____________________

During the course of my job this past Saturday night (September 17, 2005) in St. Louis, MO I ran across a rather interesting group of US soldiers.

The soldiers were part of a wedding party for a fellow soldier whose wedding was held in St. Louis. The wedding reception was held at Club Europe on Washington Avenue in the downtown entertainment district.

I picked up a group of two white males and one Latino male who were dressed to party and they wanted to go Harry’s which is another popular downtown St. Louis party spot. The group was immediately rude and disruptive and within a minute I almost had a physical confrontation with the Latino male who was sitting in the backseat of my car.

The three men were engaged in a conversation about a woman they had just seen. Without being too crude I will just say that the gentleman sitting in the front seat with me was a homosexual, and the two men in the backseat were heterosexual, and the were asking the gay man how was it possible that he could not admire the anatomy of the woman they had just seen. That is when the Latino male looked at me and called me a “fag” and asked me what I thought. At that point I attempted to remove him from my car but the other two men calmed the situation down.

The man apologized and said “you know I’m just back from Iraq and I’m acting a little crazy… in Iraq we can do whatever. You think they put all that shit on the news? Man ask anybody we rape those bitches over there and we take their men and blow their brains out just like that and nobody ever knows.”

Not knowing how to respond to that he changed the subject and said “I can’t wait for the race war man. I feel like killin some honkies and some Puerto Ricans. They need to invent a gun that can tell the difference between a Mexican and a Puerto Rican so we can kill all the Puerto Ricans.”

Then he looked at me and said “You Muslim muthafucka man I should kill your faggot Muslim ass.” The other two laughed and then the gay soldier sitting next to me said “don’t worry I don’t think he is a Muslim”. This of course is wrong because I am a Muslim.

At that point I was just ready to get them out of my car and was nervous by the fact that I had my back to the two men in the backseat and wouldn’t be in a good position to defend myself if something jumped off so I tried to make conversation with them and I asked them if they were marines.

“Hell no we are not marines. We are army man, Special Forces. We are the muthafuckas that are over there in Iraq killing people all the time. Man that shit is fun believe me. You don’t think it is fun to just go around shootin muthafuckas and cutting their throats and nobody can do shit? You just don’t know man we are over there having fun but we are stressed.” The other man in the back seat said.

“In Iraq when you are stressed you can just take out you stress by killing someone. You can go pull your dick out and smack it in some Muslim bitches face but here you just walk around tired and stressed and that’s why I want to go back to Iraq; but I feel like killin someone for real and when I step up in this club with my knife don’t be surprised if I kill a muthafucka.”

Are these soldiers telling the truth or are they just boasting? Why would they lie about raping women? Who would they impress after all I don’t know anyone who is impressed by a rapist?

What kind of psychological treatment are these men getting after coming home from Iraq? Are they reflective of other soldiers?

What I found more disturbing was the fact that when I shared this news with people they just shrugged it off by saying things like “you know they have a tough job over there” or “man those guys are under a lot of stress.”

What kind of logic is that? Accountants, cashiers, taxi drivers, plumbers and cops all have stressful jobs; does that mean they go around raping women to relieve a little stress? Can they slit a few throats when they get bored? Or did people just mean that it is OK to rape Muslim women and kill Muslims? I doubt their comments would have gotten the same response if they were talking about going and raping some white women in Ladue or St. Peters (affluent suburbs of St. Louis).

The lives of many are not valued in this society. We saw that in New Orleans, we see that in the Prison Industrial Complex, and we see that in these young men who themselves are not valued in this society but they carry more value than the Muslims they have raped and killed in the eyes of many in America.