Meeting with a Veteran; Davood Saberi

A Memoir of Sacrifice and Patience

Compiled by: Oral History Website
Translated: Fazel Shirzad

2024-12-11

When I called Davood Saberi, a 50% war veteran, he calmly agreed to let us be his guests on Saturday afternoon, Novembers 23^rd of 2024. He said, "What a blessed day! Incidentally, Saturday is my wife and I's 47th wedding anniversary."

We left on Saturday afternoon with two colleagues. We arrived a little before 2 p.m. When we took the elevator to the seventh floor, Mr. Saberi and his wife were standing in the doorway with happy faces. It was as if the matter had been settled; consolation and greetings.

He was off balance, but he was standing; not on his feet, but on the will that he had left behind in the area years ago. He fell backwards several times. I was bending over to help when I realized that this was normal for them. He apologized that he couldn't stay in one position for long. Sometimes he stood and sometimes he sat on the floor or the sofa. Several times, apologetically, he stretched out his leg and tapped it.

We had stepped into a simple, small house; a place that had a sense of kindness and patience. Mrs. Tahereh Sadeghi sat down opposite us with a calm face; a woman who had spent years pouring patience into her eyes and learning love in her smile. We sat down next to them, without saying a word. They didn’t need to ask. It was as if they had read our gaze.

Mr. Saberi began to speak quietly. He recited two verses of poetry describing the guest and said, “I love the guest.” He said, “I am from “Mansour” neighborhood.” In those days, in our neighborhood, you either had to be disobedient or...

He said, “If right now, when I am not balanced and don’t go out much, they say that a stranger has come and entered the building, I will go and defend myself under the same conditions. My daughter lives two streets up. If she says that a stranger has entered her house, I will go. In the end, I will defend myself even if I die.” He spoke of the days when the sound of bullets and mortars had become the bitter music of their lives; of hands that no longer had the strength, but a heart that still beat for the homeland. He said it was hard for him to stand, but he had never given up; neither on the battlefield nor in life.

Mr. Saberi's father worked in telecommunications. He also worked in telecommunications after his father. He also worked in the telecommunications and wireless sector in the war zone. He said: My wife and I were neighbors. We got married. Our son was a few months old when the war started. On September 21, 1970, I was ferrying passengers. A different plane flew over me in Shush Square. I volunteered to go to the front. At that time, Sardasht and Baneh were being beheaded. Now I would really like to go to the Grand Mosque of Khorramshahr once again, and to Baneh once more, but I can't. I take medicine that has erased most of my memories. I have a memory of Admiral Fallahi saying: Tell the air force radio operator to warn the pilots to hit Baneh but not the people. Another memory is that at the height of the fighting, I went to Baneh’s photo studio in a Kurdish dress and took a picture. I still have that picture.

His wife told me about the days when she used to soothe the pain with a smile; about the nights when instead of sleeping, she would pray that she would see her husband in the morning. She said: He became a veteran, but I too became a wound of this path; an old wound that has been healed with love. At that time, there were no letters or telephones. I spent most of the nights at my mother’s house, but sometimes I missed my home and my own life. I hoped that my wife would return early in the morning. They would come by train. He would come home about once every 3 months. At nights when I was at our own house, I would leave my son’s (Ali Akbar) bicycle behind the door out of fear.

We asked: When were you injured? He said: At the beginning of the war, we were in the car in Susa, Danial. They fired. Everyone in the car was martyred. My spinal cord was injured. I was in the hospital for a few months. When I returned, I was going to and from the front. In 1982, I couldn’t stand. I had surgery and they removed the splinter, but they said that even after the surgery, your neck and arms might not move. After physiotherapy and using a wheelchair, etc., I got better. I remember once on the street, my husband was carrying me in a wheelchair. I looked at him for a moment and saw that his face was wet with sweat. I said, “Tahereh! Are you embarrassed?” He said one sentence and I really want everyone to know. He said: “Did my husband do this in a fight or a fight? I am proud. He defended his country.” Both of them shed tears. Mrs. Sadeghi has had difficult days. She said: “We have three children and two grandchildren. My husband loves having children.” Only when the grandchildren come, he tells them to speak quietly. He can't stand loud voices.

We just listened, without saying anything. Words were scarce here, and all that remained was respect. When we left the house, we had not only heard about the life of a veteran, but also learned lessons of love, loyalty, and patience.

That day, we realized that sacrifice is not only on the battlefield; sometimes in the silence of a simple house, in the trembling steps of a man, and in the patient gaze of a woman, lies the whole greatness of the world.