Actor returns home to 'pay my dues'

Fahim Fazli's screen career was beginning to take off in the United States, with roles in blockbusters like Iron Man, when the Afghan-born actor decided it was time to give back to the country that had taken him in after he fled Russian occupation a quarter-century earlier.

Staring at his US passport, he wondered: "Do I earn this?"

Fazli, in New Hampshire last week for a book signing for Fahim Speaks: A Warrior-Actor's Odyssey from Afghanistan to Hollywood and Back, went to work as a translator for the US Marines in Helmand province, Afghanistan. It was a US Marine who had helped Fazli track down his mother, who escaped Afghanistan in 1980, and put his family back together.