A showing of the controversial movie, “Loosing our Sons,” attracted a packed audience of professors, students, and local residents alike. The event was sponsored in part by “Americans for Peace and Tolerance.”

The film, which showed last Wednesday, November 7 in the New Hampshire Institute of Politics auditorium, explores the circumstances surrounding the 2009 shooting of two servicemen outside a recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The assault left Private Quinton Ezeagwula wounded and Private William Long dead.

The shooter, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (previously Carlos Leon Bledsoe), was once a college student at Tennessee State University. At 19, Bledsoe became involved with the radical Masjid As-Salam mosque in Memphis, where he converted to Islam. Affiliates of the mosque later paid to send Bledsoe to Yemen, where he studied under a radical Islamist teacher with connections to Al Qaeda.

“Loosing our Sons” documents this tragedy, largely through interviews with the fathers of both shooter and victim. These two men have constructed a unique friendship and mutually lament the loss of their sons to forces beyond their control.

The film builds evidence in an attempt to prove that Bledsoe was indoctrinated into a radical sect of Islam that had infiltrated the United States. They focus on the overtly radical Masjid As-Salam mosque as a primary example.

The film also criticizes the United States government for classifying the attack, which Bledsoe described to police as a “Jihad…justified according to Islamic law and Islamic religion,” as a homicide and not as an act of terrorism. As a result, neither victim received a Purple Heart.

“Loosing our Sons” argues that the government’s apprehension to use words like “terrorism” and “radical Islam” diminishes the seriousness of the radical Islamic presence in the United States. They believe that the overzealous government campaign for political correctness is blinding both government officials and American citizens.

While the subject matter of “Loosing our Sons” is certainly controversial, it judiciously discriminates between members violent, radical Islamic groups and Muslim people en masse.

The arguments presented within the movie, especially those regarding governmental self-censorship and political correctness, are extremely well articulated and well supported. The film is by no means hawkish.

After the film, Charles Jacob, president of “Americans for Peace and Tolerance” facilitated a question and answer session. He argued that Americans need to be aware that radical sects of Islam are taking hold in certain parts of the country.

Jacob claimed that America has an important role to play in the containment of violent Islamic groups: “if Islam doesn’t modernize here in the United States, it won’t anywhere else.”

Jacob believes that spreading awareness about radical Islamism will be an uphill battle, “We have to try to pick one campaign to focus on, and to win it. That teaches the politicians a lesson, but even so, it will be a long struggle.”

Some members of the audience were deeply moved by the presentation. Paul Gagnon described it as “extremely informative.” Gagnon admitted “I do harbor fear about people that have connections, especially after the situation in Benghazi.”

A junior student remarked “it was very surprising to see how [Bledsoe] transformed completely.”

The Saint Anselm Crier will be donating a copy of the movie to the Geisel Library. For more information, visit www.loosingoursons.com.