Saif Kareem
Saif is Iraqi American Actor and Athlete, who was Born, Raised, and served in multiple wars in his life, for 27 years, before he miraculously survived the last hellish war in Iraq, and moved to live in united states in 2010, starting a brand new life again from scratch.
His Thirty-Seven years of life have been full of challenges and victories since he was born. In 1982 Saif was born in a city that he takes huge pride in calling it the oldest city and land on Earth, and (the land of Mesopotamia), Baghdad-Iraq. He was born during the middle of the longest war in history (The Iraqi-Iranian (Gulf War) 1980-1988) and grew up in a time of economic and social hardship, where he lost his father in an age of only 3 years old upon that war. Therefore he had to learn how to depend on himself from an early age, just like other hundreds of Orphan Iraqi kids, and started to work selling segregates on the streets of Baghdad after getting off his school to support his widow mother!
Many years later, as he became a young man, a huge passion and outstanding skills in acting, Martial Arts, and soccer, kept sparkling during his years in schools of all levels, participating in many lead roles in theaters in his college and national theater in Baghdad, and quickly was attracting everyone around him in the entertainment industry with his passion and high energy of positivism, despite to the difficult life his family always suffered, as his county Iraq kept suffering constant Wars and bad economy, where he later lost his best friends he grew up with, and the only woman he loved and the one he wanted to spend his life with, when she went missing during the devastating violence after (Operation Iraqi Freedom) War.
That was a turning point to him to join the military serves as contractor with the U.S Army as interpreter and trainer to help serve his country alongside coalition forces, to help build the new Iraqi Security forces and mainly to be able to search for his Fiancé who went missing during the war alongside many other innocent people. But he wasn't able to save her life and they found her dead after a few months. That was very repulsive and extremely unbearable for him, that changed how he viewed the purposes of his life since then!
However, he kept helping the innocent people for almost 4 intensive years of serving his people and his Military fellows during the most chaos era in the Middle East region ever witnessed back then, but soon developed the deepest kind of friendship, brotherhood, and trustworthy reputation with his Military crew as they faced dangers and an uncertain future together. Therefore, with especially his highly intelligent and sharp skills in Army dealing with the detainees while interrogating them and collecting information that helped both the American and Iraqi army to capture many terrorist cells, he earned around 12 high Army recommendation letters from highly ranked officers of the U.S Army who worked with him very closely for years, making their lives and service in Iraq very memorable while helping them survived to go back safely to their homes.
The camaraderie with his combined American Iraqi Units and Soldiers was the only thing that gave meaning to his life after his losses and scars while fighting together. Saif always said that " we never hesitated to give our lives to help and save innocent civilians and kids' lives. Living every day with the thoughts of never coming back to our camp form our continuous parlous missions, just for the sake to help others!"
He continued working with the American military to build and train the Iraqi military, especially the Iraqi Army and Iraqi National Police while helping reconstruct his nation after the War.
Saif moved to the United States when he was 27 years old by himself, to help to save his family before he was successful in bringing them a few years later to the united states. He started a brand-new life and involved with life immediately to make up for all his killed dreams back in his home. Every dream of living in peace with his beautiful fiancé, and all the dreams of big achievements in Athletic and Entertainment Industries, that suffered a lot before got murdered back there!
He moved to Jacksonville, Florida, started back to school again and joined the UNF Ruby club in 2011, where he sparkled a great athletic skills and placed with his team top 4 college Rugby team in the final four in Denver, Colorado. He later joined the city team of The Jacksonville Axemen in 2012 and earned with them the National Championship title. In 2013 he earned the MVP and was chosen to lead his local team the Jacksonville Hatches rugby team in their final game against Orlando Gears.
Saif is also a Personal Trainer who helped so many people to of all ages to change their lifestyle into healthy routine of workouts and nutrition plans. He's a highly competitive in Men's physique division of bodybuilding and his goal to earn his Professional IFBB title soon.
His outstanding performance in leadership, positive energy, and of course his amazing fitness look and body physique attracted modeling agencies and professional modeling photographers to call him for entertainment industry jobs of fitness modeling and acting, which worked as a great therapy for his PTSD and brought him back to his main passion with acting in films and TV.
Saif has built a great name for himself in the entertainment industry in his city of Jacksonville Florida, and became very well known in the modeling industry as he was working to dig his way back into acting industry, where he did cast many extra roles in Netflix, NBC, and TV series in Miami and Orlando areas, and acting in many lead roles in short films in Jacksonville, Fl while he's remarkably working on improving his Screen acting skills with his professional Acting Coaches, to make his own intense drama couple films that he's screenwriting now to hopefully be filmed soon, under his new startup biz TriStallion LLC Productions. A business he dedicated his multiple passions in for Filmmaking, Sports, and Fashion industries.
Saif is working on writing his book, for his goal to convert it in screenwriting and put his multiple wars surviving story in a big-screen film (Maybe a Hollywood film as his dreams has no limits), to make it a worthwhile, and deliver the messages and stories of all the brave men and women who lived and died along his side, both in his Army and civilian lives, in a way that may never be told before!
Although difficult, these experiences made him into the person he is today.
"Trials have taught me to be positive, and keep faith in God. And to believe that everything in life happens for a reason" - Saif Kareem