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OCTOBER 19, 2008 1:19

Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan

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Colin Powell spoke in his MTP interview of being moved by a photo essay he saw in a magazine:

It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and
Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of
a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the
headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could
see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards--Purple
Heart, Bronze Star--showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth,
date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the
headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of
David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was
Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in
New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited
until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have
got to stop polarizing ourself in this way.

Here's more about that young man, who was killed with three other soldiers on Aug. 6, 2007, at Baqubah, Iraq:

When it came to a post-high school career decision, there was nothing Kareem R. Khan wanted to do other
than join the Army.

Spurred by the Septermber 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Khan, a 2005 graduate of Southern Regional
High School, wanted to show that not all Muslims were fanatics and that many, like him, were willing to lay
their lives down for their country, America. He enlisted immediately after graduation and was sent to Iraq in
July 2006.
So when his father, Feroze "Roy" Khan, saw three soldiers walking up to his door on Monday, he knew what it
meant.
Specialist Kareem Khan, 20, was killed with four others earlier this week when a blast destroyed a house he
and members of his division, the Stryker Brigade Combat Team, were clearing in Baqouba, Iraq.
An interpreter and 12 soldiers were also injured in the explosion, the Army said.
"It's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy," Feroze Khan, 49, said Thursday night at his home in the
Ocean Acres section of Manahawkin.
Khan's faith in Islam is important now to his father and stepmother, Nisha Khan, because they want to make
sure people in America know that Muslims like Kareem were willing to fight for their country.
"His Muslim faith did not make him not want to go. It never stopped him," said Feroze Khan. "He looked at it
that he's American and he has a job to do."
The last package Nisha Khan, 40, sent her stepson included a necklace that had Kareem's name in Arabic, next
to the word "Bismillah," which means praise to Allah.
In the Islamic tradition, last rites must be within a few days of death. Khan's funeral at Arlington National
Cemetery in Virginia is scheduled Thursday. The family will perform traditional Islamic rites at home and have
a full military burial.
"Hopefully Allah will understand," said Nisha Khan.
Though his father "spoiled him rotten," according to both his dad and stepmom, Kareem was always a polite
teenager, who respected his elders.
"For a teenager, he was a very obedient child," said Nisha Khan.
Feroze Khan's favorite memory is when Kareem used to wake up at 5 a.m. on weekends to accompany his dad
at work at a local marina.
"Not many kids would get up at 5 a.m.," he said.
Khan was a football fan, rooting with his father for the Dallas Cowboys when games were televised. He also
used to challenge his little stepsister Aliya, 11, to video games.
"He's really funny," said Aliya. "We used to play video games and sometimes we would play with my birds."
Nisha Khan said the two would spend hours sprawled out on the living room floor and sometimes Kareem
would try to show Aliya how to do certain moves, and ended up taking over the controller.
Aliya said she looked up to her stepbrother and she was "really happy," when he came with her to class at
Southern Regional Intermediate School during his leave last September. Afterward he accompanied her to the
school book fair.
"I was proud," she said.
Kareem was a "total goofball," said Feroze Khan. The family used to send two large bags of Starburst candies in
his care packages, because Kareem would pick out all the orange ones and leave the rest for his Army buddies.
He was also a big fan of the Disney World theme parks, as was the entire family. They would take at least one
trip a year to Orlando, Florida, and the living room and dining room of the family's split-level home is filled
with souvenirs from those trips, like a wall hanging of Cinderella, figurines of Mickey Mouse and Disney-
themed snow globes.
Kareem was so crazy about Disney World that when he had a two-day leave following his graduation from Fort
Benning, Georgia, the family immediately drove to Florida.
As a freshman at Southern Regional High School, Kareem enrolled in the district's Air Force Junior ROTC
program. During his one year in the program, he proved to be a solid student and citizen, said Col. Michael
Mestemaker.
"He was a good kid. He did whatever we asked of him," he said.
Stafford Mayor Carl Block said his "heart goes out to the family. We have been very pro-veteran in the past,
and we'll surely follow this up immediately" by planning an official memorial for Khan.
Representative Jim Saxton, R-New Jersey, received word of Khan's death through Army officials on Thursday.
"I express my deepest regrets for the family of Specialist Khan. His service to the Army and the 2nd Infantry
Division is truly honorable. It's a sad loss for us all," he said.
Khan went to Iraq after spending a year at Fort Lewis in Seattle. He came home for two weeks in September
2006 and was supposed to be home permanently last month, but his tour was extended through the end of
September 2007.
He was considering re-enlisting or going to medical school. He worked with a medic unit when he first got to
Iraq, Feroze Khan said, and liked what they did.
When he came home to visit, he was happy to stay at home, even asking his mother, who lives in Maryland, to
come up to New Jersey to visit.
"He has so much promise, he could've done anything with himself," said Joe Hawk, 42, of Bayville, who Feroze
Khan described as a very special friend of the family.
Hawk said he saw Kareem grow from a little 10-year-old boy into a man.
"When he joined, his dad was devastated," said Hawk, "but I told him you can't fault him for that. His father
raised him to give, and he gave his life."
Nisha Khan said seeing the soldier come to tell of Kareem's death was like nothing she's ever experienced.
"You see it in the movies, but you wouldn't know the emptiness of seeing them in your driveway," she said. In
her grief, she blindly hit out at those bringing the news, she said. "He promised me he'd come home," she said,
as Aliya held her mother close to comfort her.
"His dad is devastated," said Hawk. "Kareem was his life. A father shouldn't bury his child."
The most important thing to know, Nisha Khan said, is that Kareem lived up to the meaning of his name.
"Most excellent," she said.
Army Spc. Kareem R. Khan, August 6, 2007
Posted by breid August 09, 2007 16:34PM

