I'm a professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. I don't know Dan Rather or Mary Mapes, but I do know their hearts. Please read on, no one else knows this.
During the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, CBS sent Mapes and Rather to report. They hired a young Kabul resident to act as their driver/translator. His name is Wahid Manawi. Wahid was a former civil engineering student from the University of Kabul. He quit his studies part-way through, because of the poor conditions of the university under the Taliban and the opportunities to make money as a translator for the NGO's, and after 9-11, the news organizations showing up in Kabul.
After the initial fighting ended and CBS left Kabul, Dan Rather pulled strings and helped get Wahid a student visa to enter the US. Wahid now studies at SMU, a private school with very high tuition. Dan Rather PAYS THE ENTIRE COST OF WAHID's EDUCATION...
Wahid lives at the Dallas home of Mary Mapes and gets room and board there for free. Wahid is getting a great education and will one day return to his country as a civil engineer to help in its reconstruction. He is a good student and has worked closely with me on several projects.
Whatever else you hear about Rather and Mapes, they have good hearts and they have opened up a world for a young kid from Afghanistan that he never could have dreamed of. We all make mistakes. How many of us change lives?
I think CBS local or national news was going to do a piece on Wahid after his graduation. With Rather and Mapes gone, I doubt that will now happen. I thought that the kos community would appreciate the story.