![]() Seeing Muslims only caused his pain to resurface. Once he returned home, he drifted into drinking and womanizing to numb his wartime experiences. He also says he struggled to find a new community after he left what he calls the “band of brothers” he fought alongside during his service. McKinney says he was trained to see the Iraqi and Taliban soldiers he fought not as human beings but as paper targets on a shooting range. McKinney’s struggles after he returned to Muncie in 2006 are a prime example of the adage, “In war there are no unwounded soldiers.” One was the story of how McKinney was changed by combat. But there are some scenes and characters that beg to be described. To reveal too many details about how McKinney converted would rob the film of its impact. McKinney was looking for a way to forgive himself for what he did in war They gave us a blueprint for how we could all do this.” “If that could happen, anything is possible. “They were able to build an impossible bridge to one another,” Seftel says of McKinney and members of the Muncie Islamic center. He says McKinney’s story gave him hope that even some of the deepest divisions in the US can be transcended. Seftel made his film as part of “The Secret Life of Muslims,” an online video series. Classmates lobbed antisemitic slurs while throwing pennies at him. Joshua Seftel, the film’s director, says he was drawn to McKinney’s story in part because of his own experiences facing antisemitism growing up in Schenectady, New York, in the late 1970s and early ’80s. “To this day, it still doesn’t make sense to me,” McKinney says about the gesture. Bahrami, a native of Afghanistan and co-founder of the center, ended up hugging McKinney and erupting in tears. The film cites one staggering act of kindness: Mohammad S. Instead, several mosque members stepped forward and disarmed McKinney with some shrewd choices that may have saved their lives. Richard "Mac" McKinney says he developed a hatred of Islam during combat as a Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan. “By the end of the night, I figured they would have me in the basement with a sword to my throat,” he says. McKinney says he thought his Friday afternoon visit might end with his death. Wearing a blue “Say No Hate to Hate,” T-shirt over his muscular frame and a long white beard that made him look like a buffed Santa Claus, McKinney told his story in a blunt, no-frills manner that underscored his 25 years in the military. McKinney recently spoke to CNN via video about his unlikely conversion. McKinney’s transformation is the subject of a riveting documentary short called “Stranger at the Gate.” The film, which won a special jury prize at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, recounts how McKinney abandoned his plot and ended up converting to Islam and embracing a surprising role at the mosque. What happened to McKinney at the mosque is so dramatic that it sounds like something from a movie. McKinney and the mosque’s members built ‘an impossible bridge’ to one another The people whose lives he intended to take would end up saving his life. Something happened that day that would change him in a way he never expected. “I told people that Islam was a cancer and I was the surgeon to cure it,” he says.īut when McKinney entered the mosque, he encountered a form of resistance that he had not planned for. He was on a scouting mission to pick a location to hide his bomb and to gather intelligence that would validate his assumption that Islam was a murderous ideology. He was going to plant a bomb at the mosque in hopes of killing or wounding hundreds of Muslims. Unable to contain his anger, he went to the Islamic center that day in 2009 on what he saw as his final mission. His fury deepened when he returned home to Muncie to see how Muslims had settled into what he called his city, and even sent their children to sit next to his daughter at her elementary school. He was a former US Marine who had developed a hatred toward Islam during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. His name was Richard “Mac” McKinney, and he was there not to worship but to destroy. As an outsider with a USMC tattoo on his right forearm and a skull tattoo on his left hand, he stood out. It was Friday at Muncie Islamic Center in Muncie, Indiana, and the mosque was filling with people who had come for afternoon prayers. He was a big guy with broad shoulders, marching toward their mosque with his head down and his face flushed red from what looked like anger. As soon as some members of the Islamic Center of Muncie saw the man coming toward them, they knew he was trouble. ![]()
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