It has been four months since he was wounded on January 2. Now when we ask him “what it means to be a wounded veteran,” he gives a deep and bitter answer after a short pause.
“I think a wounded veteran means a left behind; one who has a permanent regret, and is going to live and grow up with a permanent and big regret,” Abdollahi said, according to an interview by Tasnim, as translated by IFP.
“Years ago, I used to congratulate my wounded friends on the Wounded Veterans Day – whether the ones who were wounded during the Sacred Defence (8-year war imposed by Iraq) or those who were wounded to ensure the country’s security, and even the ones recently wounded in the fight against terrorism in Syria and Iraq. I used to call them, but now that as a wounded veteran I’m suffering a series of problems, my viewpoint has changed,” he said.
“On this occasion, if I was healthy enough, I would have been visiting wounded veterans all day long,” the Iranian veteran added.
According to official statistics, there are nearly 550,000 disabled veterans of the Iran-Iraq War living in Iran as of June 2014. Many have also been wounded during the advisory missions in Syria and Iraq in the ongoing campaign against terrorism.
