- Teachers can have a life long impact on their students.
My mama was a teacher.
I saw this firsthand.
They're amazing.
They're angels y'all.
Well I want you all to meet Amir and Kevin.
17 years ago, Amir sat in Kevin's classroom.
Back then he called him Mr. Haney.
They formed a friendship
that continues to this day!
Two months ago,
that friendship proved lifesaving
that's because Amir and his family
were trapped in Afghanistan.
Unbelievably from halfway around the world,
Kevin worked to get his former student out of the country.
In a word, Amir is thankful.
(happy thankful music)
Please welcome everybody,
Amir and his former teacher Kevin.
Give it up for me y'all.
(applauds)
And meet everybody guys.
- [Kevin] Amazing.
- So Kevin before we get to your story,
how long have you been a teacher?
And thank you by the way.
- Oh Thank-you.
So I've been a teacher now for 23 years.
- [Kelly] Wow!
- 21 of those years in Strath Haven High School.
And I'm lucky enough to work for a school district
that encourages obviously rigor in
the curriculum and academics,
but also the social-emotional piece as well.
And making sure we take care
of the mental health of our students.
This guy, he had me twice.
I teach English and public speaking.
He took both of my courses
and I became an ordained minister because of teaching,
kids have asked me to do their weddings.
So I've done eleven - Wow!
That's quite an impact of a teacher.
- Eleven weddings. Yeah, - [Kelly] That's amazing!
So I'm lucky.
I'm blessed.
It's just an incredible place.
And it's been an incredible journey.
- Oh my God. Well,
we are blessed to have teachers like you.
And that's not live service, man.
I truly believe teachers change the world,
you know, man. - Thank-you so much.
That means the world. Thank-you.
- Yeah, and my mom was one hell of a one too.
shout out mama.
So what, what kind of teacher was Mr. Haney Amir?
- Mr. Haney,
he exemplified all the things you would ever want
to see in a teacher.
He's since become part of the community.
He lives up the street from my parents.
He's somebody that taught us how to be good people,
for me how to be a good man.
You know one particular conversation,
was an early conversation I had with Mr. Haney,
happened in ninth grade as well.
I think it was the first week of school.
This was in 2002.
So Islamophobia was very relevant
and very apparent everywhere in my life at that time.
And for my, you know, first class of the day was English.
And Mr. Haney took me aside after class.
And he said,
"If anybody makes you feel uncomfortable,
if anybody makes you feel like you're not welcome here,
you let me know and I'll take care of it."
And you know, being new to the area,
being new to the school for somebody, you know,
nine feet tall and a million pounds to come out,
(everybody laughs) - [Kevin] What pounds?
- In perfect shape.
- You know, as a young guy,
it made me feel welcome
and it made me feel comfortable
so that when I did hear things,
- [Kelly] You're safe!
- Yeah, I felt safe enough
that I could even join in the banter
and have a back and forth
because I knew that behind me was,
you know, that, - [Kelly] Yeah.
and I didn't have to worry.
And, and I felt like it was a safe place,
which is huge at that time, you know,
any student at that time in their life.
- Which is what every learning environment
should feel and look like.
Do you remember that moment?
- I do.
I remember it well,
because there was an experience
that I had the night before I shared that moment
with Amir or share the experience with Amir.
I was going to one of my favorite establishments
and it was run by a wonderful man,
salt of the earth guy.
He was Pakistani.
And I went there often.
Great guy!
He always called me 'big guy'.
That was, that was always
the name the 'big guy'. - [Kelly] I sense a theme
(everyone laughs)
And I went to his establishment one day
and it was destroyed.
And my heart broke for him,
such a good, good man.
And, and he, and I'll never forget this.
He started to, he starts hugging me,
big guy again, big guy, big guy.
And he said, "what did", sorry.
He said, "what did I do?"
He kept saying, "what did I do?"
And you know, he's hugging on me,
"you know, you didn't do anything.
Let's try to make this right."
So I stayed there
and I helped him clean up as best I could.
I stayed for a few hours with him,
which he was grateful.
We shared a few drinks
and I came into school the next day and I saw Amir.
So I pull him aside,
I'm throwing the football in the hallways
as kids are coming into my class,
which I normally do.
And I pull Amir aside and I say,
Hey buddy, you know,
whatever you need from me,
love, welcoming, support,
anybody says anything to you, bothers you, I got you.
To be able to support Amir that way is special.
It's a part of the job.
It's what we do.
- Yes, and I'm good. Okay.
- (laughs)
Were any of you guys lucky enough
to have teachers like this?
That really, you know, stuck up for you
or invested in you?
- Yeah, absolutely.
- [Kelly] Yeah? - Yeah.
- Yeah. I did.
Mr. Campbell, - {Kelly] Hands down.
my journalism teacher in junior high school is just,
you know, he's a wonderful man.
