Michael was a Navy cryptologist who worked with the SEALs. Of the American dead, 22 were soldiers in elite Special Operations units 17 were Navy SEALs, including members of SEAL Team Six, the same unit that had killed Osama bin Laden 96 days before that. It was the largest loss of American life in a single incident in the War in Afghanistan. Over the past three years, they’ve been pressing journalists and politicians to investigate the nighttime raid into Taliban territory that killed 30 Americans, including Michael, and eight Afghans on August 6, 2011. ![]() Michael wasn’t Mary’s son, but she has joined Charlie on his journey to find answers about him. Charlie addresses Mary as “Shnookums” and asks how she’s doing, and she playfully pretends to hit him. His second wife, Mary, a tall, thin woman with straight blond hair, steers onto I-95 south, heading toward Washington, D.C. He gets back in his car, taking the shotgun seat. Sometimes, Charlie says, people start talking about his son and then they stop and recoil and tell him they’re sorry to bring it up, and Charlie’s like, what, you think I forgot? “It’s every day, man.” He pokes my chest above the heart and traces a path down to my stomach. These cost five and a quarter, and Marlboros cost $7.40, and they taste the same.” Then he veers back into Michael. Here at the rest stop, he takes a drag on his cigarette. Before he worked at the casino, Charlie was in the laborers union for 12 years, breaking things apart at job sites with jackhammers, torches. One day not too long ago, he let out a cry so loud at his table that a gambler thought he needed medical attention and shouted to the pit boss, “There’s something wrong with your dealer!” The boss told Charlie, 50, to take the rest of the shift off he was scaring the customers. ![]() He dealt blackjack for a while at the SugarHouse Casino on Delaware Avenue, but now he’s on leave. He has a low, serrated voice and a color tattoo of the American flag on his left forearm, designed so that it looks like the flag is bursting through his skin. He sometimes writes it that way, too: Chalie. It wasn’t your kid falling from the sky in a war 7,000 miles away and no one can give you a good answer why.Ĭharlie’s friends say his name without the “r” and linger on the “a.” Chaaaaaalie. They say they understand his pain because they’ve also had loved ones die, and Charlie thinks, okay, but it probably wasn’t like this. People see him suffering and try to comfort him. He grits his teeth and seems to stop breathing. Charlie somewhere in Maryland, a few hundred feet from I-95, lighting a cigarette, thinking of Michael.Ĭharlie is a big guy, six-foot-two and 270 pounds, and when he cries, every inch of him puffs and stiffens. Photography by Neal SantosĬharlie Strange in a rest-stop parking lot at dawn, trying not to cry. No, he will be decades older by the time he’s sprung and a lot less likely to harm another child.Īnd when that happens? U.S.Charlie Strange holds the flag given to him by the military after his son’s death. After all, if it was a Canadian deal, he’d already be sprung on time served.īut sadly for poor Luqman Rana, the government is wising up and shutting off the tap on its soft-on-crime goodies that send Canadians around the twist. Of course, facing decades in an American prison, Luqman Rana will no doubt ask for a transfer back to Canada where his tough sentence would undoubtedly turn to dust. Many converts first discover Islam through Ahmadi missionaries.Īhmadi sources told MMINews that after his 2017 arrest, Rana was ousted from the Jamaat but was later restored and assigned to a Mississauga mosque. Ahmadis are active translators of the Quran and proselytizers of the Islamic faith. Jamia Ahmadiyya Canada reportedly prepares Ahmadi missionaries, offering a main seven-year program known as Shahid. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
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