You’ve only got three choices in life: give up, give in, or give it all you’ve got – unknown
Maybe this is his mantra? What he lives by? It’s like he is so much in a hurry, wanting to see the fruits of his labor of love for the men, women, and children of the beloved country he had had to leave.
Having a glimpse of Hamed Wardak life and times, one can’t help but think, “there is a man who gives it all he’s got…”
Hamed Wardak was no ordinary child nor is he an ordinary man. Having been cruelly robbed of his youth, Hamed Wardak is the face of a new generation for American refugees. A generation who, in looking back, can only move forward to a world of living harmoniously in peace.
December 1979, two years before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. In the town of Kabul, Hamed Wardak was born. The son of a national resistance leader who fought the Russians during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, General Abdul Rahim Wardak, who later was named Afghanistan’s Defense Minister. As Defense Minister of Afghanistan, General Wardak collaborated with the leaders of both Afghanistan and the United States of America. Their purpose was to cease destruction by the Taliban upon his homeland and bring peace and stability thereafter. Being a man of intelligence and linguistic talents, he made good use of these in serving his beloved country with the fervent hope of achieving ethnic reconciliation.
Hamed, who will prove to truly be his father’s son, was initially raised in neighboring Pakistan. But as war broke out, he had no choice but to flee together with no less than six million other refugees.
Hamed arrived in the United States as a young man. He took up a Bachelors’s Degree in Government and Political Theory and graduated from Georgetown University as the class of 1997 valedictorian. Also, in the same year, he received the most coveted Rhodes Scholarship. A brilliant young man by anyone’s standards.
Upon graduation, Hamed joined Merrill Lynch in Palo Alto, California and New York City. He showed great intelligence and skill managing mergers and acquisitions valued in the millions and even billions.
In 2002, Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani appointed him Private Envoy to the United States.
In 2004, he went on to become Managing Director for International Operations at Technologists, Inc., a highly resolute and fulfilling position. Under his creative yet analytical leadership, the company developed a 44 million dollar contract in Afghanistan, working side by side with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Over and above his lucrative business associations, Hamed focused on his home country, Afghanistan. He envisioned and is working on a much better future for his people. A life of peace and economic stability.
He was a member of the Board of the Campaign for the United States – Afghanistan Partnership (CUSAP). This organization aims to forge a long-term partnership between the citizens of both countries. A mutually beneficial partnership that will provide peace, stability, and prosperity to the country he treasures the most. He wanted it all not only for the present but more so for the future generations of this precious land which he had had to leave at a very tender age.
Hamed has been doing all these and so much more. He never stops and would not stop until not a single soul would have to tearfully leave his cherished country again.
