. That operation had a defense that they had given us and Mr. Boluri was wounded there.

In that trench where we were together, I had a gun that was a special sniper weapon, equipped with a scope. I had received specialized training and my friends had ordinary weapons. Mr. Boluri used my gun at night. My gun could hit the enemy's lights. It had a greater range and accuracy, and in order to be able to hit more accurately, he used a colored bullet. Mr. Boluri's job was to look for colored bullets in the line during the day to hit the enemy's lights at night. This gun was given to us to use in special cases and to aim the machine gun, which required more accuracy. I was constantly looking for Mr. Boluri to see where he had put my gun.

We were a group that had four community bunkers. During the few days we were there for defense, the bunkers usually got wet because the water level was high. We decided to take out the blankets so that they could be sunned and disinfected for hygiene reasons and to dry the ones under them. One day we took out all the equipment. Our bunker had a shrapnel shield and I was standing behind it. A 120-round bullet came. These bullets would pierce the ground and cause an explosion. When this bullet came, the entire group that was with us, except for me, was wounded. That shrapnel shield had prevented me from being hit by shrapnel. In other bunkers that belonged to our group, one or two people were wounded.”

Let us continue with this story. So far, 382^nd programs of the Holy Defense Night of Memories have been held by the Center for Studies and Research on Sustainable Culture and Literature and the Office of Resistance Literature and Art of the Arts Center. The next program will be held on Thursday, September 24^th 2026.

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