Retired U.S Marine Corp Sam Farran (right) with his son Ali Farran, who currently serves as a staff sergeant in the Air Force.

DEARBORN – Arabs who have served in the U.S. military often have to walk the fine line between recognizing their American identity and representing their Arab heritage.

Arab Americans have had a long history of serving in the military, dating back to the American Revolution. Their participation would greatly increase in the decades to come. 

A study by Princeton Professor Phillip Hitti estimated that close to 14,000 Arab Americans served in World War I.

In World War II, Syrian Americans served in the military more than any other ethnic community in the country at that time.

But in the last three decades, as the U.S. increased its military operations in the Middle East, Arabs who have served in the military may have found themselves facing a predicament.

“There is a stigma out there that Arabs are not Americans,” said retired U.S. Marine Corp Sam Farran. “We are just as American as everyone else. This is what the country was built and founded on and we support it and defend it.”

Yet this stigma appears to be only half the battle for Arab Americans in the military. They may often face scrutiny within their own communities for going to war in the Middle East— where their roots began. 

“I combat that argument very simply,” Farran said. “This is a great country that has given us the opportunities for many things that our original country does not. If our original country had provided us with such opportunities, we would be serving them too. Whoever doesn’t like it, I’m more than happy to buy them a one-way ticket back. I have yet to see one person who speaks like this pack their bags and leave. But I do respect those opinions, because that’s what I served for— to protect their first amendment rights.” 

Farran, a Dearborn Heights resident, spoke with The Arab American News about his prolific history in the military.

Born in Tibneen, Lebanon, Farran immigrated to Dearborn with his family when he was 10. While attending Fordson High School as a 17-year-old senior, he made the decision to serve his country. Being underage, he had to receive consent from his parents.

“My mother went crazy; she was totally against it,” Farran recalled. “But my father was fully supportive. He signed the paperwork for me to join. He was very proud that I was doing something like that.”

After graduating high school, Farran went to boot camp. From there, he was assigned as a combat engineer at an Army base in Fort Leonard Wood, MO. He would then be placed abroad for the first time as a Marine, spending over two years at a duty station in Iwakuni, Japan.

Farran returned to Michigan in the early 1980s, where he married and had four children. During this period, he was in the reserves, requiring him to maintain active duty status at all times.

He was recalled to active duty twice, first during Operation Desert Storm in the early 90s and then immediately following September 11.  Farran would spend extensive periods of time in countries like Yemen, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. 

He said locals in the Middle East were confused by his involvement in the U.S. military.

“They were in disbelief that an Arab American can hold such a position in the U.S,” Farran said. “They used to think I was a translator until it hit them that I was in a very high ranking position.”

Serving in the military also gave him opportunities to educate his peers about the Arab world. Following 9/11, perceptions about religion and culture in the Middle East were misconstrued. 

Farran said that he educated his peers on many elements of religion and culture, including the law of fatwa, a ruling on a point of Islamic law that is given by a recognized authority.

“That was one of my biggest fulfillments, being able to educate them, especially the senior leadership,” Farran said. “They only had vague ideas of the Muslim world and who Osama Bin Laden was. I had to explain to them what Fatwa means and who is entitled to it. They didn’t know anything about that.”

Farran would go on to build strong connections with other Arab Americans serving in the military. He helped assist in the up-start of the Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in the Military (APAAM) with Yemeni-American founder Jamal Baadani. APAAM has more than 3,500 registered Arab Americans across the county.

This year, Farran garnered international media coverage when he was held hostage by the Houthi rebels in Yemen for six months while visiting the country. He and Scott Darden, and employee of the New Orleans-based company Transoceanic Development, were released from captivity in September following a negotiation process led by Oman.

“I want to thank all my friends and family for their support and the role the government took to secure my release,” Farran said. “After coming back I found out a lot of players were involved, all the way up to the president. It shows you the importance of being an American resident. It doesn’t matter what origin you are from, this country does not leave anyone behind.”

Farran might be retired, but not before passing the torch to his son Ali, 27, a graduate of Dearborn High. 

Ali is currently serving as a staff sergeant at Hills Air Force Base, after returning from two tours in Afghanistan. Farran noted that enlisting his son in the Air Force was one of his greatest accomplishments as a father.

“I was looking for adventure” 

Dearborn Heights resident Moussa Sareini enlisted in the Marine Corps at the same time as Farran did. 

Sareini was born in Lebanon and moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 12. Prior to his 18th birthday, he enlisted in the military.

