Yes She Can, a series of articles featuring local women who excel in their fields, continues today in Blade NewsSlide. You can submit nominations to Larry Graham, The Blade’s assistant managing editor, at lgraham@theblade.com.
It took her two decades, but Alea Nadeem has forgiven her father.
From her current deployment location in Qatar, Ms. Nadeem — an Air Force captain — recalled the events from her childhood. After all, it’s largely what she learned during the four turbulent years she was kidnapped that led her to later enlist in high school.
She once suppressed these memories: Only recently has she publicly peeled back the layers on why her father kept her away from her home in the United States.
WATCH: Alea Nadeem’s family recalls her kidnapping
It’s a complicated situation to digest: When Capt. Nadeem was eight years old, her father took the family to his home city in Iraq to visit his ailing grandmother. Once they arrived, Cindy Kurtz and her two children discovered their relative wasn’t as sick as they were led to believe.
That’s when Capt. Nadeem’s father forced her mother into making an impossible choice: She could only pick one child to take home to the United States.
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First Published May 7, 2018, 11:30 a.m.