This pilot fled Afghanistan as a child. Now he’s bringing Afghan refugees hope on their journey to America

He’s walked through Antelope Canyon in Northern Arizona, surrounded by swirling sandstone formations formed by flash flooding.He’s stood on the rugged Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, which rise some 700 feet over the Atlantic Ocean — a stunning emerald backdrop that’s been featured in music videos, a folk song and movies like “The Princess Bride.”He’s watched sunlight dance off the cobalt blue domes of whitewashed homes carved into a hilltop above the Aegean Sea on the Greek island of Santorini.Khogyani is a United Airlines pilot and a photographer who has spent much of his life snapping scenes that look like postcards from the Garden of Eden. But the image that moved him to tears recently is not something he saw in nature. It’s something he stumbled upon while volunteering last summer during a nine-hour flight to the US, on a plane filled with Afghan evacuees.Khogyani was gazing at the anxious and drawn faces of Afghan children sitting with their parents when he realized he was looking at a younger version of himself.”I was nine years old when I experienced similar circumstances,” the 53-year-old Khogyani says. “It all came rushing back. It was harder than I thought.”He fled Afghanistan with his family as a boyFor the fortunate among us, the holiday season is a time to spend time with friends and family. This year Khogyani’s thoughts are turning to some Afghan families he recently met for the first time — and one he left behind.Khogyani came in contact with these families through his day job. He’s been a pilot for United Airlines for 27 years. When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August, the Pentagon called on the Civil Reserve Air Fleet to help supply commercial planes for the emergency evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies. Khogyani wrote the CEO of United Airlines and volunteered to help. For him, it was personal.He grew up in Afghanistan but fled the country with his family in 1977, when he was nine. “It really is the beginning for those Afghan refugees,” Miller says. “They came to America with just the clothes on their back, but that’s not the end of it.” Khogyani says there was one remark that kept coming up during his conversations with Afghans on the flights to America.As the evacuees looked at Khogyani, resplendent in his United Airlines captain’s uniform, many kept evoking one word.It was hope.”A lot of them told me that they were proud of me,” he says, “and that I gave them hope that the future will be bright.”It was something that only Khogyani could give because he had taken their same journey and built a prosperous new lifeHe never gave up. He doesn’t think they will either.