[Vision2020] A Remembrance, and a Rumination

[Chasuk]

When Daddy Bush sent me to Saudi Arabia, I spent many months living on
Taif Air Base, which was located near the city of Taif, where I was
befriended by many Afghanistani, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and even
Filipino Muslims.  Not too many Saudis -- the Saudis were not terribly
hospitable.  The preceding sentence was included not as a judgement,
but as a piece of information necessary to make the rest of this story
intelligible.

I liked being in Saudi Arabia, though I hated liking being there; that
contradiction probably grieved me more than any other hardship.  I
worked too many hours, lugged around an M-16 that I was ill-trained to
fire (should the need have ever arisen, which it didn't),  and I
missed my family.  Most of all, I hated the reason that I was there. 
My presence (okay, my participation) took innocent Iraqi lives.  I
maintained a high-tech weapons system on F-111F aircraft, and, during
the debriefing of aircrews following an attack, I watched the video
evidence of my own complicity in slaughter.

It was the people I liked, I guess.  The aforementioned Afghanistanis,
Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, and even the occasional Saudi.  I
dined in their restaurants (the food was fabulous), engaged them in
animated conversation in the shops on Taif Air Base, and was the
object of their numerous proselytizing attempts.  Being the object of
a conversion attempt was, for the first time in my life, a pleasurable
experience.  The dogma was new.  The Bible was never mentioned, except
to point out that the Bible and the Qur'an shared (in large part) the
same cast of characters.  I seem to remember my zealous missionaries
telling me that God had tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice
Ishmael, and not Isaac.

Now the Saudi comes into the story.  He seemed to be, as best as I
could understand, a chiropractor.  He had a wife and two children, one
boy and one girl.  We all sat in the same room as we ate, though his
wife remained silent, and veiled.  His children took turns sitting on
my lap and exploring the voluminous pockets of my BDU's.  I wasn't
supposed to be in his home, I don't think; he seemed very nervous as I
exited and entered, and cancelled my third invitation with what
appeared to be sincere regret.  We still met often on Taif Air Base,
where I had first encountered him, and he did ask for my address a few
weeks before I flew out of Saudi Arabia forever.

The Saudi is important because he provided the newspapers.  The
newspapers were English language versions of Saudi national papers,
and I suppose they were easy enough to obtain, but he was my first and
only supplier.  In the newspapers, in every article, even ones
pertaining to something as mundane as the opening of a shopping mall,
the name of Mohammad was invoked, always accompanied by the phrase
"Peace be upon him" (abbreviated "pbuh" in the papers).  Of greatest
interest to me was the advice column, a Dear Abby analogue wherein all
of the questions were of a religious nature (necessarily Islamic) and
presumably answered by an Imam.

The question that amazed me most was from a gentleman whose father was
on his deathbed, and he was inquiring as to which persons it would be
appropriate to allow in the room at the moment of his father's death. 
The answer was _any_ man, a stranger off the street, it made no real
difference, but only women if they were postmenopausal or
prepubescent, because if the woman were menstruating when the angel
came to collect the soul, the angel would be offended by the smell of
blood, and depart immediately, leaving the soul of his father to
wander eternally.  His daughters couldn't safely attend, nor his
sisters, nor his wife.  But any man.

I never asked my chiropractor friend how he could believe anything so
ridiculous, though it was many times on my lips.  He pointed that
particular column out to me, as an example of the beauty of Islam,
where Allah has provided the answers to every question.  I don't
usually read agony aunties, but I did for the remainder of the time I
was in Saudi Arabia, at least when I was reading the papers provided
by my friend.

When I read Vision2020, I sometimes want to ask the same question of
some of the participants.  In particular, when I read of blood
sacrifice and triune gods, I wonder, why choose to believe something
that requires such incredible contortions of faith?

I respected my host then, and I respect him now, and I am thankful for
his friendship.  Still, sometimes I wish that I had asked him my
question.

Incidentally, he never wrote to me, which disappoints me to this day.