God and Country

According to the New York Times, St. Elijah’s Monastery was damaged during the initial fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom.  It was subsequently occupied by a US Army unit as a garrison:

The division then made the site a garrison and painted its emblem on the stucco above the low door to the monastery’s chapel. The insignia remained there until a chaplain contemplated the righteousness of having “Screaming Eagles” adorn a house of God.

“That’s not right,” the chaplain said, as the story goes.

The US Army unit now occupying St. Elijah’s now aims Read more…

The latest “breaking scandal” on religion and the military is nearly laughable.  In short:

• Trijicon has a well-known reputation for building high quality weapons sights.
• The US military contracted with them to buy their commercial rifle sights.
• The company includes an abbreviated Bible reference in the model name on the sight.
• ABC News reported that Michael Weinstein has called these “Jesus rifles.”

This “controversy” is so contrived as to be ridiculous.  However, if you’d like to read more, what follows is a cross-section of the comments made and the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind them.    Read more…

The Air Force Times has editorialized that

Before the Air Force can move past its reputation for religious intolerance, it must do one more thing: Eliminate prayers from official events.

Beginning an editorial with such a statement certainly reveals the tone.  After all, while the Air Force has been accused of intolerance by vocal critics, no institutional intolerance has ever been substantiated, and there is no public indication that intolerance is a valid “reputation” of the Air Force.

The editorial also treats a fairly complex issue rather whimsically.  The simple and unexplained demand that the Air Force “eliminate prayers from official events,” after all, would have prevented a Chaplain from praying at the nationally-televised memorial service at Fort Hood attended by the President.  Read more…

The investigations into the Fort Hood massacre are increasingly highlighting the less-than-optimal military evaluation system.  They ask a simple question: how can a person with identified deficiencies be rated as satisfactory or outstanding rather than having those faults documented?  One reporter (at both the LA Times and Baltimore Sun) caught on to this indicator of a wide-spread problem with the military rating system (key points highlighted):

As widely practiced in Army culture, few performance reviews contain negative comments, and almost all seem outwardly positive. However, at senior levels and in competitive fields, where only a few officers are promoted, an evaluation that is less than effusive in its praise can derail an officer’s promotion.

In less competitive fields and at junior levels, the Army has promoted the vast majority of its officers.

As noted here in 2006 and in Christian Fighter Pilot is Not an Oxymoron, these criticisms of the evaluation system apply outside of the Army, and likely apply to the military as a whole.  Embellishment and overly positive reviews Read more…

The United Methodist Reporter has named “the military Chaplain” as the United Methodist of the Year:

For being the symbol of the courageous and steady support offered to members of the U.S. Armed Forces—in a year that saw a deadly assault at an Army base—the military chaplain is our 2009 United Methodist of the Year.

US military Chaplains serve a sacrificial and necessary role in preserving the religious freedom of military men and women called to duty by their nation.

Via Mitch Lewis.

A few weeks ago, the Air Force Times solicited comments from its readers after noting the “improved religious climate” at the US Air Force Academy.  They asked:

What do you think?  Have you found the service and its members to be tolerant of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Wiccans and others who are not Christians?

It would appear, based on the most recent Air Force Times article, that the responses were largely positive.  The article is entitled “Respect healthy for different faiths,” which seems to indicate a positive environment for “different faiths” within the Air Force.

Within the article, however, the author focuses on those who take issue with Christianity in the military, rather than the ‘healthy respect’ that is apparently evident.  The article begins with the presumption of truth in claims that the culture of the Air Force causes an ‘assumption’ of Christianity:

A predominance of Christians in the Air Force creates an atmosphere that assumes all airmen are Christians, allowing prayers and other religious displays at everything from football games and holiday parties to commander’s calls and change-of-command ceremonies, according to non-Christian airmen interviewed by Air Force Times.

While there is a “predominance of Christians” in the United States and in its military, the presence of prayer is not inherently a Christian endeavor, and Read more…

The Fort Hood report (pdf), authored at the request of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, is being widely circulated and read by a variety of pundits.  As previously noted, many have already taken note that it calls for action against the officers who appear to have not followed standards when Hasan’s evaluations did not match his reported performance.  Two other findings are also important to the relationship between religion and the military: a review of the policy on Chaplain endorsers, and a recommendation that the military define a “baseline” for religious conduct.

First, with regard to the officers who supervised US Army Maj Hasan:  Read more…

A Senate committee is recommending that Islamic extremism be added to the list of groups that military members are prohibited from participating in or associating with.

The Defense Department’s existing policies for dealing with personnel that become involved in gangs and racist groups need to be expanded to cover new avenues of violence, [Sen. Joe] Lieberman [I-CT] and [Sen Susan] Collins [R-ME] say.

