From Syracuse.com
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Speaking at Syracuse University this morning, Gen. Martin Dempsey was free and loose with jokes.
The nation’s highest ranking military officer began with one about himself and his wife, Deanie Dempsey, a Le Moyne College graduate. “Did you ever in your wildest dreams think we’d be here and I’d be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?”
“You’re not in my wildest dreams,” was the punchline.
But during a Q&A after his speech, when a long-bearded Muslim man stood up, Dempsey shot a quip that stung and shocked. “Are you Taliban?” he asked before the man could speak. “Just kidding,” he said.
Yusuf Soule, the questioner, didn’t hear Dempsey’s quip, or know about it until asked by a reporter. Even then, Soule, director of the Syracuse’s North Side Learning Center, wasn’t bothered by it.
“He’s a funny guy,” said Soule, a Binghamton native who converted to Islam in 1999. “I hear things like that all the time. Airports are the worst.”