“I wanted to serve the country and I was looking for an adventure,” Sareini said. “Of course the parents took it hard. But I had support from the family. My uncle’s dad had enlisted before me. One of my uncles was also drafted during the Vietnam war.”

The Sareinis have a handful of family members who have served the country, either in the Navy, the Air Force or the Marines.

Moussa Sareini would end up serving four years in the Marines and would be deployed to the South Asian region in countries such as Japan and South Korea. 

He said during the time period in the Marines, he was among a diverse group of Americans of different nationalities. He served alongside Italians, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians and African Americans. 

“They all knew I was Lebanese,” Sareini said. “Everyone who served had some ethnicity. Everyone was different in a way. You could be Black, White, Yellow, but when you were in the Marines you were green. We were all one color.”

In 1983, he felt it was time for him to change course, even after becoming the youngest highest-ranking sergeant in his unit. 

“I had hoped at the time to make a career of it, but it didn’t work out,” Sareini said. “I wanted to go to school and I wanted a family. The Marine Corps and my enlistment was pretty rough. I was with a unit that was contingent all the time and I wanted to pursue something else after the first four years.”

Sareini later came back to Michigan, got married and had three children. He has since found a career in automotive engineering.

While he said he was fortunate enough to have assimilated back into civilian life following his service in the military, he is calling for political leaders to do more for veterans when they return home. 

“We always said they train you to be a Marine, but they never train you to come back and be a civilian,” Sareini said. “Some 30 years ago we didn’t understand post traumatic stress. Each and every one of us struggled with it privately and got through it with support of family and friends. As a nation, we could do more and I hope some day we will have that political push to allow veterans to be able to assimilate back into civilian life and offer help to those who served in harsh combats.” 

“I started having frequent panic attacks”

Wisam Hassan (right) pictured in 2005 receiving his promotion to Senior Airman (E-4) in the Air Force.

Wisam Hassan, a 39-year-old Los Angeles-based Iraqi-born American, is very familiar with veteran issues. Not only is he one himself, having served in the Air Force from 2002-2005, but he currently works for the Veterans Health Administration (VA). 

The VA is the country’s largest integrated health care system, with more than 1,700 sites serving close to 9 million veterans annually. 

At a nursing home in Los Angeles, Hassan assists elderly veterans who served in the military during World War II and Vietnam. 

“I am very proud of the work I do,” he said. “I assist and take care of elderly veterans in their daily activities of living. From feeding them to walking them and making sure they don’t get injured.” 

Hassan began his journey with the military in the spring of 2001. After he moved to California with his family in the 90s, he found a job working for Disney Studios in Burbank. 

When he was feeling stagnant with his occupation, his friend recommended trying the Air Force.

“I had nothing really going on for me at the time,” Hassan recalled. “I talked to a friend of ours and he was telling me about the benefits of the Air Force. What made me join in the first place were all the benefits you were able to get from school.” 

In the summer of 2001, Hassan began basic training for the Air Force. But then tragedy struck the nation and some of his very own peers placed him under a microscope. 

“When 9/11 happened, I was still in basic training,” Hassan said. “I felt the animosity for sure, but it was fixed really quickly by the people I worked with. They said ‘It’s not his fault…he’s one of us.’ I didn’t face anything like that again after basic training was over.” 

Hassan’s next battle would be with himself. Talks of war in Iraq had begun to ensue and Hassan did not know how to fathom the thought of potentially going to his homeland to fight in a war. 

“I started to feel more anxious,” he recalled. “What is this going to mean? Does this mean I’m getting deployed and I’m going to be a traitor to my own country? I started having frequent panic attacks.”

Hassan would end up finding a resolution to his worries when he was stationed at an Air Force base in Ohio as a medical technician in a hospital. He was never deployed to go overseas. 

Instead, he assisted medically and educated many of his friends in the Air Force on Iraq’s culture before they were due for deployment.

“I told them what you read is not real,” Hassan recalled. “There are a few bad apples in every culture and religion that make everyone else look bad. I brought up the example of the KKK. Iraqi people are actually very inviting and welcoming. They are good hearted people.” 

What’s noteworthy about Hassan’s service in the Air Force was that he was serving prior to having become a naturalized U.S. citizen. In 2002, he took a leave of absence from the Air Force to travel back to L.A. to attend his naturalization ceremony. 

Hassan now has two children and remains occupied with his full-time job at the VA. He said if his children were to enlist in the military, he would give them the green light without blinking an eye.

“I totally would encourage it,” he said. “I wouldn’t even hesitate. The benefits are bar- none. For me, the experience was all about education and discipline. You become a totally different person for the better.”