Communications with family in Iran have been limited for Kambiz Bahrami, who served more than 20 years in the Texas Army National Guard.
SAN ANTONIO — While a two-week cease-fire has been agreed upon between the U.S. and Iran, one San Antonio man is longing for the day when he can visit his home country once again.
“Getting rid of the current regime in Iran would be great,” Bahrami said. “I feel like sooner they’re gone, the better it’ll be for the people of Iran,” said Kambiz Bahrami.
Bahrami’s father served in the Iranian military and during the 1960s took part in training at what was known at the time as Kelly Air Force Base. He met his American wife in San Antonio and they moved to Iran where they raised two children.
Bahrami was 13-years-old when he and his family fled Iran during the late 1970s when the government was overthrown and replaced by an Islamic Republic, which worldwide has been condemned as an authoritarian and oppressive regime.
“He got my mother and myself and my sister out of the country and we just left the country a few months after the revolution. Came to the U.S. Started a whole new life over here,” Bahrami said.
For more than 20 years, Bahrami served in the Texas Army National Guard. He met his wife in Bosnia and together in San Antonio, they’ve raised their daughter.
As for friends and family in Iran, those connections have been strained in recent weeks. Amid the latest conflict, communication with relatives overseas has been sporadic.
“We do get every once in a while just a phone call saying, ‘Okay, we’re good, we’ve left the city, we’ve gone here,’” Bahrami said. “So the family knows everybody is safe.”
After more than a month of war, the Pakistani prime minister helped broker a two-week cease-fire between the U.S., Israel and Iran. The agreed suspension in attacks came just hours before President Donald Trump’s deadline, in which he threatened extensive destruction across Iran if the Strait of Hormuz was not reopened by 8 p.m. eastern standard time.
Bahrami is confident one day he will be able to visit Iran once again. But time will depending on what happens with peace talks over the next two weeks.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” he said, referring to the possibility of long-term change,” Bahrami said. “Iran has a very long history. There’s a lot of places I want to go and visit and see friends and family that are over there. All of us do.”