One Woman’s War: Da(Mother) Translated from the Persian by Paul Sprachman

In Iran Before The War(pp47-49)
It was almost the spring of 1980 and for the first time father let Leila, Mohsen, and me go to the Now Ruz celebrations with Uncle Hoseyni’s family. Very early one morning we boarded a truck and, with family friends of uncle’s, went to the shrine of Ali, one of the sons of Imam Hoseyn at Shalamcheh. Around the shrine there was a small grove of tall date palms as well as pomegranate and lotus trees. We hadn’t been there long when we saw Ali patrolling the area. He had just returned to Khorramshahr from four or five months in Shadgan, where he had been stationed with other Pasdars to control the border. Ali saw us and walked over. After the usual greetings, he said to uncle that we shouldn’t stay in the area too long in case the Iraqis started shooting in our direction. We found it hard to believe that they would attack just like that. I remembered that in 1970 there had been a minor skirmish between the two countries. Our home was in Dieselabad in those days, near the Ring Road, and I had seen mili¬tary vehicles travelling toward the Iraqi border. Some of the trucks carrying soldiers would stop, take a break, and then go on to their posts on the border. For the Iraqis the excuse was the border dispute in the waterway between the two countries (they called it the Shatt al-Arab; we the Arvand River). This resulted in the expulsion of Iranians from Iraq. We had no inkling of what the Iraqis had in store for us now, but it didn’t take long for the first incident to take place.
On June 1, 1980, two Pasdars from Khorramshahr named Abbas Ferhan Asadi and Musa Bakhtur were killed by Iraqi forces in the border region. The incident confirmed what the Pasdars had been saying; namely, that all the Iraqi border activity and provocations had but one purpose—starting a war with Iran. But their reports had little effect. On the day the two Pasdars were buried, Leila and I went to Jennatabad, where we saw father and Mohsen. A large crowd gathered, among them many Pasdars. From the looks on their faces it was easy to see how affected they were by the death of their two comrades. They beat their chests and cried. The situation in the town critical and threats of Arab separatist bombing, so several Pasdars were stationed on the roof of the mortuary.
After the two were buried—if memory serves—I recall that Hajj Aqa Nuri, the Congregational preacher of Khorramshahr, delivered a speech and the Pasdar comrades of the two fallen men sang a dirge, parts of which I still remember:
We are Pasdars of Khomeini, ready to sacrifice our souls.
Never shall we retreat till the last measure of our souls.
O Khomeini, O Brother, Command us, so we can wash for martyrdom.
From our veins blood will flow,
And from our blood, tulips will grow.
The ground will be a garden thick with tulips and roses.
This scene was not something you saw every day. It was unnerving, heart wrenching; but at the same time the pact the Pasdars made with their martyr comrades was both stirring and majestic. That night when Ali came home, he was very disturbed. Abbas and Musa were two of his closest friends. He spoke of them warmly to us many times. He told us that after the funeral, he and some of the Pasdars went to Abbas’s home, where everyone but Abbas’s mother was sobbing. She was calm and, when she saw how upset they were, she tried to console them, saying “Abbas traveled the path he chose for himself, a path that is not open to everyone. You should be happy for him. Why cry?”