The first time at Siavash tried to leave Afghanistan, he spent 13 hours at the Kabul airport with his wife and children.

Being pushed and shoved, I have to sit down in a pool of sewage water, dragging myself and my family a couple of inches towards

Abigate that we were told to get to.

Abigate, that is the one targeted by a suicide bomber last week.

Siavash and his family never made it inside that first day, so the family went home and came back to try again later.

On my second attempt, I was inching towards the Abigate, but again spending more than 18 hours I couldn't get in.

So again, I had to leave.

On his third and final try, Siavash got help from some former colleague, securing space on a bus with a route through Eastern Europe.

We spent more than 26 hours on a hot bus that didn't have windows to open and we couldn't open the door because people were just rushing, pleading, begging to be allowed into the bus.

We couldn't and then there was a threat of attack, so we were asked to leave.

So we had to go back home and become so hopeless and so tired and so exhausted, not knowing what to do, my mind just went numb. I know what to do, all I was thinking was the future of what will happen.

The reason Siavash is so desperate to get his family out of Afghanistan, it's the same reason we're only using his first name.

Over the last two decades, he has worked on various projects for both the US and the European Union. He's worried that will make his family a target for Taliban retribution.

He says he has applied for a special immigrant visa to the United States, but he hasn't heard back.

All Siavash can do now is hope that the US and allies will follow through on promises to keep working to get people out, even now that the US military has officially left the country.

Consider this, after nearly two decades, the American military campaign in Afghanistan is over. The question now for so many is how to move forward.

I'll never see my son get married, I'll never see him do anything. I have a immigrant kid, anything, it's all gone now.

Coming up, the father of one of the American Marines killed during the US evacuation mission, he tells NPR what he said to the President this week about his son. I'm Mary Louise Kelly, it's Wednesday, September 1st.

Over this last year and a half, the world's been through a lot, so on this season of the story core podcast, we'll hear stories reminding us that even when times are hard, we can still begin again. Listen to our new season wherever you get your podcasts.

It's consider this for NPR, the US mission in Afghanistan has not ended Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week, it has simply entered a new phase.

The military mission is over, a new diplomatic mission has begun.

That diplomatic mission is to stay focused on counterterrorism, evacuate more people who want to get out and get humanitarian aid in to Afghanistan.

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