“It was like a high school scenario,” Powers says with a laugh.

Salam approached the sergeant and told him that today was her last day at the gym. At that, Powers gave her his room number. “And she called,” he says, surprise still straining his voice. “I was like, ‘Oh my God.'”

The dating began. First he, Salam and her cousin drove out to a high-scale shopping plaza and hung out in Powers' Citroën for an hour. Later they arranged to meet up at a hotel where Salam happened to be attending a cousin's wedding. Powers chuckles. The meeting was supposed to be a coincidence, he says, “but her mom knew what was up.”

Soon the sergeant himself realized what was happening. “You talk to her, and she's so sweet, so kind — she could have made friends with the devil,” he says. “I thought, she's beautiful, she's smart. It's just not going to get better than this.”

Salam was delighted at the prospect of marriage. But of course, in Muslim culture, Powers had one last hurdle to leap: Salam's father. “Oh, I was deathly afraid of ‘the Arab Father,'” says Powers. But at last he did sit down beside him. They watched Arabic music videos

To marry Salam, Powers needed to convert to Islam, a simple procedure in which he stood before a judge and confirmed his belief in one God and that Muhammad was His prophet.

on the TV for a while before the sergeant turned and told her father

his feelings. “I said, ‘I love Salam, and I'd really like to marry her.'

I think he understood, but Salam translated too.”

“He was formal and polite. But you could see he was happy — because Salam was happy.” Powers laughs. “Later I got to know him, and he's actually a very funny, friendly, gregarious man. I'm really close with her family now, and she's really close with mine.”

Powers' superior officers were just as approving. “We were such a small group in Amman that everyone knew everything about everybody,” he says. When the time came, Powers approached his colonel. “I said, ‘I'm madly in love with her, and I think I want to marry her.' He said, ‘Okay, just know what you're getting into. Besides that,' he said, ‘you couldn't find a better woman.'”

At first the military did hold a policy prohibiting soldiers from dating locals, says Powers. But it dropped the regulation because it proved too hard to enforce. “And,” notes Powers, “it smacked of racism.”

In accordance with Muslim law, Powers converted to Islam, a simple ceremony held in a judge's quarters in which the sergeant affirmed his belief in one God and that Muhammad was His prophet. The marriage was an equally subdued event. Powers and Salam's family signed a religious contract in the judge's office.

Then came the wedding. Powers and his wife returned to the Intercontinental, where they were greeted by Salam's relatives and a Jordanian band blasting away on a bagpipe and drums. Powers' mother, nephew, one of his sisters and her husband flew in from Ohio for the occasion. “Oh, it was just a great family bash,” he says. “Everyone gathered around, and then it was dancing, dancing — dancing all through the night.”

Powers chuckles at the idea that his marriage marks a unique tale of love amidst war. He says that from his lookout in Amman, love and marriage were everywhere. He and a fellow soldier routinely ate chicken at a local KFC. Now that soldier and a worker from the fast-food restaurant are husband and wife. Powers' colonel also met a Jordanian woman; they too are set to be married. “People were joking about us,” says the sergeant. “‘Hey, what's going here? Everyone's marrying a Jordanian woman.'”

Opportunities

Powers and his pregnant wife left for Cleveland in November 2005, just before Thanksgiving. On May 2, 2006, Salam gave birth to their first daughter, Sara.

The adjustments have been difficult — for Salam, a new culture, a new nation in America; for the sergeant, a shift from bachelorhood to parenthood, from war to the marked tranquility of Ohio. Still it's clear from the steadiness, the dashes of humor in his voice, that the change of scene has been a good one for Powers. As he speaks there's still the ruckus of warfare in the background. But today it's not gunfire, but rather a die-hard water balloon fight between his young nieces and nephews.

To provide for his new family, Powers has taken a job along the assembly line at a local industrial supply company. But he speaks with determination about moving on, pursuing his master's in business at a top Ohio university. There's an optimism about his future, his coming opportunities, one that's not there when the topic returns to the military and what it can make now of the Middle East. “That's the burning question for me,” he says. “We had some great opportunities, but we're squandering the international and national community. Our plan of attack doesn't match the reality in Iraq.”

“We've made some strides,” he says. “I just hope it's not too little too late.”