Army stuff

As US troops battle Islamic extremists abroad, the Pentagon and the armed forces are reaching out to Muslims at home.
An underlying goal is to interest more Muslims in the military, which needs officers and troops who can speak Arabic and other relevant languages and understand the culture of places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The effort is also part of a larger outreach. Pentagon officials say they are striving for mutual understanding with Muslims at home and abroad and to win their support for US war aims. Among the efforts to attract and retain Muslim cadets:
• West Point and the other service academies have opened Muslim prayer rooms, as have military installations.
• Imams serve full- and part-time as chaplains at the academies and some bases.
• Top non-Muslim officers and Pentagon officials have taken to celebrating religious events with Muslims overseas and here in the US.
The US armed services don't recruit by religion, but the Pentagon estimates at least 3,386 Muslims were serving in the US military as of September. No precise figures are available because, while US service members are surveyed on their religion, they aren't required to disclose it. Advocacy groups put the number at 15,000, saying many are reluctant to reveal their religion. African-Americans represent the largest share of Muslims in uniform, they add.

The Marines also have allowed Muslims in their ranks at Quantico some dispensations to make it easier to practice their religion, says Lieutenant Commander Saifulislam, a US citizen born and raised in Bangladesh. During Ramadan, "they're allowed to have some time off to prepare for their fasting break and not to go to physical training" while fasting, he says.
Muslim troops say misunderstandings and friction with non-Muslims in uniform arise sometimes, but practicing Islam in a military at war with extremists who profess the same faith isn't a burden, they add.
Petty Officer Third Class Nicholas Burgos, a Sunni Muslim training to be a Navy SEAL, or commando, says instructors sometimes goad him by calling him "Osama bin Burgos" or asking if he's training to help the Taliban. But "it's all in good fun," he insists.
"It's all about how much mental stress you can deal with while you're in training," Petty Officer Burgos says. "I just laugh or have a smirk on my face."
His father, Asadullah Burgos, is the part-time imam at the US Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., whose roughly 4,000 cadets include 32 Muslims, 12 of whom are foreign students.
"There's been some insults and some taunting, but it's been handled at the cadet level," Imam Burgos says. "Usually that's due to ignorance."
Col. John Cook, the senior chaplain at West Point, says that after media reports about the academy's new Muslim prayer room, he got a call from a self-described "concerned citizen" who fretted that "the Muslims are taking over the world."
"I told him, 'I'm a Christian chaplain, but I have the responsibility to provide for other faith groups,' " Colonel Cook says. Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish cadets all have their own chapels at West Point, he notes.
Marine Sgt. Jamil Alkattan, a Sunni Muslim of Syrian heritage from South Bend, Ind., says his religion, his knowledge of Arabic, and his familiarity with Arab culture were major assets during two tours in Iraq.
Not only was he able to teach fellow marines key Arabic phrases and explain that all Muslims aren't extremists, he says, but he also was able to befriend locals, who brought him vital intelligence. "They would come to me and say, 'I know where bombs are,' and this and that," Sergeant Alkattan says. "I never got to sleep. They would come at night time and tell me, 'Hey, I think these guys [insurgents] are trying to set you guys up,' or, 'I've seen these guys with an IED [improvised bomb].' I think it stopped a lot of things that could have happened."


I don't quite know what to think of this. On the one hand, I think it is a good idea, on the other hand...they should be careful not to be too PC.

As far as opening the prayer rooms and hiring imams, that makes perfect sense. As they say later, they have services and chaplains for all other faiths, so why not Muslims? So far, so good.

Once you get to skipping out on PT for fasting, though...well, that's a little ridiculous. Sure, respect their holiday and religion, but it is unfair and unequal for them to allow Muslims to neglect their responsibilities while requiring all other faiths and soldiers to tend to those responsibilities. What happens when they're rotated into combat during Ramadan? Will we send starving soldiers out there? Will we be religiously insensitive and force them to eat their MREs to maintain their energy? Will we delay their deployment until after their fasting period? There has to be a happy medium between accommodating them and bending the rules too much just for the sake of doing it.

All that said, I think it is great they are trying to make them feel welcome. They make me think about the LRRP's in Viet Nam. When you're in the Suck, a 'native' is going to be a very, very high asset. From getting the inside tips and hints to just being able to pick up random conversation, they're indispensable. So, by all means keep them happy. Just don't alienate everyone else trying to do so.

I'm not even going to get into the recruiting foreigners thing. Too long of an article. On the one hand, it's good, and I think exchanging citizenship for service is a GREAT idea. On the other hand...well, just be careful. When we go to war with their country, where will their loyalties lie? I'm not saying they'll turn on us, because look at Albert Einstein and Wernher von Braun and so-on and so-forth. Those are guys who helped us in huge ways against their former countries, but not everyone is like them. Be careful to keep out Al Qaeda operatives or North Korean saboteurs, too.

I think it would be pretty messed up if they only allowed foreigners in infantry MOS's or something like that, but they just need to be careful. If a Korean comes in and applies for a nuclear propulsion rating, you might want to check his background...Two things could happen: 1) The extensive background checks for people of questionable backgrounds will overload our recruiters and result in huge delays all around, or 2) The extensive background checks for people of questionable backgrounds will overload our recruiters and result in people getting the nod without being researched.

Historically, who knows what will happen. This didn't work out so well for Rome...but it has been, and continues to be indispensable to France (big surprise there, eh?). During the Civil War, the Union and Confederacy both had considerable Irish recruitments which turned out to be some of the fiercest fighters in both armies. Who's to say what will happen?

Tastes Like Lincoln...

I was just reading the History Channel Magazine and saw this. I thought it was pretty gross/cool:

My husband recently told me that in the near future we will breathe air that was once breathed by Abraham Lincoln.

The truth is even stranger than what your husband said, according to David Bodanis, a historian who taught for many years at the University of Oxford, and author of several well-regarded books, including The Secret House: The Extraordinary Science of an Ordinary Day (1986).
In the last chapter of The Secret House Bodanis examines oxygen atoms. A goodly number of these particles bounce around in a typical room--300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 give or take, constituting about 20 percent of the air that surrounds us. (The most prevalent element in air is nitrogen.)
Oxygen atoms are in constant motion, moving in and out of our lungs, our rooms, and our houses, and traveling up to 1,000 miles in as little as two weeks. In his book, Bodanis offers an amazing observation, so odd and counterintuitive that the mind virtually reels. He writes, "A small sample of the oxygen molecules from any breath that anybody took within the past few thousand years is near certain to be in the next breath you take." Name a historical figure--Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, Cleopatra, Hitler, your great-grandmother. Tiny samples of them all, says Bodanis, "are in the air you have just drawn in."

I thought that was pretty neat. There goes Alexander the Great. It kind of freaked me out at first, thinking about sharing oxygen and such. But DUH! There's Big Granny. Oh, and that was just Chester Nimitz. And here comes George Bush...

I'm going to bed.