3 May 2009

During the time I was there, I had eaten at the Burger King in Peshawar, became heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol, and had also been given a 3 year sentence.

Mike’s attraction towards Islam came in 2001, when his Afghan translator gave him a Qur’an. Mike actually had a feeling of deep respect for the spirits of the people he fought and he really wanted to understand what could be found in their system of faith which inspired a very great devotion that he could never understand.

Last month, a year after studying privately with Imam Sabur, Mike uttered the shahadah at the Masjid of Kemble Street, Utica, New York. Now, he has officially become a follower of the Islamic religion.

As a Muslim, he prays five times a day, after washing his body, to prostrate facing towards the Ka'bah in Makkah. (The first time, he used a compass and marked the direction of the kiblat with a tape on the floor.)

"Islam," the imam said, "is a way of life which is more than merely a religion. Islam teaches us how to do everything, and all those will become a form of our worship towards Allah."

Mike agreed. He agreed with all the rules that he encountered when becoming a Muslim. Not too strange for a soldier like him. Mike said that both Islam and the military had a structure that is not too different. "The military is not too different in the area of discipline from Islam."

He monitored the prayer’s timetable from the website of a Masjid every day. The prayer timetable was arranged in accordance with the position of the sun, from sunrise to sunset. He must wake up early, at 04.30 am local time.

Mike has a cumulative performance index of 4.0 in the State University of New York, and he planned to obtain the title of Ph.D. after going through a scrutiny and if he passes the trauma counseling. He had also been an inmate who was detained due to suffering from stress and a very scary mental disturbances.

If Uncle Sam uses his finger as a pointer for the Oija board, to look for the youths who could be a benefit for the US military, most probably that pointer would stop at Mike.

He is tall, likeable, handsome, with upright body posture fit for a soldier without any flaw, and he speaks in a gentle tone, full of confidence, intelligent and has a wide vision, he had always been selected as a leader when he was still in his job and in fact even in his time in the campus and community.

Mike was one of the US soldiers in the first wave of US forces sent to Afghanistan in 2001. Then, 15 months later, he was tasked to be in the first wave of US forces sent to Iraq. Just like most other combat veterans, he likes talking about funny memories that he had brought home.

He was the happiest person when hearing that there was a Burger King in Peshawar, Pakistan, which borders with Afghanistan. If there was no public transport crossing at Khyber, he and his friends would purposely make a journey to Jalalabad which took one and a half hour. The journey was made in a group of 12 people in three vehicles full of weapons.

"We would run and get our burger, eat it and run back to Pakistan. If we come across others on the road, we would easily kill them," Mike admitted.

Notwithstanding that, he would always be in fear and have nightmares.

"All parts of my body," he revealed in a low voice, "were as if they were disconnected from each other."

However the Imam rescued him.

"I don’t know, as if I was feeling something from Imam Sabur," Mike said. "He has already taught me how to have faith."

Maybe because Imam himself is a veteran and he just retired after having a career for 20 years in the Department of Correction in New York.

"Mike knows that there was nothing new and surprising from me," Sabur said. "I only listened and reminded that anybody would have made mistakes in the past, or might also make mistakes in the future. Only Allah is perfect, other than Him is not."

Mike joined the military in 1998. His first semester in the teaching institution did not go well, and through the suggestions of his uncle so that he would become more disciplined and mature, he joined the military. All of them were veterans from the navy, and they told me stories about their achievements, expedition and comradeship. As if they were giving him the impression that the military life is more pleasant than the university life, even though he knows that none of his uncles had been in the battlefields.

After his first journey, Mike said that what he dreamt about became real. He was stationed in Korea and Bosnia, visited 27 other countries, obtaining and wearing beautiful medals on his uniform. He also got the appreciation and inauguration, and he was enjoying every minute of it.

A month after his contract was finished, the WTC twin towers were attacked and he returned to the military service.

Mike wanted to become one of the medical staffs in the Special Forces, however they had made him to be one of the specialists in the civil affairs, which was apparently “no other than a social work which was overly esteemed.”

His task was to do evaluations and observations in the villages, negotiate with the notable figures in the villages, talking about building schools, clinics and hospitals where ever it was needed, and organize the construction for them.

"I was someone who could enter, smile and be happy: ‘Look, we will give you all a school.'"

However, he was not immune from the ironies of life in the former palace of the old kingdom in Jalalabad, which he said was "too attractive before we destroyed it," or in Fallujah, before "the members if the marines came and brought destructions to that place," and then as if they were giving presents to the population there through the various facilities which had first been destroyed by America.

"They didn’t like us because we had destroyed all that they have got," Mike said. "And we had to accomplish a lot of developments so that the image of the US military forces improved."

Nevertheless, the civil affairs handled by Mike was still an old job that he must accomplish. He liked to contribute and he "wanted to do something pleasant, like breaking doors and fight in the battle."

Due to that, Mike who served at the same time as a Bravo 18 weapon specialist, joined the team that were doing the actual fight, but only during the night time because if he went out during the daytime, he would be discovered. That way, he would experience hardships in “returning to join the next day and give ‘smiles’ to his enemies.”

But as time went by, he could not do that something he liked with freedom. Four months in his first tour, he began to be haunted by some nightmares.

The medical unit gave him Valium and told him, "If you do not sleep, we could not employ you."

He started to consume one Valium every night, but after a month he needed three to four Valium to make himself able to sleep.

He also consumed alcohol. All his friends did the same thing. One of the reasons was to bring out courage, as alcohol is also the reason for the soldiers to equally share each other’s fears.

"We could use ‘drugs’ or any things. Whatever happened, whenever we returned and before putting down our weapons and stuffs, someone would take out a bottle of alcohol and we would then talk about anything."

"That was a normal thing to do. If we were not drunk, we could not freely express our feelings, especially amongst friends."

This thing happened when they were in Iraq and began to become users of heavy drugs.

"With the American money, you could enter any pharmay, and they would give you whatever you want. I asked someone to write Oxycontin and Valium on a piece of paper in Arabic, but later they started to recognize me."

Of course, he became seriously addicted to drugs and alcohol. Then, the Armed Forces sent him to the Drug and Alcohol Abuse Supervision and Prevention Program when he was sent back.

He stayed in a very quiet and boring condition for eight weeks, celebrating his graduation as a soldier with 12 packs of drugs and he went to a bar.

Mike was so depressed and he tried to commit suicide. He took all the drugs provided by the VA to him.

"They did not make me dead," he said, "that’s why I was still drinking and becoming more addicted to drugs."

Then Mike surrendered himself and offered himself to be detained in the state prison.

After he stopped being an alcoholic, he spent his days in the prison by reading al-Quran, and he began to attend class. When he came out from prison, he straight away joined the community of the Masjid of Kemble Street and he was asked to be an imam.

However, Mike chose to become a counselor at SUNY and VA. When he first freed himself from the military, he felt that he could undertake it alone.

Mike made a few big changes in his life, including finishing his Ph.D. He knows for sure that his status as someone who had been a bad guy and an inmate forces him to step forward ten times more compared to his friends in the campus.

However, it did not make him give in. He was reminded by the words of Imam Sabur. Nobody is free from making mistakes. From then on and in the future, Mike had the opportunity to improve himself and always obey the order of God, just like what he had seen on his enemies during his times in the battlefield.

"Because a Muslims has a big spirit, in fact it could never be measured when he realizes that his iman is only presented to Allah. This thing is so different from the American people," Mike said.