Powder River Examiner -

In the waning days of August 2021, the mountainous lands of Afghanistan had been nearly retaken by the Taliban. A contingent of American and international troops clung to one last chunk of ground, at Hamid Karzai Airport outside of the Afghani capital of Kabul, where Afghans desperately struggled to hop on flights to escape the menaces of life under the future Taliban rule.

During that period, the US would evacuate over 82,000 US citizens, Special Immigrant Visa applicants, and other vulnerable Afghans in what became known as the Kabul Airlift. Former Broadus resident, Casey Shober, played an important part in that evacuation.

Shober is a 1983 Broadus grad and current Purser and Flight Attendant for Delta Air Lines, where he has worked for over 37 years. In August, Casey, along with a group of other Delta flight attendants and pilots, volunteered to bring a planeload of Afghan evacuees back to the United States, many of them young children.

We recently interviewed Shober over the phone about his experience with the evacuees, from his home base in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

"When I first volunteered for the flight, I was scared to think about what might happen, but in in the end it turned out to be one of the most satisfying and humbling experiences of my life," he commented.

When Casey got the call in late August, flights for evacuees had been ongoing, and he learned that a number of those coming on the plane would likely be lacking in essentials such as clothing, and particular for the children – diapers, clothes, and toys to keep them occupied during the flight to America.

Casey's first task upon landing in Frankfurt, Germany, where he would base his flight, was to go to a Euro Shop, which he told us is a bit like a German version of a dollar store. In Frankfurt, Casey used donations from a number of folks back home, as well as his own money to collect a large assortment of children's clothing, Pedialyte, diapers, and personal toiletry products for the evacuees, which he and his crew stowed in tubs aboard the plane.

Shober's plane then took off from Germany and landed in an undisclosed US military installation outside of Afghanistan, where the evacuees had been flown into on the first leg of their flight out of the country. Casey said that the flights directly out of Kabul had been handled by military aircraft, with commercial flights taking over for the ensuing legs of the long journey. Though Casey's flight was commercial with no military onboard, he said that air marshals were on the flight in the event of a security risk.

Some of these initial flights out of Kabul had been quite wild; many are familiar with the picture of the US Air Force C-17 Globemaster with 640 Afghans packed aboard. The C-17 is designed to hold 134 personnel with their baggage.

When Casey greeted the 210 people who would fly on the Boeing 767 he was manning, Shober told us: "At first it was a bit of a shock. There were a large number of children coming on board by themselves – no one knew where their parents were. Families were coming onboard with nothing more than a sack of dirty clothes as their only possessions, and a lot of the people smelled terribly. These folks had escaped from their homes with little more than themselves, and were just happy to be going somewhere safe. There was even a two-day old baby who came onboard that had been born in the airport hangar prior to our arrival."

He continued: "My staff and I, many of whom were even more experienced flight attendants than myself, got right to work, seating everyone down and getting them as comfortable as possible. For many of the passengers, this was only their second flight – the first was the plane ride out of Kabul. We had a number of people get sick on the flight, but we handled it without major issue."

One issue the crew was able to overcome was the language barrier. Despite the lack of an interpreter for Afghanistan's two official languages, Pashto and Dari, the flight attendants were able to communicate through the use of emojis on their phones to convey directions. Additionally, a gentleman on the flight spoke some English and was able to translate for the crew over the plane's PA system, which was particularly handy during meal time.

Passengers were directed to hold one finger up for the meat dish, and two fingers for the vegetable dish. During the seven-hour flight two meals were served, as well as a number of snacks and drinks, all of which Casey said went over very well with the passengers, who were very appreciative of the service from the flight crew.

In between meal times, a number of the passengers slept, but Casey stayed on shift through his break: "I bet I spent three hours holding the kids who didn't have parents, wiping grime off their faces with wet wipes. Those kids were amazing, I just wanted to take them all home!"

Shober figured the crew went through several hundred diapers from the stash they had brought onboard in Gemany during the flight to the States, as Casey and his crew became babysitters and temporary foster parents for the lone orphans on the plane.

The rules of the flight were a bit loose compared to a normal commercial flight; for instance families of ten might sit together in four seats, which Casey said worked quite well and there was surprisingly little crying from children. That is, until the plane began its flight down the eastern seaboard. Skies were clear as the plane made its way along the east coast, and the pilot called out for the passengers to look out the right wing and get their first look at the land of opportunity.

Shober said at the announcement the passengers flocked to the starboard windows, and were glued to the windows as they smiled, laughed and cried. "That really got me," he said. "I think for many that might have been their realization that they really made it to freedom."

This was not the first time Casey had been involved with the military or evacuation of orphans to the States – in his earlier years he had flown on flights bringing foreign orphans from Asia to the US, and had also worked on contracted flights for US troops during Operation Desert Storm in the early 90s, as well as the war in the Middle East Post 9/11. On those adventures, Casey had seen people take their first steps on American soil, or welcome them back to the country after seeing the shock of war.

But Casey told us this flight was different. "When we touched down at Dulles Airport in Washington D.C., I got on the intercom and welcomed everyone to the US, and the flight just erupted. They were whooping and hollering and crying. It was absolutely inspiring."

A group of children pose for a photo aboard Casey Shober's Afghan evacuee flight. (Photo courtesy Casey Shober)

Shober said that when he was finally able to rest following his flight, he was so stressed out and tired he told himself he'd never do another evacuation flight. "But you know what," he questioned. "As soon as I made it home, I immediately jumped back on the computer to try and schedule another flight to pick up more of those kids."

As it turns out, Casey's journey was of the last six flights to bring large groups of Afghan evacuees into the States.

He told us the trip was incredibly inspiring, and he felt that he had been a part of an important world event, if nothing else for the impact he may have had on the lives of those evacuees, especially the children.

As for "Casey's kids", he said the last time he saw them was loading up on buses at Dulles Airport, heading out to their new lives, where they will learn, grow, and be free, in America.

Just before this article was published, Shober told us he is now on call to haul troops to Eastern Europe in case of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. It appears that Casey's dedication to serve was not diminished from the evacuation flight.