file photo

Age: 20

Home town: Manahawkin

Circumstances: He and three other soldiers died of wounds suffered from an

improvised explosive device.

NJ soldier dies in Iraq

by Claire HeiningerThursday August 09, 2007, 4:21 PM

A 20-year-old Ocean County man has died in Iraq, officials said today.

Army Spc. Kareem R. Khan of Manahawkin was killed Aug. 6 in Baqubah, according
to the Department of Defense. He and three other soldiers died of wounds suffered
from an improvised explosive device, the department said today.

Khan was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 2nd
Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), based in Fort Lewis, Wash. He is
at least the 80th service member with ties to New Jersey to die in Iraq.
Khan had been awarded the Purple Heart for injuries from previous combat,
according to the Associated Press.

The Star-Ledger Archive

COPYRIGHT © The Star-Ledger 2007

Date: 2007/08/10 Friday Page: 017 Section: NEW JERSEY Edition: FINAL Size: 668
words

Ocean GI is state's 80th war casualty

By MARYANN SPOTO AND WAYNE WOOLLEY
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

The e-mails Army Spc. Kareem Khan sent from Iraq to his parents in Manahawkin
never mentioned the dangers he faced.

Instead, the 20-year-old infantryman chose words and pictures to assure his parents
that a young man who had never traveled outside New Jersey before enlisting would
be okay. The images included shots of him playing soccer with Iraqi children and
hugging an adoring young boy in Baghdad. Khan usually added words about his
belief in the mission.

"He told us many times that whatever they were doing is working," his father, Feroze
Khan, said last night.

On Monday, two soldiers from the casualty notification team arrived at Khan's parents
split-level home to tell them he was dead, the 80th service member with ties to New
Jersey killed in Iraq.

Khan and three other soldiers from the Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd
Infantry Division out of Fort Lewis, Wash., were killed when a blast destroyed a
house they were clearing in Baqouba, Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, operations chief of
the offensive there, told KIRO Radio of Seattle.

Last night, members of Khan's extended family, some of whom came from as far
away as Trinidad, gathered at the Ocean County home, waiting for his body to be
returned to New Jersey so they could make funeral arrangements.

"We were never prepared for this," said his stepmother, Nisha Khan. "He was
supposed to be coming home. It's not supposed to be like this."
Khan shipped off for basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., about a month after
graduating from Southern Regional High School two years ago. He'd relished the trip
to boot camp -- it had been his first plane ride.

