The US Army's men in black ... turbans

RAWANDAY VILLAGE, AFGHANISTAN – Like many of the psychological operations personnel in the US Army, Sgt. Mike Dickinson is cut from a different cloth.
A half-Mexican, half-black American, he converted to Islam two years ago while on a US peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. He keeps a photograph of Jordan's Queen Rania plastered to the butt of his M-16 and swears that if the US ever goes to war alongside Israel against the Arabs, he will have to become a "conscientious objector."

For Sergeant Dickinson, leader of psy-ops team 913, Afghanistan is both an absorbing adventure and a coming-of-age story. "Some of my buddies would not want to hear me say this, but I hope I will be here indefinitely," he says. "I love these people."