FOREVER FRIENDS: Meet the man who saved James Smith's life

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If a picture's worth a thousand words, some are worth more, including a few dozen photos taken in a remote province in Afghanistan on Sept. 7, 2007.

"It was a mission that I wrote for our team. It was Operation Edisto," said Rep. James Smith, the Democratic candidate for governor.

Smith knows that day well. He's the infantryman front and center in many of the pictures, some of which were taken just minutes before he nearly lost his life during his deployment with the South Carolina Army National Guard – if not for a friend.

"I would not be here," Smith said without hesitation, while that friend, sitting next to him, listened intently. "I would absolutely not be here. I would have died Sept. 7, 2007, had Amin not been there."

Smith's friendship with Mohammad Amin began in Afghanistan more than a decade ago and is still going strong in South Carolina a decade later. For 12 months of his life, Smith fought the Taliban head-on as a combat advisor in Afghanistan. Amin was his translator for half of that tour.

"My wife and I prayed for our interpreter for six months before I left," Smith said. "And I can remember the day I met Amin and thought this is the man that I've been praying about for six months and knew how important he was going to be. I didn't know how important he was going to be in my life. It became really clear once we got started together."

"American soldiers have the highest training, but they haven't lived there. That's my job," Amin added.

During the deployment, Amin used his radio and lots of local knowledge to keep American military members safe from Taliban ambush.

"They were using a lot of code words," Amin said of the Taliban. "They see us, they call on the radios. They use code words, which, you know, you think they're talking about some food or something, and they're talking about us."

Fast forward to Sept. 7, 2007, and Operation Edisto. Smith's team was trying to get to the bottom of repeat Taliban attacks on truck drivers in that region. Smith and his team had identified a mountain trail that the Taliban might be using and set out to investigate it.

"I was climbing to this high point, and I was lifting myself over a big ridgeline. And as soon as I got over, my radio spun up," Smith remembered. "They were talking, and they were excited about something. I couldn't tell what they were saying."

"When I heard the radio chatter, they were talking about us – about you – that you were really close to them," Amin added as Smith listened. "They were asking for permission to start shooting at you and at everybody else. As soon as I heard that, I started running from the mountain."

Amin warned Smith and his team, and Smith says he used those precious seconds to avoid the direct attack.

"And I took a step and a half and took some cover. Immediately, after that, RPG-initiated ambush opened up on my position. Without that second of a warning, there was no way," he said.

45 minutes and hundreds of rounds later, Smith was safe.

"Without his quick action, his response, and him looking out for me, I would have never been able to survive that day," Smith said.

Once Smith's tour ended, the peril for Amin only intensified. In 2008 and 2009, he felt his life was increasingly in danger as the Taliban sought revenge against translators.

"Every day, they were telling us, like, 'You've been downtown today?' We say, 'Yeah.' They say, 'Okay, yeah, someone was following you,'" Amin said.

So Amin thought back to a friendship that was forged years before.

"One day, he sent me a Facebook message and said, 'My brother, I feel my family and myself are no longer safe here. Can you help me get to the U.S.?' And it took us how long to make that happen?" Amin said with a smile.

"Six, seven years to finally get it all done," Smith answered.

Amin says he was able to secure a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) offered to translators and interpreters thanks to the help from Smith and other friends.

Even though the process took years to complete, now, it's done. Amin, his wife, and his three young daughters call West Columbia home. He's an Uber driver with an amazing story to tell his riders.

"I don't have the words of how to thanks for him and everything he did for us and for my kids and for my family," Amin said glowingly.

It's the story of friendship – neither one would be here without the other.

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