Every day for four and a half months, Gabriel Justice, 32, wrote down his darkest, deepest secrets and memories. And then he decided to publish them.
“I was going to print 15 to 20 copies and lock it up,” said the Manhattan Beach resident while sitting outside a coffee shop downtown. “Wait until I was 85, 90 and say, ‘Here’s a piece of me,’ for the family.”
But as he read and edited what he wrote, he began to change his mind.
“It doesn’t belong to me,” he said. “It belongs to everybody. I have no right to keep it for myself.”
Writing his story wasn’t without risk. Reliving his traumatic childhood in Saudi Arabia and his two tours of duty as a Marine in Iraq brought back the symptoms of his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, landing him in the hospital several times during the course of writing “Blood for Honor,” which he self-published and plans to officially launch at an event on Nov. 8 at the Shade Hotel.
His greater purpose forced him through the challenge. The 2011 capture and incarceration of his friend Amir Hekmati, a former Marine, while visiting family in Iran, inspired Justice to write the story in hopes it would help bring about the return of Hekmati, to whom he dedicated the book.
Around the third anniversary of Hekmati’s capture last August, Justice became restless.
“It got to him,” said his brother, Sammy Al-Rajhi, 29. “He wasn’t Gabe. He had to do something. He couldn’t stand around any longer.”
Justice feels a profound sense of guilt over the imprisonment of his friend, who was charged by Iran with spying on behalf of the CIA.
“I felt like he was sentenced to charges I was guilty of,” he said
Blood for Honor
To understand Justice’s guilt, it’s necessary to go back to the beginning of his story.
Although he was born in Anaheim to a Mexican-American mother and Saudi Arabian father, Justice, who legally changed his last name when he joined the Screen Actors Guild after returning from Iraq, grew up in Saudi Arabia. Arabic was his first language. Although he was ostracized by his peers for his American heritage, he didn’t consider himself an American. He was schooled in Wahhabi Islam, a radical form of Islam that preaches against the evil of the West and anyone else who doesn’t follow its ways. His teachers told him that since he wasn’t born pure Muslim, the only way he could go to heaven would be to commit jihad.
His father verbally and physically abused him. At the age of 18, following a violent confrontation, his father kicked him out of the house and called the police, asking them to take away his son. Justice ran away, sleeping at friends’ houses and on the street, dealing drugs and scavenging food from dumpsters to survive. As his life started to spiral out of control, he realized that he had to find another way to support himself, and that in Saudi Arabia, where he said a son is considered his father’s property, it would be impossible. An American friend, a former member of the Air Force, suggested moving to America, where social programs are available to help young people like him. But Justice couldn’t stomach the idea of living off the social welfare of a country he didn’t consider his own. So his friend suggested enlisting in the military.
At first, Justice rejected this suggestion. But eventually he became desperate enough, calling a recruiter for the Marines in California. After a prolonged struggle getting his father’s required permission to leave the country, he flew to Los Angeles, where he stayed with his mother’s brother’s family in Torrance.
During the three months the Marines vetted his candidacy, September 11 happened.
Watching the planes fly through the Twin Towers on television, he initially rejoiced when he recognized an image of Osama bin Laden on the news.
“During my school years, I had heard the inspiring tales about Sheik Osama bin Laden,” he writes. “His heroic battles against the Soviets in Afghanistan had triumphantly echoed throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
But as he watched the tragedy unfold, he started to reflect.
“Could it be possible that our religions, our ideologies and our beliefs are wrong?” he wondered. “West and East? Could the day ever come, when rather than killing each other because of possible erroneous religious philosophies, a belief system of faith and ideas would be offered, providing peace for both sides of the ocean?”
He recalled his determination to distance himself from his former country, even while realizing that by joining the Marines, he may have to fight against his “distant Islamic brothers.”
Justice encountered a culture of Islamophobia while training at Camp Pendleton in San Diego only two months after 9/11.
