I am the wife of Staff Sgt. Ali Abukhdair. Under different circumstances, he would be the one addressing this letter to you, but because he is in the military he has lost his freedom of speech and was ordered not to talk to the media.
My husband is currently an active member of the United States military. He has been serving his country since June 1994. He was deployed for 12 months to Iraq with the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division. He was also deployed to a combat zone in Kosovo while he was stationed in Germany. He is a faithful Muslim of Palestinian origin.
Currently, he is assigned to the 28th Quartermaster 49th Group. They are to deploy sometime during the first days of June. He has filed for conscientious objector (CO) status under AR 600-43. Under regulations, the process is supposed to take 90 days to reach the headquarters of the Department of the Army.
It has been over 90 days since he applied in February. Regulations state that they are to place him in duties that conflict as minimally as possible with his beliefs, which his unit has not done at all. They have sent him to the range to qualify with a weapon, and they have sent him to live-fire exercises. They have also given him a vehicle license for a which he has not been trained and is not qualified for.
When he we went to see his first sergeant to apply for CO status, he was told that all he was doing was trying to get out of deployment, despite this being his third major deployment and the fact that he was a member of the 101st and one of the first to enter Iraq.
He went to see the chaplain, and he recommended a discharge, which is not what my husband wants because he is applying for noncombatant duties to finish his obligations to the military. If the Army wants to give him a discharge, then he has no choice but to accept. He would rather accept this than violate his beliefs by being in any kind of violence.
Application for CO status proceeds as follows: unit commander, post chaplain, mental evaluation, investigating officer. His commander approved his application, the chaplain believes my husband is sincere in his beliefs and request for CO status, the mental evaluation report said my husband was sane, and the investigating officer also approved his claim and believes my husband’s sincerity. When my husband went to see the battalion commander about his situation, all the BC wanted to know is which dialect of Arabic my husband speaks and how he helped the 101st in Iraq as a translator. The BC is biased because of the mission.
About two months ago, I was pregnant. I was about five months, and my husband sent me to stay with a girlfriend of mine because I was stressed about his situation. After a couple of weeks, I had a miscarriage. My husband came and picked me up, but his command did not want to give him any time off. We are trying to get some type of counseling, but are not having an easy time. Since I am from the Dominican Republic, I do not have permanent resident status in this country and my visa is about to expire. My husband has told his command numerous times of our situation but is not getting much help or time off. I don’t have a driver’s license, so it will be hard for me to go shopping or to the doctor. My military identification is about to expire, and I can’t get a new one until I complete my immigration paperwork . He also told his command about that, and they basically told him that it’s his problem.
My husband joined the military to pay for school. He did his duty and risked his life numerous times. He is just tired of violating his religious beliefs about war. He has tried to let the military know this and has sought counseling, but the military doesn’t care. His first sergeant repeatedly tells his soldiers that all he cares about is making sure 145 bodies deploy – and nobody is going to get out of deployment.
