God and Country

In a speech to a crowd of 9,000 at a Phil Waldrep ministry event, former President George W. Bush said that he missed being the Commander-in-Chief most of all:

I miss being commander and chief of our military the most. You know you live in an amazing country when we have servicemen that continually volunteer to serve their country in the face of danger. I believe we have an obligation to give our troops all the support they need to accomplish their missions.

He spoke for an hour on faith, patriotism, and his time in office.  In giving his reasons for choosing a portrait of Abraham Lincoln for the Oval Office, Bush said  Read more…

Marriages in the US military, especially in this wartime environment, will inevitably face separation.  One Army unit’s Chaplains placed special emphasis on marriages at a recent retreat, and they will continue that emphasis throughout the upcoming deployment.  The news report notes that  Read more…

National Public Radio (NPR) recently reported that the Buddhist Chapel at the Air Force Academy, a room in the lower floors of the iconic Cadet Chapel, “represents tolerance” of beliefs at within the military institution.

The Buddhist hall within the Chapel has actually been in use for years (it was even renovated in 2007) so it is unclear why NPR is covering the story now.  However, they do provide several quotes that indicate the religious climate at the Air Force Academy has “improved” from Read more…

Chaplain (Capt.) Emil Kapaun, a World War II and Korean War Chaplain who died in captivity in North Korea, was recommended for the Medal of Honor by outgoing Secretary of the Army Pete Geren.

According to the Stars and Stripes,

Kapaun was captured by the Chinese in the fall of 1950, when Communist forces overran the 1st Cavalry Division in northern Korea near the Chinese border. American commanders had ordered their forces to retreat, but Kapaun, a Catholic priest with the 3rd Battalion, refused and stayed to care for the men who couldn’t flee.

Stripes also called Kapaun a “prisoner of war,” which while commonly understood is technically inaccurate.  Read more…

Capt. Nicholas Giglio, an F-16 pilot from Shaw Air Force Base, is presumed dead after his aircraft collided with another F-16 off the South Carolina Coast.  Based on testimony from the other pilot, Capt. Lee Bryant, who was able to land at Charleston AFB, and the fact that the automated beacon initiated by ejection never came on, the Air Force has concluded that Capt. Giglio did not survive the initial impact.

The Air Force has transitioned from rescue to recovery.

According to the Wing Commander, the 32-year-old Capt Giglio Read more…

Updated: Information and photos of the pilots are available from a local news source.

The Air Force announced that two F-16CJs from Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, had collided over the Atlantic Coast during night training on Thursday.

One, piloted by Capt. Lee Bryant, managed to land at Charleston AFB.  The other, piloted by Captain Nicholas Giglio, is unaccounted for, and Giglio is reported missing.

Coast Guard vessels conducting rescue operations found debris believed to be from the second aircraft.  Regrettably, the absence of an emergency beacon–which normally transmits automatically after an ejection–increases the likelihood that Giglio went down with his aircraft.

Along with Gordon Klingenschmitt, Jim Ammerman and the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches are being sued by Michael and Bonnie Weinstein for “imprecatory prayers.”  A recent news release indicates that Ammerman and the CFGC will be represented by the Rutherford Institute.

The Rutherford Institute describes itself as an organization that is “dedicated to the defense of civil liberties and human rights,” including “the defense of religious…liberties.”  Ironically, Weinstein and his organization, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, are Read more…

The White House announced that President Obama observed the

auspicious holiday of Diwali, or festival of lights, in the East Room of the White House.

making him the first US President to do so.  Diwali is reportedly

a major pan-Indian festival celebrated around the day of the new moon in October-November.

Obama lit and bowed to a ceremonial Diwali lamp.

The Times of London online published an article on Chaplain (Lt Cdr) Carey Cash, the US Navy Chaplain at Camp David, the Presidential retreat. 

The article appeared to rely heavily (if not exclusively) on the Washington Post article on the same subject the day before, though it took a far more provocative tone.  It was entitled “‘Islam is violent’ says President Obama’s new pastor Carey Cash,” which is inaccurate on more than one level, and it attempted to emphasize what it claimed were Cash’s controversial beliefs.  (FoxNews repeated the article with the headline “Obama’s New Pastor Views Islam as Violent Faith.”)

First, it likened Obama’s link to Chaplain Cash with his experience with Reverend Wright: Read more…

The Air Force has released the report of the Accident Investigation Board (AIB) for the May 2009 fatal crash of a T-38 at Edwards Air Force Base.  The crash killed the front seat pilot, Capt Mark P. “Dash” Graziano, and severely injured the rear seat engineer, Maj Lee V. Jones.  Both were students at the USAF Test Pilot School.

The publicly-releasable AIB report indicates that the T-38 crashed because Read more…

The Washington Post revisits the background of Navy Chaplain (Lt Cdr) Carey Cash, the Chaplain for the Evergreen Chapel on Camp David, the Presidential retreat.  Previously, Time momentarily called the Chapel the Obama’s “home church,” which lit off a firestorm of controversy and denials.  The current article takes the more cryptic form in describing the situation as “The Pastor Who Has Obama’s Attention.”

Much of the article describes Cash’s background, including his time in combat in Iraq and his book, A Table in the Presence.  It includes a short description of what the author calls “Cash’s controversial views on Christian proselytizing Read more…

Urban legends abound in the Air Force about doing unusual things in aircraft that the manufacturer (and the Air Force) never intended.  No, this doesn’t refer to things like rolling inverted in a tanker.  It’s like the ability to suck hard boiled eggs out of the sextant port in the C-135.  Seriously, who figured that out?

Another example is the zippo, a product of the F-111, a photo of which is below:

Photo credit Capt. Christy Stravolo

At some point, an F-111 aircrew member discovered Read more…

Chaplain (Maj.) Bradley West, a US Army Chaplain, was presented with the Gen. Methodej Kuban Medal by Chaplain Mirek Jordanek, Chaplain for the Czech unit stationed at Forward Operating Base Shank in Afghanistan.

The award was named for a Czechoslovakian Catholic chaplain killed in Auschwitz in World War II, who encouraged believers of all denominations to worship together.

As has been noted many times before, there is a shortage of Catholic Chaplains in the Armed Forces.  Chaplain West, a Protestant, was fulfilling his duties to see to the spiritual needs of all of his troops when he Read more…

In a scene right out of Star Trek (which is based on the Navy construct, by the way), a C-130 equipped with a laser recently engaged a vehicle on the ground with fascinating results.  The laser sparked and burned the hood of a parked car, and Boeing, the commercial contractor, said that it “killed” the vehicle.

The C-130 carried a belly-mounted turret from which it fired its Airborne Tactical Laser (ATL).  The ATL has been under development Read more…

Nearly 100 American Muslim soldiers gathered at Fort Jackson to pray as a group to mark Eid al Fitr, celebrating the end of Ramadan.  The call to prayer was led by Chaplain (Lt Col) Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad of the US Army Chaplain Center and School.  The Chaplain lauded the soldiers’ participation, saying

We want (the Soldiers) to be empowered through the spiritual foundation that Islam provides.

When members of the military fail in their respect and protection of religious liberty, Read more…