- I took the sign,
"I'm a Muslim and US Marine, ask anything!"
from all the way to Washington to Texas to Kentucky.
I kinda hit up everywhere, man.
- Trump country.
(laughs)
- Trump country, Bible Belt,
whatever you wanna call it, you know.
- How did people react to that sign?
- I got into my swing once, you know,
people started having conversations,
but that first time you walk,
and it's like, everybody's looking at you,
it is kinda weird, man.
- [Aymann Voiceover] For a few years now,
Mansoor Shams has intentionally sought out the attention
of the Islamophobic strains in our society.
He's done it under the moniker of Muslim Marine.
Through billboards, in-person canvassing,
and cable news interviews,
he's become this unofficial ambassador for Muslims.
His American military service
grants him this particular kind of all-American status
that I grew up thinking excluded Muslims.
I still wonder if it does.
(soft music)
My name is Aymann Ismail.
To grow up Muslim means to grow up being feared,
so I'm traveling the country to find out for myself
if there's really any reason
to be afraid of American Muslims.
When I think about Muslims in the military,
this is what comes to mind.
Khizr and Ghazala Khan's speech about their son's sacrifice,
and Donald Trump's Islamophobic response.
- If you look at his wife,
maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say.
- [Aymann Voiceover] The spectacle
made me uneasy for a couple reasons.
It took Trump attacking a Gold Star family
for his peers to rebuke his fear mongering against Muslims.
Seriously?
Why do we have to turn to a family
who's lost a son in the military
to affirm that Muslim's can be patriotic too?
When I first saw Mansoor's campaign as the Muslim Marine,
I loved it.
He traveled to 24 states with nothing but a handwritten sign
and an earnest desire to change minds.
But I kept asking myself that same question:
Do Muslims have to serve in the military
to prove that they're patriotic?
And by championing Mansoor,
are we perpetuating the notion that Muslims
still need to earn their place in American society?
I went to Maryland to find out.
- As a veteran, I was disappointed.
After 12 years of service,
if you tell me that I hate America,
there's gotta be something wrong
with the information presented.
(laughing)
- [Man] Amen.
- [Aymann Voiceover] In Maryland, Mansoor and I had dinner
with a few local Muslim veterans.
Between them, they served decades.
- If you had the President of the United States
saying, "Ban all Muslims,"
or, "Islam hates us,"
or whatever.
- I think Islam hates us.
- He's the commanding general.
He's the guy who pulls the trigger.
- He's supposed to know where the threat is to keep us safe,
so what happens when he thinks that the threat is us?
- [Mansoor] Right.
- Americans in general are good natured, they're positive.
I don't think that three, four years is enough time
to totally destroy our value system.
- If President Trump was the president at the time,
I would've had second thoughts.
But as of today, I would encourage young Muslims
to join the service so they can show
their contribution to the country.
- If we want to really effect change in America,
we have to be involved in every form of government
or public, private sector, everywhere we can.
The military is one of 'em.
- [Aymann Voiceover] Muslims are skeptical of the military
for a lot of reasons.
We enlist in small numbers
considering our growing population,
but Mansoor told me that his story isn't typical.
He immigrated from Pakistan at age six
and he had a rough childhood,
at one point staying in a foster home.
He decided that by joining the Marines,
he'd have an opportunity to start over.
He signed up a year before 9/11.
- 9/11 was a traumatic event, I think,
just like for the rest of America, for also Muslims
because we're also American if people didn't know.
I did see certain behavioral changes.
They started off as jokes like calling people terrorist.
I didn't...
In the beginning, I laughed it off.
I thought, "Oh, okay, whatever."
But then I felt like I never heard about it
and talk about it.
- [Aymann Voiceover] Still,
Mansoor speaks positively of his experience.
He said that it helped shape him.
When he was officially discharged in 2008, he moved on,
but then, this kept on happening.
- If you meet five Muslims, only one of them
is likely to think it's okay to kill you.
- He was yelling, "Allah Akbar."
- If they believe in Sharia, they should be deported.
- [Aymann Voiceover] So a friend of his took his phone
and changed his Twitter to Muslim Marine.
Right away, the Muslim Marine became a sought-after voice.
I wondered if Mansoor had thought more
about the message his campaign was sending.
- So I'm worried that by telling the world
we should listen to the Muslim veteran especially
that that would be signaling listen to the Muslim veteran
because he's a veteran and not because he's Muslim.
- Yeah, I wish this wasn't even a discussion.
- Right.
- I wish this wasn't even happening right now,
but unfortunately, we are at a state in this nation
where we have built these blocks in our heads.
Do I think that I am the voice for Islam?
No.
However, the part of the veteran is to quell those fears.
If you see something that's going wrong,
you try to offer a helping hand.
- [Aymann Voiceover] I was surprised by Mansoor's candor.
He's proud of his service,
but he wishes that he didn't have to use it
to get people to listen to him as a Muslim
and he understands why some Muslims
would be wary of the military.
- There's something called symbolic action, right?
Today, the symbolism of the armed forces
is the President of the United States.
Okay, so if Muslims are skeptical of the armed forces,
I would be an idiot to say they shouldn't be.
I'd be lying to you.
Muslims, by the way, if you don't know,
are an asset to the United States armed forces.
In the stuff that we're engaged in, you want me.
(laughs)
Trust me.
The stuff that we're gonna be probably engulfed in
for the next decades to come, you need me on your side.
Having said that, yes, there's been skepticism.
Why?
Because you have the Commander in Chief
saying, "Ban Muslims."
That's pretty blunt and straightforward, right?
There's nothing, you can't sugarcoat that.
So if I'm a Muslim and the Commander in Chief
just said this, I'm not gonna be skeptical?
- [Aymann Voiceover] I understand why so many
American Muslims remain skeptical of the military.
I mean, I am too,
but I also understand Mansoor's point of view.
In a lot of ways, his story is quintessentially American.
He immigrated, pulled himself out
of a very tough circumstance, and reinvented himself.
He credits both the military and his religion for that.
The question is whether Mansoor's experience
really can change hearts.
That reminded me of the story Mansoor told me
about his encounter with a man from Texas.
- The guy just, you know, he walks out
and he's like, "I read your sign.
"I didn't see the Marine part.
"I just saw the Muslim."
So then, you know, I said,
"So what about if the Marine part wasn't there?"
So what if the Marine part wasn't there?
He sent me a beautiful message afterwards
talking about like that it was meant to be
for me to turn that corner.
(laughs)
You know, it's a beautiful message.
The better part or something like this.
You are the better man out there to bring us together.
And it's just a beautiful message like from the heart.
- [Aymann Voiceover] It's a moving story
and it seems like Mansoor really is changing minds,
but a part of me still resents the fact
that I'd have a very different experience
had that been me holding that sign.
I'm a Muslim.
I'm not a veteran,
but you could still ask me anything.
(soft music)