*Faceplant*

[patgund]

If this is true.....then that major is a disgrace to his uniform and his country. The sad part is not that he believes he's in the right - but that others in this country also think the same way.

Faith - or lack thereof - should not be a factor in serving one's country.

Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats

"When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending.

But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote in a sworn statement. “People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!” Major Welborn said, according to the statement.

Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from re-enlistment and bring charges against them, according to the statement.

Last month, Specialist Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group, filed suit in federal court in Kansas, alleging that Specialist Hall’s right to be free from state endorsement of religion under the First Amendment had been violated and that he had faced retaliation for his views. In November, he was sent home early from Iraq because of threats from fellow soldiers."

Comments

[electorprince.livejournal.com]

I think half my Company were athiests or at least non-churchgoing agnostics. No one's ever made a big deal out of not believing in God/gods in any unit I've been a part of, so long as you do your job and don't get in the faces of people who do believe and worship.

[tepintzin.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I believe this story. YES, evangelical Christianity is favoured, and NCOs sometimes make inappropriate religious comment, such as the one at Reception telling us we wouldn't get through Basic without Jesus. That's anecdotal and individual though.

Unlike my colleague, I've never found any atheists or even anything that could be called agnostic. Agnosticism requires some thought, and usually religious belief of any sort hasn't been my comrades' interest. At most it's approached in a superstitious fashion, such as using a cross as a talisman against harm.

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised it happens. There is an ongoing evangelical movement targeting the military, and there have been stories about troops "being told" to go to church or services, even in combat zones in Iraq.

Now, for some ancient history: In 1975, I was stationed in Kaiserslautern, Germany, at the Heaquarters Company, First Support Brigade. The gentleman in the room next too mine insisted on posting his Christian tracts on the shelf (a built in "gun rack", actually) outside his room, and put a "God Loves You" sticker on his door.

Relatively new to my pagan faith, and on a Norse path at the time, I posted an "Odin Lives!" sticker on my door, and posted tracts about "What are the Nine Charges" and "Introduction to the Committee for the Restoration of the Odinic Rite" on my gun rack.

During inspection, the company commander, a major, ripped the sticker off my door as "trash" and tore up the tracts on my gun rack and threw them in the trashbasket. When I requested he do the same to the religious material on my neighbor's door, he refused, calling him a "Good Christian Boy".

I immediately after inspection went to our Equal Opportunity/Race Relations Officer, LTC White, (who was black), and filed a complaint. Edgar was a member of my SCA group, and new me well. I explained the situation. LTC White filed a complaint with the Major, who was, less than 48 hours later, forced to apologize to me in front of the massed Headquarters Company, including the Brigadier General, the senior Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels, and all the rest of the officers and enlisted personnel for "Disprespecting (my)faith and damaging my religious materials."

. . . He was also reassigned less than a month later, and passed over for promotion to LTC.

I had no problem with the rest of the company, or the senior staff.

Nonetheless, there are those of the Christian faith in the military who believe it's their bounden duty to bring everyone into the fold.