The Story of an Unbreakable Bond
Avangrid employee Dave Williams (R) and his interpreter, Latif (L), were the primary presenters in a recent webinar in Maine.
In honor of Veteran’s Day, AVAN-Veterans hosted a special event on November 16 in Augusta, ME, that spotlighted Avangrid employee and military veteran David Williams. For the first time in public, he shared the emotional journey of how he extracted his interpreter Abdul Latif Yousufy (“Latif”) and his family after the fall of Kabul in 2021.
From 2008 to 2009, Williams served as a lieutenant commander of the U.S. Navy in Afghanistan. When he arrived in Harot, he was paired with Latif as his interpreter.
“Latif was an essential part of day-to-day life and my interactions with the local Afghanistan people. He saved my life more than once. I would be walking on the outskirts of a village, and he would tell me you don’t need to be here,” Williams said.
Williams and Latif developed a close bond with one another. They worked a lot in Western Afghanistan, accomplishing 130 missions together over one year.
“At the end of my time in 2009, I left and headed back home to the U.S., and Latif and I separated. My life continued, and so did his. He continued as an interpreter for U.S. and NATO forces, state departments, and many foreign organizations. He did that job for nearly ten years,” said Williams.
By 2021, Williams became aware of the situation in Afghanistan as the Taliban took control following the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces and the Fall of Kabul.
“My immediate thought was, where is Latif? I was honestly concerned about his well-being. I knew he had a growing family at the time with two young boys and a wife that was nine months pregnant,” said Williams.
He established contact with Latif in August 2021 to begin developing a plan to get him to the United States. Watch the full story below to hear how they worked together to bring Latif and his family to Chicago, Illinois in June of 2023.
