The Warrior Prince of Tenleytown

Photo: Ed Zipco

Vice’s Photo Issue in an iconic shot by Ed Zipco [above], right after he had come home from Iraq. Hakki is in a hotel room, buck naked, reaching for a closet safe. Next to him lays a balled-up white sock, often misconstrued as a bag of coke. He’d probably ripped off the sock minutes earlier in a frenzy along with the rest of his clothes. He’s one of those guys who, when around friends, gets naked and gestures lewdly. You know, the life of the party. That very same year Hakki fought for the States in the Battle of Fallujah. Before that he served in the invasion itself. Speaking fluent Arabic, he was an asset to the US Marine Corps: He shouted at civilians to duck and cover while his brothers in arms fired on snipers. He translated for interrogators at various detention centers in Iraq and served two tours before being honorably discharged a couple of years ago. Living above the Tenley Metro Station in a luxury condo, Hakki leads a mixed life. Despite a continued struggle to finish his BA (it’s been almost eight years in the making), Hakki has found an odd niche for himself. He consults on nonfiction books about the war, trains private-security forces, and catches extra cash from a side gig at the Starbucks across Wisconsin Avenue. He still gets naked now and again, too, miming complex sex acts with stunning accuracy. I asked Rajai about his adjustment to the good life in Northwest DC. Vice: How are you? Rajai Hakki: I’m reading a biography of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, dude. It’s really good. Fuckin’ crazy. Written by some woman in Brooklyn. I’m feeling good, dude. I have my limbs. I’m healthy. I watched Born on the Fourth of July. I cried throughout the entire thing. The Oliver Stone movie? This guy joins the marines to fight communism, just like I joined the marines to fight terrorism. He goes to Vietnam and is terribly wounded. Watching a veteran go through that and come back home as a paraplegic was hard. Veterans back then were getting treated like dirt, and to see a young kid, paralyzed… He was probably a virgin like I was… It was just horrifying. And that reminds you of your own experience coming back? When I came back I was doing the exact same thing that he was doing. I came back and was surrounded by liberals—whereas before I was surrounded by staunch militants in the marines. I returned to Northwest DC, matriculated at a notoriously left-leaning college, American University, which even has communist theorists working in the administration, and I was completely alienated. I was totally alone. During the scene when Cruise goes out drinking one night and he’s surrounded by all of these antiwar people—he goes home drunk in his wheelchair, screams at his mom, throws a fit, “I left my dick in Vietnam”… It was rough. See, a returning soldier, a returning marine, depending on his socioeconomic background, has a very unique experience coming home. I didn’t return to a small town where being in the war is a badge of honor, where there are other vets around to be with, and it’s part of a tradition. What did you come home to? In DC, people were always… I was certainly not the Tom Cruise character. People in DC are all politically involved people, very aware, very blue. But the experience that I went through at AU was as a guy who has just been through the war, who wants to defend the ideals of that war. I was foolhardy. And I wanted to believe in that war. I think it’s Wordsworth who talks about youth and purity, how we lose our innocence, and that is life. Nature, childhood, purity—he knew that life was this process of disillusionment. And that is what a veteran goes through when he comes back and the war that he fought was for nothing. That’s a horrifying thing to think of. What is there to be proud of? You got back in 2006? I was a fucking nutbag. Taking Adderall, drinking, pills, smoking dope. I was totally messed up. I got into a long-distance relationship—I was very green to being in love. You wanna know the truth about why I couldn’t become a police officer, Alex? [Hakki began preparing to serve in the DC Police Department in the summer of 2007.] Because I failed the psych evaluation. I told them about all my experiences. I’m not ashamed of who I am. So you felt like the eval went well? Or did you know you had blown it? I went in feeling, like, I’m a fucking Marine. I speak Arabic. I’ve done so many interrogations that I can’t tell you how many I did. Every night, every day, every morning. I had so much experience related to police work. I’ve been in honest-to-God combat. I can show you the BBC special where I’m in combat. But I went into it with this bravado. And you tell them you’ve been to a therapist. Like I said, I told them everything. My therapist made me look terrible, even though he said I didn’t have PTSD anymore, and that I was capable of being a police officer. He also made it clear that I had a really hard time when I got back. But I wanna go back to the concept of disillusionment. Go for it. This loss of being at home. As for the movie, I was no Fourth of July Tom Cruise in the movie. I wasn’t paralyzed. I’ve still got my limbs. But when someone comes back, and you’ve dedicated your life to a war and you see that you’re losing that war, and you’ve seen young men getting shot dead—I literally saw a guy shot dead in front of me—you see all that stuff and you come home… There’s an indescribable detachment. See, the military is not a part of mainstream society. It has its own universe, environment, and subculture—much different from Washington’s. When you’re a part of that culture you really feel like you’re at home. I hated Camp Pendleton when I was at “work.” On weekends, I would run away right on the bell of 16:30. But on Sunday, when I came back from of all of this debauchery and partying, when I showed my ID and showed up for my weekly haircut, I really felt at home, felt safe. Coming back to DC, to this affluent environment of achievers, feeling the pressures that we have on us —the pressure on me to succeed, it was overwhelming. It was sometimes more simple and liberating to be in Iraq than in DC. I was happier there sometimes. But it was nice to be back, right? No war. No gunfire in your backyard. That whole experience in Iraq validated me so much. I can’t look back on it and be objective. Being a marine inspired me, and I will always be proud to be a marine. Still, what’s it all for? I interrogated people, I saw violence, did things… We don’t have to go into that stuff… But I’m proud, I’m Rajai, I live a life of luxury and apathy, and shameless self-indulgence, you know? That’s where I am now. The Warrior Prince of Tenleytown, as I say. And thus the comparison is hard to make. Tell me about your life of luxury. I ate a $20 piece of cheese yesterday. That’s my fucking life now. I have nothing to prove anymore. I can’t even tell if this is weed or crumbs on my table but I’m putting in my pipe right now. Crumbs can get you high, right? I’m going to answer yes. [Pauses to smoke] These are crumbs. I’m going to mention that your parents got you a condo as a gift for surviving the war. [Laughs] It was actually an incentive for me to come home. Because they knew I was thinking of staying in the marines. So they suspected you would stay? Of course. I was “moto,” as in, motivated to be a US Marine, completely indoctrinated. I felt that fire that a marine has in his gut. For instance: I didn’t have to tell the marine corps that I spoke Arabic when I was recruited. But I did. Put this down: Some Arabs who went into the marines kept their mouths shut about speaking Arabic. They knew that if they told [the recruiters], they would be fucked. Why? They would immediately turn him into a translator. Why is that so bad? In theater, in Iraq, a translator is always someone’s bitch. The translator is the busiest guy. They get abused by every officer in the battlefield. I was a busy guy. Twelve months went by pretty fast for me. And yet, I told them I spoke Arabic because I wanted to help the war effort. I was moto. When you get out of basic training you’re young, in shape, and trained. You’re ready to be a hard-dicked, hairy-chested warrior with rhino skin and a rubber asshole. I was ready. Why a rubber asshole? Because as a junior marine you get fucked every day. They work you when you’re a private first class or a lance corporal. They look through you, you know, like the invisible man in Ralph Ellison’s book.