“Everyone’s reason to be there seemed to stem from a patriotic call to defend America,” he writes. “Feeding on the hysteria, our [drill instructors] provoked their new batch of recruits, inflaming us in preparation to kill as many ‘ragheads’ as possible.”
Now he was being singled out for his Arab heritage. Despite this, the military recognized his ability to speak Arabic. To his surprise, after he renounced his Saudi Arabian citizenship, he was granted top secret clearance to do intelligence work.
During his training, he met Hekmati, an American of Iranian descent.
“Even though born and raised in America, he had an understanding of our similar cultures and found ways to help me feel connected to my Western side,” he writes. “Amir modeled this bridging for me in so many ways.”
The two remained inseparable until Hekmati was denied security clearance and was forced into the infantry.
In Iraq, Justice was part of a team that spied on Iraqis and translated their communications. He eventually went undercover as an Iraqi.
The experience almost destroyed him.
“I think part of the issue he has to deal with was people having the same religion and feeling like he was betraying them and being a traitor,” said Yusra Kauppila, a fellow Marine who also served in military intelligence at the same as Justice. “I think he suffered a lot for that — just a huge identity crisis.”
In the book, Justice goes into less detail about his time in Iraq than growing up in Saudi Arabia. Justice said this is for a couple of reasons.
“The book is not about war,” he said. “It’s not a war book. The details of my missions didn’t move the story forward, anyway. They’re not relevant to the spirit of the messages I was trying to convey.”
He also said that he “wanted to be sensitive to the national security of the country.”
After two back-to-back tours of duty, his unit was sent home.
Struggling with PTSD, his security clearance was revoked and he left the Marines. He returned to Torrance and began the process of healing. On his way to his uncle’s house from the airport, he stopped at the Manhattan Beach house of Dr. David Lesman, a friend of a friend with whom he connected with instantly and with whom now lives.
May the truth set us all free
Despite laying out his life’s story, Justice says he’s a very private person, which Kauppila confirms.
“That’s why it’s so ironic that it’s such an honest book about his life,” she said.
But Kauppila, who also knows Hekmati, understands his motivation for sharing the book.
“I can say with 100 percent certainty, if the option was presented to take his place, he would do it,” she said. “He would be on a plane tomorrow. Amir would be coming home. I would bet my life on it. That’s how strongly Gabe feels he deserves to suffer.”
Even though Justice says he got the blessing of Hekmati’s family before publishing “Blood for Honor,” they no longer support it, a situation which Justice described as “painful.”
Kauppila speculated that the family was offended by the portrayal of their religion; Justice said he sympathized with them and supported them regardless.
“Amir’s family is in a very fearful place,” he said. “They don’t know what to do. I can only imagine.”
Regardless, he’s determined to do what he thinks is right, though he admits to moments of self doubt.
“So many times, I lean my head against the wall in the shower,” he said. “You know like when you send a text and you think, ‘What have I done?’ I have to reaffirm, remember what I did this for, the bigger purpose.”
The publication wasn’t easy for all of Justice’s family, either, although his brother Sammy expressed his support. Justice said he sent a copy to his father, whom he said “didn’t approve” and whom he no longer talks to. His twin brother is largely absent from the book. Justice said this was by design; his brother wasn’t happy about him writing about their childhood, he said, so he left him out of it.
However, some friends, including Kauppila, are very supportive. Kauppila noted that while Justice left a lot out about his experience in Iraq, she identified with what he did write about his experience.
“He did really good work, but with that comes a level of guilt,” said Kauppila. “Are you identifying places that are going to be blown up? Are people, after you identify them, no longer going to be on this earth? You want to believe you’re doing the right thing. But at the same time, you don’t know the outcome of your intelligence.”
She’s shared the book with her husband and friends.
“The book definitely gets inside your head,” she said. “I know it has a way of creeping into your soul.”
A “Blood for Honor” book launch takes place at Shade Hotel (1221 Valley Dr.) in Manhattan Beach from 3 to 6 p.m. Nov. 8. For more information, see BloodForHonorBook.com. For more information on the Free Amir campaign, see FreeAmir.org. ER
