An influential lawmaker from New York congratulated Captain Tejdeep Singh Rattan for graduating from the Army Officer Course, making him the first turbaned Sikh officer to complete basic training in over two decades.
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn last week honored Captains Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi and Tejdeep Singh Rattan, the first turbaned officers in two decades to complete the US Army's basic training, at the City Hall.
Captain Tejdeep Singh Rattan graduated from basic training on Monday in San Antonio to great fanfare from the Sikh-American community. Rattan is the first turbaned Sikh officer in the United States to complete basic training in over two decades.
Captain Tejdeep Singh Rattan has been accepted as an Army dentist and allowed to wear a turban and not shave his hair as a condition of joining the military. Confirming the drafting of Rattan, the community's advocacy group, Sikh Coalition, hailing the Army action, said these enrolments should not be treated as isolated cases and that doors should be opened for large-scale recruitment of Sikhs in the US Army.
Two Sikh-American military recruits, both medical professionals already in the US Army, who have been denied the right to report for active duty in July unless they remove their turbans and cut their unshorn hair and beards, have called on the Pentagon to allow them to serve their country without having to compromise their religious principles.
But it will be a giant leap for America when all can serve freely in the US Armed Forces, Major Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi tells Suman Guha Mozumder about the Pentagon's relaxing of rules on religious wear
"It is wonderful. I had been living a double life, wearing a turban only at home," Simratpal Singh said, adding, "My two worlds have finally come back together."
A group of prominent United States lawmakers have urged the Pentagon to end the presumptive ban on Sikh Americans serving in the United States military.
US Congressman Joe Crowley, who spearheaded the campaign for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to create a new separate hate crimes category in the agency's uniform crime reporting programme to track bigoted attacks against Sikh Americans, has now set his sights on fully integrating Sikh Americans in the US Armed Forces
Members of the United States Congress break bread to celebrate the contributions of Sikh Americans. Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa reports
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