- I had a team Mr. Marshall and Mr. Stone.
And they taught a very large history class,
but I had him two or three times in high school.
I kept trying to get in their class just to, you know,
amazing, intelligent, thoughtful,
good advice off to the side at times when you needed it,
you know, a couple of kick in the pants
was very valuable! - Yeah absolutely, yeah.
- We need those teachers too.
- Great, saying I love history
and I look at all the movies that I've made
about history and it really kind of goes back to that,
that class and their ability to convey the humanity.
- And probably changed the trajectory of your life
with moments like that.
That's what I think about when I'm a kid too.
A couple months ago,
Amir and his family were trapped in Afghanistan
with no way out.
So Amir, how did you end up in Afghanistan?
- So my mom is American,
but my father is Afghan.
And my mom was actually working in the Peace Corps
back in the seventies
and married my dad in Afghanistan.
And that's where we come from.
But over the years growing up,
I was born here,
but I did get to travel in high school.
So made some trips to see family there.
And it really had something
that they kind of captured me in and seemed very.
- [Kelly] Okay. GQ.
Let's just talk about that though.
Okay - Yeah my man.
I know!
That's a nice photo.
I'm just saying.
- Thank-you.
That's actually Helmand, Afghanistan.
But yeah, I joined the military
after I got out of high school
and parlayed that into contracting.
- Thank-you for that.
Yeah thank-you for your service man.
(applauds)
- And after the military,
went to Afghanistan,
worked with the department of defense,
department of state and different contracts.
And you know, I made my life there.
I married an Afghan woman, had a child.
(audience wooing)
- [Kelly] Yeah. Making babies, woo!
(Laughs and applauds)
Oh my gosh!
- [Amir] Yeah.
- [Kelly] Oh my Gosh!
(audience saying 'Aww')
Oh my god! I wanna snuggle with those cheeks.
Okay. So cute.
- Oh I know, I know.
And she's a sweetheart.
And you know, I had my house,
we had the car,
we had the dog,
we had the kid, - [Kelly] Your life!
we had the life.
And you know, at the last few months,
things started to go a different way.
We had a call that came in.
I was told by somebody that, you know,
you need to burn everything that you have,
your pictures, documents,
anything that connects you to the U S government
or the U S you know, being a U S citizen.
Destroy it and get to the airport.
- How terrifying was that phone call?
- It was, it was a surreal experience.
- I know that you're like trained to like,
maybe try and handle that,
but I know your wife probably wasn't, right?
Like that had to be terrifying.
- So the hardest thing, you know,
people have asked me, you know,
weren't you scared and this and that,
and you're incredibly scared.
But you don't really have time to be scared.
There wasn't time to process anything.
It was convincing my wife that we have to leave,
convincing you know,
she has to leave her parents,
She has to leave her brother,
She has to leave the country that she knows,
my daughter has to leave her grandparents.
We just have to go.
We don't have time to grab anything
other than the things that we have to burn and destroy.
And, you know, it was a terrible, terrible time.
We went to the airport.
People were trying to get in,
city was falling apart.
We were there for hours.
We got back home and I was just exhausted.
All of us, all three of us were exhausted,
physically, emotionally.
I just had no clue what to do.
I felt like we were left behind.
It was a very terrifying experience.
- Oh my gosh. Okay.
So Kevin, so we were all watching this on the news.
And were you worried about Amir?
Cause you knew, you saw him right?
Where he was, you knew where he lived.
- I knew where he was.
We stayed in touch on social media and, you know,
looking at pictures throughout the years.
And you know, we exchanged pleasantries
and happy birthdays and all this stuff
that people do on social media.
And then you see the fallout.
And then I was terrified.
I remember, I know it sounds cliche,
but I was lying in bed
and I'm looking up at the ceiling,
talking to my wife and I couldn't sleep.
I just, I couldn't sleep.
Just thinking of Amir, his wife, his kid.
I reached out to Amir on social media
and I sent him a message.
I mean, what can someone,
some English teacher
halfway across the world actually do?
I send them a message
and things kind of happened from there.
- [Kelly] So, what did you end up doing?
You knew someone right?
- Yeah. So I sent a message on social media
and, you know, pray for my guy
who is former student,
who becomes a lifelong friend
and just did what my mother would ask me to do.
Pray.
You know, can everyone pray for me?
You posted some pictures.
All the love was coming in,
all the support.
And a friend that I grew up with in Philadelphia
reached out to me and said,
I can get him out!
I'm in Kabul, I'm at the embassy.
He goes, "I have a really, really short window to work with.
So give him this number,
have him contact me and tell him to do it immediately."
So I get this message from my friend.
I send it immediately to Amir.
Amir says, it's 2:00 AM here.
Is he gonna pick up?
Contact him now?
Like right, right now!
