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When Nader Alsafari of Dearborn was sent to Fallujah, Iraq, in
2006 to fight with the U.S. Marines, some of his fellow
Muslims at a local mosque weren't pleased because they felt
it was an unjust war.
"Most of them didn't like it," Alsafari, 23, recalled last
week. "They'd be like, 'You should try to get out.' ... They
were thinking, we were just going to go and kill innocent
people."
But Alsafari -- like other Muslims -- saw himself performing
his duty as an American. There are some 3,500 declared
Muslims in the U.S. military. And they're in the spotlight
after the Nov. 5 shootings at a military base in Ft. Hood,
Texas. The suspect, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, is an
Arab-American Muslim.
Caught between two worlds, they're trying to carve out their
own identity during a time of war when some are questioning
their loyalty.
A director with a conservative Christian group says Muslims
should be banned from serving. And amid the many Muslim
leaders who denounced the Ft. Hood shootings were a few who
praised Hasan, saying his actions were Islamic.
But Muslim veterans strongly reject the extremists on both
sides.
"We love this country," said Shelton Hasan, 54, of Detroit, an
Army veteran, "and want to protect it like anyone else."
Muslim troops aim to build trust in U.S. military
Arab American Veterans march in the 2009 Dearborn, Michigan
Memorial Day Parade
When Jamal Baadani, a native of Dearborn and U.S. Marine, was
visiting his nephew a few years ago, he noticed the
5-year-old boy didn't want to play with him as usual.
"What's the matter?" Baadani said he remembers asking him.
"You kill Arabs," replied the boy, apparently repeating what
he heard adults around him utter.
It was a cold reminder to Baadani that some in Arab-American
and Muslim communities are reluctant to have their children
serve in the U.S. armed forces, partly because they would
have to fight fellow Muslims.
But that attitude pushed Baadani to continue his effort to
bridge the gap between the military and his community. He
founded the Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in
Military, APAAM, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. His mission was to help educate people about the
importance of serving your country.
It wasn't always easy. Baadani started out going door to door
in Dearborn dressed in his Marine uniform. Some ignored him,
others gave him concerned looks, but slowly, he earned their
trust, paving the way for the military and other federal
agencies to actively engage Middle Eastern communities.
Today, the U.S. military has robust programs -- especially in
the Army and National Guard -- that try to recruit Muslims
and Arab Americans.
"The military has done a tremendous job to reach out," said 1st
Sgt. Baadani, 45, now a Marine reservist who lives in
Virginia. "The U.S. Army really respects our community and
goes above and beyond to understand our community."
1stSgt Jamal Baadani, USMC Reserves Founder of APAAM
with father Saleh Baadani at the 2008 Dearborn,
Michigan Memorial Day Parade
There are about 3,500 Arab Americans in the U.S. armed forces,
both Christian and Muslim. And there are about 3,500 Muslims
of various backgrounds -- Arab, Pakistani, African American,
among them -- who serve. They make up a small percentage of
the 1.4 million members of the U.S. military. But as the
U.S. military engages in a wide swath of the Muslim world --
from east Africa to the Middle East to central Asia -- their
views and language skills are needed more than ever.
At home, some Muslims who serve face pressure from family or
their peers about fighting against Muslims in other parts of
the world. And after the Nov. 5 shootings at Ft. Hood,
Texas, by a Muslim major, they face scrutiny from some who
are questioning their loyalty to the United States. And so
they are caught between two worlds, trying to carve out
their own identity during a time of war.
"We're getting so much criticism from our own community for
serving," Baadani said. "The No. 1 question I used to get
was, 'Why do you want to serve a government that's going to
kill your own kind?' "
Baadani's response was:
"The U.S. military did not go over there to kill your kind.
They went over there to attack a threat that came to this
country to attack us."
Moreover, Baadani stresses the importance of duty, of serving
your country, even if you happen to disagree with the
policies of an elected official. That sense of patriotism
was seen last week inside Masjid Wali Muhammad, a mosque in
Detroit that has the oldest African-American congregation of
any Islamic center in Michigan.
With a backdrop of U.S. flags and a picture of Islam's holy
book, the Quran, the mosque held a Veterans Day celebration
that was a vivid illustration of how Muslim veterans
reconcile their two worlds.
The mosque had planned for a Veterans Day event before the Ft.
Hood shootings, given that many of its members are U.S.
veterans. Many of them had converted to Islam during the
1950s and 1960s, a time of racial and political change that
compelled some African Americans to explore different
religions and belief systems. At times, that clashed with
the U.S. military, most notably in the case of champion
boxer Muhammad Ali who -- after converting to Islam in 1964
-- refused to join the Army to fight in Vietnam. Ali had
joined the Nation of Islam whose leader, Elijah Muhammad
urged members of his black nationalist group not to serve in
the U.S. military.
"Why am I going to fight over there for freedoms that you deny
me here?" was the attitude among some at the time, said Ajib
Rashadeen, 66, of Detroit, a veteran of the Army.
But those views softened over time with racial progress and the
new leadership of the Nation of Islam upon Muhammad's death
in 1975. Many of the veterans at the Detroit mosque were
followers of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, who replaced
Muhammad, became an orthodox Muslim and said it was OK for
Muslims to fight for the United States.
The new leadership allowed them to see that there was no
conflict between being good Muslims and good American
soldiers.
In March 2003, Sgt. Hasan Akbar, a Muslim, killed two of his
fellow 101st Airborne soldiers and wounded 14 in a grenade
attack near the start of the Iraq war; afterward, he
reportedly said he feared Americans were going to kill and
rape Muslims.
Muslim veterans say they're horrified by such violence.
"Islam has nothing to do with that," said Abdul Ali Sharrieff,
82, of Detroit, a Marine veteran. "Islam doesn't preach
that."
Abdul (Ace) Montaser, 27, of Brighton agrees. Today a DJ with
WKQI-FM (95.5), Montaser was with the Marines for six years,
serving in Iraq in 2003.
Born to the son of Yemeni immigrants, Montaser said he was
taught to respect all cultures and faiths.
While in Iraq, Montaser felt he was part of an important
mission to stop a deadly dictator and help free a country.
But at the same time, he said, he was reluctant to kill
anyone, Muslim or not.
"Islam is a peaceful religion," he said. But there are some
Muslim extremists who "have their own political agenda and
use religion as an excuse ... because the religion doesn't
preach killing."
There have been reports that the Ft. Hood shooting suspect,
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, had expressed concerns about Muslims
in the U.S. military going abroad to fight other Muslims in
what some of them see as unjust wars.
Local Muslim veterans said his analysis was misguided because
Muslims, like any other group, can break laws.
Contact NIRAJ WARIKOO: 313-223-4792 or
nwarikoo@freepress.com.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091115/NEWS05/911150529/1320/Muslim-soldiers-say-they-love-U.S.&template=fullarticle&GID=v5p/waq5kd+32vNqvQQ56tjZzzIgw/4zBdhXfmtn2/k%3D
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