As American as they come, soldier holds Pakistan’s politics close

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Spc. Asad Khan, 32, of New York City, stands with some of his tools Thursday night in the control tower above Taji's airstrip. Khan, who was born in Pakistan, maintains the equipment in the tower as a member of Company F, 7th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment.


As American as they come, soldier holds Pakistan’s politics close
By James Warden, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, February 25, 2008

TAJI, Iraq — Spc. Asad Khan is American. Let’s just get that out of the way now.

The 32-year-old calls New York City home. He cuts up with frat-boy enthusiasm and needles everyone from his first sergeant to fellow junior enlisted. He’s a self-proclaimed “king of pingpong” who won the two tournaments he entered in Taji and has never been defeated back in Fort Campbell, Ky.

But when Pakistani opposition parties prevailed in elections Wednesday, Khan was glued to the results.

Khan was born in 1975 in a small town outside Lahore, Pakistan, and lived there until 1979. He’s Muslim. He still speaks Urdu. And he attributes his youthful looks to eating Pakistani goat. But maybe that’s one of his jokes, too.

But lately, Pakistani politics has been no laughing matter for him. Khan’s family took it hard when former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December after returning last year from exile. Khan took it hard, too.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52795