Khan had also talked about joining the Army for a long time.

"From a boy, that's all he wanted to be. A soldier," his stepmother said.

"The Army was his life," his father added.

After several months of training, Khan was assigned to the Stryker Brigade. He was in
the Pacific Northwest only for a few months before his unit shipped out for Iraq last
July. The unit was originally scheduled to return to the U.S. last month, but the troop
"surge" in Baghdad extended its combat tour until September.

If Khan was upset about the extension, he never shared it with his parents.

Instead, he sent the e-mails and the pictures that now fill his parents' dining room.

In one, he's holding a cherubic-faced boy to his hip.

Nisha Khan said her stepson told her the boy simply took to him during a week his
unit spent in the Iraqi capital.

"No matter where they were going, the kid would follow him and walk and not leave
him alone," she said.

As U.S. troops stepped up combat operations around Baghdad over the past several
months, Khan's e-mails to his parents slowed from perhaps three a week to maybe
one.

He wrote about missing the chance to watch the war movies he loved -- "Saving
Private Ryan," "Letters from Iwo Jima."

Khan also kept in touch with several of his high school classmates.
One, Diana Haggerty, said they traded e-mails on their Facebook accounts earlier this
week and that Khan had talked about coming home soon.

"He was an amazing person for that fact that he put his life on the line for his
country," she said.

Last September, Khan came home on two weeks' leave. It was the last time he saw his
family.

He spent much of his leave playing with his 11-year-old sister, Aliya. He also went to
her school and talked to her class.

Khan told his family he was unsure whether he wanted to make the Army his career or
get out and go to college.

But in the near term, his plans were made.

He envisioned a family vacation to a place where he could snowboard. And he wanted

to buy his sister a dog. Maybe a husky.

"We had plans," his step-mother said.

_____________________________________________________________________
__________

Staff writer Sharon Adarlo contributed to this report.

The Star-Ledger Archive

COPYRIGHT © The Star-Ledger 2007

Date: 2007/08/16
Burial in Arlington awaits GI from Jersey

Army Spc. Kareem Khan, the state's 80th casualty in the Iraq war, will be buried with
full military honors this morning in Arlington National Cemetery.

Khan, a 20-year-old Manahawkin resident, and three other soldiers from the Stryker
Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division out of Fort Lewis, Wash., were
killed Aug. 6 when a blast destroyed a house they were clearing in Baqouba, Iraq.

The family will receive a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and a Good Conduct Medal
Khan earned during his tour of duty, said his stepmother, Nisha Khan. He was
promoted posthumously to corporal.

Another service tomorrow will be held at Fort Lewis, Nisha Khan said. The Army is
flying the family to the ceremony.

Manahawkin is planning to hold a memorial service on Tuesday as well, Nisha Khan

said.

Categories: Iraq:2007
http://themoderatevoice.com/politics/negative-campaigning/demonization/23633/the-
excrescence-of-right-wing-gop-hate/
The Excrescence Of Right-Wing GOP Hate

October 20th, 2008

By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist

The racist and xenophobic bile that has flowed from

the right-wing Republican base and spokesmouths like
Rush Limbaugh has been unprecedented in this
campaign season, and it was easy to predict that the
moment Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama that he
was no longer a war hero and brilliant diplomat but
just another uppity Negro.

If the hate-mongering of these people was not so

destructive, the knots into which they tie themselves
would be amusing.

They slavishly support an immoral war fostered by

Bush and Cheney (and yes, Powell, as well) and for no
reason more than their view that it is a well-justified
payback against godless Muslims. An American jihad, if you will.

But what happens when one of those godless Muslim turns out to be an American
who made the ultimate sacrifice?

Powell got it just right in his Obama endorsement speech when he declared:

“Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no.
That’s not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-
American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior
members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an
association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.”

Would a Limbaugh or an Ann Coulter lay flowers at the grave of Kareem Rashad
Sultan Khan? Of course they wouldn’t. Because for them, unbridled hate even trumps
their supposed love of country.