Recruiting Arabs, Muslims remains a challenge

[unhappycamper]

Sgt. Chris McGarity and Sgt. Ian Parker man the Army recruitment center in Dearborn, Mich.


Recruiting Arabs, Muslims remains a challenge
By Kathleen Gray and Donna Leinwand - Gannett News Service
Posted : Friday Dec 11, 2009 12:54:43 EST

DEARBORN, Mich. — Army recruiter Sgt. Chris McGarity is on the front lines of the military’s effort to add troops who speak Arabic and understand Middle Eastern culture — a battle that grew more challenging after last month’s shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

McGarity says he recently signed up an Arab-American high school student who lacked only her parents’ approval to enlist. Then came the Nov. 5 rampage at Fort Hood. The Army has charged Maj. Nidal Hasan, 39, a Muslim and Arab-American, with killing 13 people and wounding 32.

The high school student’s mother “made her withdraw her application,” McGarity says.

Such experiences illustrate heightened fears of discrimination and harassment aimed at Arab-American and Muslim troops since the Fort Hood shooting, says Mikey Weinstein, a former Air Force lawyer who founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which advocates for separation between church and state in the military.

Muslims in the military experience “horrible” discrimination, he says.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/12/gns_military_arab_muslim_recruiting_121109/