Source: The New York Times
When Donald J. Trump said last fall that he would consider making Muslims in the United States carry special identification cards, Tayyib Rashid reached into his wallet and pulled out his military ID, then posted a picture of it online, adding:
“Hey @realDonaldTrump, I’m an American Muslim and I already carry a special ID badge. Where’s yours?”
Hey @realDonaldTrump, I’m an American Muslim and I already carry a special ID badge. Where’s yours?#SemperFi#USMC
Now, Mr. Rashid, who served five years in the Marine Corps and worked in avionics, deploying three times, has been outraged again by Mr. Trump.
This time it is because of the Republican presidential candidate’s disparaging comments about Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of an Army captain killed by a car bomb in Iraq in 2004, who criticized Mr. Trump’s proposed policies toward Muslims at the Democratic National Convention.
The episode “brought tears to my eyes,” Mr. Rashid said. “These are people who sacrificed their own child, their own blood.”
But, he said, his anger is tempered by his own experience in the military, where people were overwhelmingly accepting and supportive.
“I experienced nothing but love and camaraderie from all the Marines I served with,” said Mr. Rashid, who joined the Marines in 1997. “I was often the first Muslim many of them had ever met, but there was no racism, no bigotry. It doesn’t really matter your faith: We were all Marines first.”
Categories: America, Islamophobia, Military, Muslims, The Muslim Times, USA