So I put the two of them in touch
and I kept kind of playing middleman between them.
And so I'm contacting my friend,
contacting Amir.
What's happening.
Somebody talk to me, what's going on?
So I'm getting messages from one side
and getting messages from Amir
and a lot took place from that post.
And that response.
- And then you must get this call.
I can only imagine ,
and your like, afraid to maybe hope like, you're like,
you want to take the call, you want someone to help,
but you're like, I mean,
when you got there
were you sure you were gonna get in, you know?
- Yeah. So first call I also got,
and we weren't able to get in.
And that was a really stressful period of time
for my wife and for me, for my daughter.
And so to just go and redo that without having somebody,
you know, have that conversation,
that the person that Mr. Haney connected me with
was able to have with me,
I wasn't ready to go back to the airport, but, you know,
he was able to direct in kind of help coordinate
the whole movement,
which was incredibly important.
And I can't stress, you know,
the value it had in getting us out.
- Yeah. I mean, I can only imagine.
Well, Kevin, as incredible as all of this is,
can you share what happened next?
- Yeah. I mean that you would talk about
the kind of interconnectivity of the world
and how small of a place
this actually can be at times.
So Amir shows up at my house
and we're, we're posting pictures, you know,
there's the tears, there's the hug,
all that stuff.
And so I post pictures like,
the prayers worked, you know, it all worked.
Thank-you so much.
And again, outpouring of love,
outpouring of support, you know?
So I get a message after I post the picture
from another Strath Haven student who graduated in 2014.
- Prepare yourself!
- And he's another one, you know,
I'm lucky enough to stay close to the students
after they leave.
And He said, "Mr. Haney"
He's an air force pilot.
He said, "Mr. Haney, you won't believe this."
He said, "I flew him out.
He, his wife and his kid.
I flew them out."
(surprised noises from the audience)
So yeah, it's crazy.
- That's insane!
- So, to have,
- You're like Kevin Bacon of separation
in "Six degrees of separation".
Like, this is insane!
- It was, it's just wild to have these two kids
halfway across the world,
both former students of mine that took all of my courses.
- [Kelly] Yeah!
- One helping the other it's, just imagine!
- And maybe when in your like,
worst scenarios in their life!
Like, you know what I'm saying?
This is such an intense scenario.
Not many people have to go through that,
live through that.
So wait,
so Kevin's former student is Lieutenant Andrew DaSilva
of the us air force.
He was one of the many dedicated pilots
helping evacuate people from Kabul.
Kevin and Amir don't know this,
but he's here today all.
- No!
- [Kelly] Lieutenant Andrew DaSilva
come on out!
(audience cheering)(music playing)
- [Kevin] No way!
I love this!
- [Kevin] Oh my god!
- (indistinct)
- Kid get back over here.
Come here.
- Aww
I love it. I can't hug you like him,
but I can do that.
- I think so.
- Hey, y'all wanna make room for him on the couch in here?
- Come on in bro!
- Okay.
This is the craziest story that we've ever had on the show.
It's just insane.
I mean, in that moment,
whenever you saw him, were you like,
'Was that Amir?'
like in your head?
- Oh absolutely!
So, I saw Kevin's Facebook posts
and it was a photo of Amir and his daughter.
It was at nighttime
and it was at Hamid Karzai International Airport.
And I was like, man,
like I recognize that face.
Like, there's some things that just stick in your mind.
And for this particular operation,
it was the children
and the families of the children.
You know?
And we dealt with hundreds upon hundreds of people,
but like the families
and the children really stuck in my mind.
And I was like, I recognize him.
And unfortunately, there was no manifests to,
You know, I could go back and verify, but I mean,
I recognize him.
100%, I recognize him.
- It's the craziest thing ever.
And that you both were even in that situation,
your former students,
it was just, it's the craziest thing.
Do you need? Oh my God,
- Yeah! I'm holding, I need a tissue!
- Hold on! I was like,
oh my God, I just stepped on you Amir!
I'm so sorry!
I just looked up and I was like, help you.
I want to help you.
So I mean, you okay, Ron,
You know a Hollywood story better than anyone. Okay.
How's this one panning out.
(audience laughing)
This is like, it's crazy.
It's real life.
- Yeah. Well that, you know,
that is, what is amazing is
that these remarkable events, you know, they occur.
And if you did try to tell that story in fiction,
everybody would say, well, that's ridiculous.
That's hokey, could never happen.
- [Kelly] Yeah!
- And you know, it's amazing
that we have to recognize,
we live in a world
where extraordinary things really do happen.
- [Kelly] Yeah!
- And here's one of them, you know,
it's really inspiring.
- I mean, it's extraordinary! (Applauds)
And thank-you so much for your service.
Thank you for doing what you did.
All those people,
just like Amir were trying to get out.
Thank you so much.
- Thank-you for support. I appreciate it!