Thread: Fort Hood Ups Challenge to Recruit Muslim, Arab Troops

Fort Hood ups challenge to recruit Muslim, Arab troops

By Kathleen Gray and Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

DEARBORN, Mich. — Army recruiter Sgt. Chris McGarity is on the front lines of the military's effort to add troops who speak Arabic and understand Middle Eastern culture — a battle that grew more challenging after the shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

McGarity says he recently signed up an Arab-American high school student who lacked only her parents' approval to enlist. Then came the Nov. 5 rampage at Fort Hood. The Army has charged Maj. Nidal Hasan, 39, a Muslim and Arab American, with killing 13 people and wounding 32.

The high school student's mother "made her withdraw her application," McGarity says.

Such experiences illustrate heightened fears of discrimination and harassment aimed at Arab-American and Muslim troops since the Fort Hood shooting, says Mikey Weinstein, a former Air Force lawyer who founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which advocates for separation between church and state in the military.


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Muslims in the military experience "horrible" discrimination, he says.

Before the shooting at Fort Hood, the foundation had 80 Muslim clients who had reported instances of discrimination and harassment, Weinstein says. Complaints jumped 20% to 103 in the weeks after the shooting. "We had people almost immediately … being told 'you people' should not be in the military," he says.

Weinstein says he regularly gets complaints from troops who report name-calling, extra duty on holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, anti-Muslim graffiti scrawled on prayer centers, and officers who encourage their troops to kill Muslims or demand Christian prayer.

Language as a powerful weapon

As the U.S. fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mission to recruit troops who have language and cultural skills useful there has become so critical that the Army created two programs to achieve that goal.

Last year, the Army sought 270 recruits who speak Arabic, Pashto, Dari and Farsi — the languages of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan — to serve as military interpreters, says Douglas Smith, spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky.

The Army exceeded its goal, recruiting 321, he says. In 2010, the Army is seeking 165 recruits.

A second recruiting program began in February in New York and has expanded to Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas. That program targets non-citizens who have been in the U.S. at least two years and have special language and cultural skills from the Middle East, China and Korea, he said. The Army has recruited 455 people under that program, which expires Dec. 31.

"Non-citizens have stepped forward to serve this country in previous wars since the American Revolution," the military says in its briefing papers on the program.

Making the cut in Dearborn, Mich.

Dearborn, where Arab Americans account for nearly a third of the population, is fertile ground, yet just one Arab-American recruit in 20 makes it through the vetting process, about half the success rate of other recruits.

"If you don't have a valid green card, you're out. If you can't pass the aptitude test or can't physically qualify, you're out," says McGarity, 31, who served in Iraq early in the war and has recruited in Dearborn for four years. "Then there are the guys who are willing, but their families aren't."

The recruiters recognize that Arab-American enlistees may worry about fitting in with fellow troops or having to fight in Arab or Muslim countries. They work with Arab organizations in the community and attend job fairs to meet potential recruits. They hire Arabic linguists to work in their office, learning about the Middle Eastern cultures themselves.

Sgt. Ian Parker, 27, starts conversations with potential soldiers by asking how they feel about going to Iraq or Afghanistan. "Once you hit an objection to that, you're just wasting your time," Parker says.

Arab Americans and Muslims in the military remain a tiny minority. Of nearly 1.5 million active-duty military, about 3,500 are Arab Americans. The military does not keep full data on the number of Muslim troops.

Jamal Baadani, 45, a Marine reservist living in Virginia, is one of them. He founded the Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military and often walked around Arab-American communities in uniform. People would ask why he wanted to serve a government "that's going to kill your own kind," he says.

"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," Baadani would respond. "The U.S. Army really respects our community and goes above and beyond to understand our community."

Gray reports for the Detroit Free Press. Contributing: Niraj Warikoo of the Free Press.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2 ... uits_N.htm

"Non-citizens have stepped forward to serve this country in previous wars since the American Revolution," the military says in its briefing papers on the program.

Dont let them BULL**** ya America ... a NON CITIZEN is not permitted to be in the Armed Forces

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

"Non-citizens have stepped forward to serve this country in previous wars since the American Revolution," the military says in its briefing papers on the program.

Dont let them BULL**** ya America ... a NON CITIZEN is not permitted to be in the Armed Forces

That's what my understanding of it always has been.....and even anyone I know who has spent time in service has never been aware of it happening. Except for what they keep hearing about troops being naturalized while deployed they've never had any firsthand knowledge of it.

And that always struck me as odd.....given the number of troops one would come into contact with on a regular basis, logic just dictates that at some point or another they would run into someone this applies to.

Do you suppose it could just be propaganda AB?

If not, it's got to be the only secret our government has been able to keep because God only knows they've managed to leak everything else to the rest of the blinkin' world

W had that Moron on CNN do a retraction (what was the idiots name that commented on W's blue shirt)

after stating that Illegals were already in the military, we gave W the Info and called them out on it... I think it was CNN that did a retraction the following day

[quote="AirborneSapper7"

[b]]W had that Moron on CNN do a retraction (what was the idiots name that commented on W's blue shirt)[/b]

A moron on CNN is an awfully generic description AB W will have to fill in the blank on this one

Rick Sanchez?

Originally Posted by Texas2step

Rick Sanchez?

thank ya ... Yes.. that would be the Incompetant Boob