From Kabul to keel laying: Afghan immigrants find new careers at US shipyards - Breaking Defense

In 2020, as the Taliban was on the rise, Rafiullah Noori and his family uprooted from Afghanistan seeking a safer, more promising future in Northern Virginia. But Noori’s hopes for getting a college education were quickly crushed by the COVID-19 pandemic and economic realities, and he found himself delivering food for DoorDash.

Noori, then 20 years old, was desperate to find more stable work when one of his friends told him about the Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing program, a US Navy-funded training effort in Danville, Va., aimed at teaching adult students the manufacturing skills in high demand by the shipbuilding industry — especially the beleaguered submarine industrial base.
Four years later, he’s helping to build the National Security Multi-Mission Vessel, clocking in at Philly Shipyard every morning to do quality control for ships that will be used to train future merchant marine officers.