http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/4872295.htm

Posted on Sat, Jan. 04, 2003

Sergeant accuses Guard of prejudice Veteran says he was booted out of Fort Jackson quarters because he is Arab

 By JEFF WILKINSON and TIM FLACH Staff Writers

Sgt. Majdi Tannous, a 20-year Army veteran, says he was thrown out of his S.C. Army National Guard dormitory because he is an Arab. A Guard spokesman said Tannous was dismissed from the billet for a Dec. 6 confrontation with an officer, and was allowed to remain in military housing until Dec. 30 as a courtesy. The Guard is conducting an investigation into Tannous' complaints and the incident, said spokesman Lt. Col. Pete Brooks. The results of the investigation should be available in about a week, he said. Tannous, a full-time Guard helicopter technician, claims officers asked him to leave his McCrady Center billet at Fort Jackson because his phone calls in Arabic to family members "spooked" fellow soldiers. "I've served my country faithfully. I've lived in the U.S. since 1968. Why am I being treated this way?" he said. "If I had been speaking Spanish, would I have been treated differently?" Tannous said he is living in a motel in Sumter . "I'm basically homeless," he said. Brooks said Tannous was asked to leave base housing after the Dec. 6 incident. Brooks would not release the details of that incident, saying it is considered a personnel issue.  

But he said Tannous "got belligerent" with an officer. Tannous confirmed the confrontation. He said he reacted to being called "a black-haired, bushy-mustached, terrorist-looking thug, something of that nature." Brooks said the officer didn't recognize Tannous and asked him to identify himself. Brooks said Tannous wouldn't identify himself and became confrontational. "I wasn't totally in the right but I wasn't totally in the wrong," said Tannous, adding he apologized to the officer a week after their confrontation. Brooks said Fort Jackson military police were called to quell the confrontation. However, Fort Jackson spokeswoman Karen Sole said there was no record of the incident. Guard officials are using the incident as an excuse for removing him from the dormitory, Tannous said. He said the two incidents are the latest in a string of discriminatory acts he has endured in the S.C. Guard since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington , D.C. , on Sept. 11, 2001. Tannous said he shrugged off being called "raghead" and "camel jockey" by military peers before the attacks as good-natured teasing. "After 9/11, it become more mean-spirited," he said. "I detect more hatred, more mistrust." A 41-year-old sheet metal technician, Tannous said he was working for a private firm in Greenville and a member of the Guard there when the attacks happened. He said a Guard officer singled him out for scrutiny after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington because he is an Arab.

Tannous said he was interviewed by the FBI at the officer's urging. As a result of the interview, Tannous said, he was fired from his civilian job servicing aircraft at Greenville-Spartanburg Airport . That's untrue, Tannous' former employer said. Tannous was dismissed because of unsatisfactory performance, said Kevin Yahn, an executive with the guardsman's former employer, Reebaire Services. "There was no discriminatory action taken against him under any circumstances," Yahn said. "He did not show competency to do the job unsupervised." Tannous said he never received any complaint about his job performance. "My work was done by the book," he said. "I really know my trade."  

Tannous also said he was questioned by state Sen. John Hawkins, R-Spartanburg, after 9/11 about the mosque where he worships and friends who are Muslim. Tannous said those questions, which came during his application for a security clearance, were offensive. Hawkins was acting as an attorney with the 228th Signal Brigade headquarters in Spartanburg . He declined to comment on Tannous' complaint. Brooks confirmed Hawkins conducted the interview but wouldn't comment on why it was conducted. "That will all come out when we wrap up the final investigation," he said. Tannous said he had been a good soldier "but everything changed after 9/11." Tannous said he took his allegations of discrimination to Guard officers but they advised him to "turn the other cheek." "I think if I speak out, maybe other soldiers from the Middle East will step up, too," he said. "It's the way I look. It's my accent. This nonsense has got to stop." Tannous said his family immigrated to the United States from Jordan in 1968 after their home was destroyed in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. He lived in New York and joined the Army in 1981. Tannous left active duty in 1988, and served in the Reserves for 11 years. He joined the S.C. Army Guard in 1999. Tannous said he has worked full time in the S.C. Guard as a technician with the 151st Aviation Battalion since September. "I don't want to give the Guard a black eye," he said. "I'm proud to serve but I'm upset. My allegiance is to the Constitution of this country. All I want is fair treatment, not special treatment."