It Happened on the Way to War by Rye Barcott

Author:Rye Barcott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2011-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

THE BARRACKS HUMMED with speculation. Within hours Bin Laden’s name arose as the primary suspect. A small minority of the lieutenants mouthed off about what they believed to be a larger problem with Muslims around the world. No Muslims were in our company of lieutenants, and I would later regret not confronting them. At the time, I didn’t want to alienate myself from my new peers, and I didn’t know how to object to them in a way that would be constructive. Our emotions soared, and I, too, was angry and out for justice.

Salim sent me an e-mail around noon. “We keep watching planes crashing into buildings in New York and Washington. Where are you? Are you OK? What about Semaj?”

Semaj was back at work in the South Bronx as a community organizer preparing to attend Howard University School of Law the following year. I assumed that he was fine, though I hadn’t been able to reach him by phone. I told Salim that I was worried about American reactions if the attacks had been perpetrated by Muslims. Until that point, we hadn’t written to each other about faith. We began an unusually personal e-mail exchange that Andrew Carroll, the writer who was CFK’s first donor, later published in his anthology War Letters. One particular e-mail from Salim revealed the depths and power of his faith:

I wasn’t born Muslim … Mama Fatuma was a Muslim. She didn’t force Islam on us, but I got interested in it because she saved me. Islam is really important to me. I like the comfort it provides and discipline. In that way it is kind of like the Marines maybe. I found after I became Muslim that I had a community that cared about me. On the streets there was no one. The Marines helped you get educated. Muslims like Mama Fatuma helped me get educated too. So I feel a commitment and duty to Allah, praise be His name. I think we are all here for a purpose. I believe that purpose is guided by Allah. There is a lot of bad in the world. Allah I can count on to show us goodness and peace and so I hope this war will end and the terrorists will be stopped so that we can go back to goodness.*

Our training began days later with a renewed sense of purpose. We were at war. We cheered when President Bush gave a speech at Ground Zero and said into a megaphone, “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” We would deliver that message in person and through the barrel of a gun. Soon our brother and sister Marines would descend into the mountains of Afghanistan. Soon it would be our time to join the fight. I hoped that I wouldn’t miss the largest battles because of the nine-month training cycle that awaited me if I was to fulfill my dream of becoming an infantry officer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.