I Was A Prisoner In Iran

My story begins before I was born. Although I was born in America, the man who would be my father is a native of Iran. He was not well off by any means. In the winter he had to wrap cloth around his feet because he had no shoes. His dad fought for the Nazis in World War II after the British and Russians had invaded Iran. He abandoned his family and retreated to the mountains of the country where he fought with a resistance group. He left my grandmother alone with many children in a war torn country.

My dad to be had three brothers and three sisters. One brother died of pneumonia because Iran didn't have the drugs to save him. The second youngest sibling, my dad to be was high-spirited and rambunctious. He loved America and what it stood for. He often read books about the American old west and would sneak away to attend John Wayne movies.

When my father reached the age that he could attend college in 1965, the Shah sent him with a host of other Iranians his age to the United States to be educated as an engineer. He attended Truman State University in Kirkville, Missouri. The school was well known to Iranians because it hosted many Iranian students through the years. He worked in the school's cafeteria to pay for his tuition, room and board and his books and he befriended a man about his age who turned out to be the brother of the woman who would be my mother. The two developed a friendship and the friend soon introduced him to his sister. My dad and mom courted and were married. I was born in 1969.