Muslim soldier’s fears lead to off-post housing request

[unhappycamper]

Muslim soldier’s fears lead to off-post housing request
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, December 12, 2009

HEIDELBERG, Germany — Staff Sgt. Azhar Sher is a rare and valued commodity in the Army. Fluent in Pashto and a variety of other languages spoken in Afghanistan, the infantryman has spent most of the past five years there because, he said, he believes in the mission.

Five deployments in five years, no problem.

But back home, living on post? That can be a problem for a Muslim with Pakistan-born parents, no matter how patriotic.

"I belong to a very large extensive family and, let me be very blunt and honest with you, my family wears traditional clothes and practices their traditional ceremonies just like any other family should and I am very proud of it," Sher wrote to U.S. Army Europe Command Sgt. Maj. Ralph Beam on the CSM’s blog.

Sher, newly assigned to Heidelberg, wanted to live off-post to ease visits with his parents, brothers, uncles and friends, just as he had when he was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment in Hohenfels, Germany. There, he wrote, "Neither my wife nor I have to deal with the hassles of signing in my relatives on post wearing (h)ijabs and (s)halwar kamiz."


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66607