On Wednesday, November 8, Sam Aronson returned to Northeastern University to share his story firsthand with students and alumni, a story that is now the subject of the popular novel “The Secret Gate: A True Story of Courage and Sacrifice During the Collapse of Afghanistan.” In the summer of 2021, Sam Aronson (’12) a young State Department employee, volunteered to help process more than 120,000 Afghan civilians clamoring to be evacuated from Kabul’s airport. What followed was a frenetic evacuation, with Aronson fielding pleas from embassy staff and military personnel to help Afghans they’d worked with and shepherded evacuees—whose descriptions and coded names he wrote in Sharpie on his arm—through Glory Gate, a “gap in the airport wall” hidden at the end of a “long, winding service road.”
Attendees had the chance to participate in a Q and A, and get their copies of the The Secret Gate signed. When asked by one student how Northeastern prepared him for his career Sam answered simply.
Northeastern taught me to be bold.
This event was co-sponsored by the Criminal Justice Student Advisory Council, the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and the Office of Alumni Relations.