The two also encouraged the military to educate its members to be able to distinguish between “violent Islamist extremism” and “the practice of the Islamic faith.”

Unfortunately, the Senators’ well-intentioned recommendations are not nearly as simple as they seem to imply.  They present a labyrinth of logistical, political, and religious liberty issues, all of which the military must attempt to figure out on the fly.  It would appear most people agree that something needs to be done, but fulfilling that request without unnecessarily inhibiting religious liberty is another challenge altogether.

A protest in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan was inspired by a claim that international troops “destroyed copies of the Koran.”  NATO said one person was killed–a sniper targeted by coalition forces–while Afghan officials reported six deaths.

As reported on al Jazeera,

Residents in Garmsir district of Helmand province on Tuesday said that Nato-led forces raided a house in the area on Sunday and destroyed copies of the holy book in a local mosque…  Read more…

Rabbi Menachem Stern answered a 2008 ad for military chaplains, “went through all the hoops,” and in July 2009 was told

that the Accession Board had approved him, and at one point “I actually got orders to appear. I received a letter saying that if I agreed to a commission, I should report for swearing-in.”

Subsequently, that invitation was revoked because Stern, who represents an Orthodox sect of Judaism, wears a beard.

“For me, my beard is part of my religious garb,” he explained. “…By not trimming my beard, I show that I represent the unadulterated view of the holy Torah. While there would be ways around it, and many of these ways are kosher, keeping to the original version of the Torah is the only way we as members of the Chabad Lubavitch community believe a person should live.”

According to the Aleph Institute, the Army Chaplaincy isn’t opposed Read more…

Air Force Captain George Bryan Houghton was killed in June of 2009 during a night training mission in his F-16.  An article from the Associated Press, as distributed by FoxNews, recounts the story of his widow’s liaison officer (the officer who becomes the family’s help in any way necessary) going an extra mile to help her obtain closure.

The article reports that Houghton’s widow, Josie, only asked for the investigators to return one thing to her: his wedding band.  Unfortunately, it was not recovered in the initial crash investigation.  The liaison, Maj. Robert Ungerman, took it upon himself to correct that failing, and a moving story results.

Read the full story.

A touching local news article reports a father’s reaction to his son’s death in Afghanistan.  The father, J.D. Hickman, was a former military man himself.  Of his son, he said

“Jason was a man of faith, he was a Christian…Being former military, I can say if you’re going to die, there’s no better way of dying than dying for your country, for your people.”

The faith of these two men was important enough that it was a prominent part of a father’s intimate eulogy of his son.  His legacy was that of a man of faith, even as he served his country in the US military.

When asked if there’s anything else he’d like to share regarding his son, Hickman is quiet for a moment. Then his voice cracks, “John 15:13.”

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Nothing more needs to be said.

Updated with President Obama’s proclamation.

Each year since 1993 the President has declared January 16th to be “Religious Freedom Day,” in order to remember the passage of Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (see 2009).  President Obama does not appear to have issued his proclamation for tomorrow yet (now available), though the day has been a topic of discussion in varying forums across the internet.

Jefferson’s statute continues to be a strong expression for the value of religious liberty even today.  Though the statute has been discussed in many places and in great depth, there are two important points to take from the statute:  Read more…

In its latest attempt to provide Soldiers with mental resilience, the US Army is requiring each of its Soldiers to receive psychological training conducted through a $117 million program by the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center.  The 10-day course

teaches concepts such as focusing on what goes right, expressing gratitude, and analyzing and correcting negative views of ambiguous events.

In short, it is “the power of positive thinking.”  The program is not without its critics, who blast the psychological theory as Read more…

As noted at AF.mil, the US military academies (Air Force, Navy, Army, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine) were ranked in the “top 100″ Best Value Colleges by the Princeton Review/USA Today (again, see 2009).

The military academies, which combine both military and academic training, are government-funded and built around their missions.  As a result, they are no-cost, have low student/teacher ratios, and provide some of the best educational opportunities in the US.

As quoted in the Air Force article, The Princeton Review said

If you can make it through this four-year gauntlet, though, an Air Force diploma is an awesome credential. You will almost certainly leave here with a knack for leadership and a skill set that will impress your friends.

While “impressing your friends” is hardly a worthwhile credential, it is worth noting that the Review recognizes the value of a military academy diploma.  They are challenging to earn, and are earned in limited numbers, making them a commodity even in the civilian sector.  (Though the education is valuable, an Academy diploma does not necessarily have instrinsic value within the military.)

The 2010 Princeton Review can be accessed directly here.