Marine Vet’s Tweet to Trump Goes Viral
By Debbie Gregory.
A Marine veteran took to social media to fire back at Donald Trump’s call for American Muslims to be registered in a national database.
Marine Sgt. Tayyib Rashid’s comeback has gone viral. Rashid, whose Twitter handle is @MuslimMarine, tweeted Trump a photo of his military identification card with the message: “Hey @realDonald Trump, I’m an American and I already carry a special ID badge. Where’s yours?”
Rashid, the son of a Muslim missionary and theologian, served from 1997 to 2002 as an aircraft electronic countermeasures technician with 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, according to Marine Corps officials.
On November 19th, Trump said that he “would certainly implement” databases or increase surveillance for Muslims living in the U.S.
Rashid’s post has over 39,000 retweets and 51,000 likes. It has also prompted a barrage of follow-on social media posts under the hashtag #MuslimID from other U.S. troops, police officers, lawyers, medical professionals and students who identify as Muslim.
“I got borderline angry that [Trump] would make such a comment and try to drive a wedge between Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces and people who aren’t Muslim,” said Rashid. “I felt the need to call him out — particularly because Trump himself has never served.”
Rashid, now 38, said that he became a Marine because he “wanted to be part of a brotherhood of men dedicated to the service of our country.”
He said that he is a proud American Muslim.
“For me there is no conflict between the two identities,” he said.
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