Photo: Corp. Mohammed Aliwuhush

How did you choose to go back to DC after all? I drove over to this counterintelligence center at Camp Pendleton right before I got out, and an old buddy—a counterintelligence agent and interrogator, nice guy, a sergeant—I told him I was interested in moving into CI. They had already been calling me, asking me to come back. I was thinking very seriously about that. So this intelligence officer, this friend, said, “Don’t do it. I’m looking toward another deployment and I can barely pay my child support and bills with what I make.” He told me to go and be at home. “Be with your family.” He told me I liked being a civilian. I agreed with him and took his advice. But who knows? If he had said yes, that I should take the boards, that he would help me get all the paperwork together, I may still be there. I remember you telling me that you were involved in some public speaking. Tell me about some of the engagements you did during your first year back. I was really into it. I did a lot of them right in the beginning. That’s when people started calling me a race traitor. Because you’re an Arab. Yes. The Iraq Vets Against the War—I don’t know what their credentials are—they’re kind of disaffected youths, a throwback to the antiwar movement of the ’Nam era. These off-the-wall guys with piercings and drug problems—basically guys like me. Kidding, I don’t have any piercings—but I see them walking through the AU campus on their way to a panel. I proceeded to get very fucked up, popped some Adderall and Klonopin. I mean, this IVAW stuff is bullshit: The whole depleted-uranium conspiracy, the government testing drugs on soldiers, this is the crap on their website. So I go into the lecture hall—they knew I was coming but it was very unofficial—they play this antigovernment propaganda video, then one of these guys spoke out against Iraq. Wait, you were the only guy there to defend the war at the conference? Yes. And I’ll tell you what, it got combative. I got into it with the audience. Now, I don’t remember exactly what I said, hold on, let me google myself and find out. Oh, yeah, here it is. In this AU Eagle article… I basically said that Iraq is too unstable without the US… And look at this moron in the picture—bandana, nose piercing, idiot. But you got into it with someone in the audience? Yes. One person asked me about torture. I told him, “You don’t really feel bad for some people when you see your fellow marines getting killed all day.” I heard someone gasp at that. Oh, they were fucking loving it. You told them what they wanted to hear. I don’t know. I was really belligerent. I was not sensitive to those issues then. Right at the end, someone stood up and asked me, “How does it feel to go to Iraq and fight your fellow Arabs?” How did you respond? Right as everyone was leaving I grabbed the mic. I had to. I said, “I just wanted to thank you for implying that I’m a race traitor.” Another Veterans Against the War guy threatened to punch me in the face. I barely remember that. But I went up there and had something to say. Someone attacked you? It’s just like the movie. And Ol’ Dirty Bastard. ODB makes me feel a lot better about my own weed-smoking. I mean, I just don’t know about this whole “society” thing. I don’t agree. That’s the whole point of this. See, ODB didn’t agree on an elemental level, whereas I disagree on an intellectual level. Society didn’t apply to him. But at least I never went into a store and freaked out and stole a pair of Nikes. I’m more disappointed, or something. I’m just not sure if society works. Is this feeling originating from just bitterness, or post-traumatic stress? Neither. It’s not PTSD. It’s not bitterness. That’s the wrong word. It’s disillusionment.