God and Country

PFC Naser Abdo, the Islamic US Soldier turned conscientious objector turned bomb plotter, has been convicted of attempting to bomb a local Fort Hood restaurant and kill his fellow soldiers.

A federal jury Thursday convicted Abdo, a Muslim soldier, on six charges in connection with his failed plot to blow up a Texas restaurant full of Fort Hood troops, his religious mission to get “justice” for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

His confessed motivation?  Religion.  Read more…

In his zeal to attack all things Christian in the military, Justin Griffith — the Army Sergeant made famous by his organization of Rock Beyond Belief at Fort Bragg — once harassed the wives of deployed Fort Bragg soldiers.  Even when he realized he’d made an error — he’d thought he was criticizing the soldiers themselves, as if that’s better — he never publicly apologized.

Now, it seems he’s after the support provided to wounded warriors.  Read more…

Quartermasters have Saint Martin, and Marine artillery has Saint Barbara, but the patron saint of Army aviation is Saint Michael.  Four aviators were recently “inducted into the Order of Saint Michael” while deployed to Afghanistan.

The award recognizes individuals who have contributed significantly to the promotion of Army Aviation in ways that stand out in the Read more…

Jason Torpy, the one-man Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, is an atheist and former Army officer.  While his MAAF is ostensibly a “community support network,” he recently revealed the true motivation behind his ideology.

In a recent display of internet frustration, Torpy took fellow atheists to task for not banding together and being “anti-” enough.  The context was a comment that people don’t join groups for things they don’t believe in, spoken by Neil deGrasse Tyson, a self-described agnostic (who says he is “often claimed by atheists”):

Do non-golf players gather and strategize? Do non-skiers…come together and talk about the fact that they don’t ski? I can’t do that. I can’t gather around and talk about how much everybody in the room doesn’t believe in God.

This is the same point raised by many people  Read more…

Some may have assumed that with a Democratic President (and the stereotype that the US military leans Republican/conservative), most of those testing the limits of permissible political activities or commentary would be “right wing” or conservatives.

They would be wrong.

The blog for the Rock Beyond Belief event organized by Justin Griffith at Fort Bragg recently posted an article about North Carolina’s Amendment 1, which would modify the NC State Constitution to say the only domestic legal union in the state is Read more…

Justin Griffith, the Army Soldier made famous by the event he organized at Fort Bragg, recently found a prayer group advertised on an Army unit’s Facebook page:

Naturally, Griffith immediately took issue with the time of the prayer event, which is during what are traditionally considered duty hours.  He decided to call on his web followers to target the unit’s Facebook post [formatting original]:  Read more…

The US Army post at Fort Knox had apparently invited Ted Nugent, along with Styx and REO Speedwagon, to an event to be held on June 23rd.  Following Ted Nugent’s recent foray into the spotlight for his comments at an NRA convention, his invite has been cancelled.

The reasoning for the cancellation:

A spokesman for Fort Knox told TheBlaze.com that having Nugent perform “would be a conflict of interest since the military has the obligation to be apolitical.”

The article, printed on MSNBC, notes that such a statement is tortured:

Such a claim, though, seems dubious Read more…

US Army PFC Naser Abdo, arrested in July 2011 while allegedly collecting supplies to bomb and shoot Fort Hood soldiers, reportedly confessed shortly after he was arrested.  His lawyers unsuccessfully tried to get the confession ruled inadmissible.

[U.S. District Judge Walter Smith] rejected a defense motion to throw out a confession from the soldier accused of planning to bomb a Texas restaurant filled with Fort Hood troops…

Prior to this point, Abdo had been fairly defiant, and he didn’t seem to shy telling the police what his plans were:

“So I’m AWOL … and I was planning an attack here in the Fort Hood community,” Abdo says in the recording…  Read more…

A group of US Army Africa chaplains have been engaging with the Liberian Armed Forces to help their chaplaincy:

Chaplain (Maj.) Allen Staley, and Command Chap. (Col.) Gary Brown …worked with more than 20 Liberian Armed Forces chaplains during a Chaplain Professionalization Seminar in Monrovia, Liberia.

The US military is helping Liberia develop its own chaplaincy, and they’re Read more…

An official DoD article highlights the “positive role” SPC Benjamin Reynolds has in his unit, the 82nd Airborne currently deployed to Afghanistan.  Even those around him know what drives him:

Reynolds sites his faith as playing an important role in maintaining the positive attitude that so many in his unit admire. In the toughest of times, his beliefs seem to grow even stronger.

“I usually pray for my safety and those around me and use my faith as a motivator,” he said. “When God pulls you through something like that it’s an amazing feeling. It really reinforces your faith.”

Reynolds’ company commander literally couldn’t stop giving him praise:  Read more…

US Army Chaplain (Capt) Thomas Dyer was once a Marine.  He was also once a Southern Baptist preacher.

Dyer has served for several years, including a deployment to Iraq.  While he’s the first Army Buddhist chaplain, several Buddhists have recently become chaplain candidates.

The TV station local to Fort Benning recently did a short segment on the Chaplain, and the military’s support to religious freedom his service demonstrates:

A US Army article details the support of Army chaplains to families and Soldiers as they deploy and return home.  Check out the name of the chaplain:

“We help strengthen family relationships,” said Maj. Billy Graham, 101st CAB chaplain. “We conduct the ‘Strong Bonds’ retreats for married soldiers and hold events for single Read more…

Fort Bragg’s Rock Beyond Belief passed quietly last Saturday.  While organizers had predicted a crowd of 5,000, Richard Dawkins, the main draw of the event whose “sell out” crowds were the justification for the attendance forecast, ultimately spoke to only “a couple hundred” spectators.  Photos of the event show Aiden, the musical act originally billed as Dawkins’ lead-in, playing to only a few dozen who had stuck out the day.  It also appeared the military base was hosting a largely civilian crowd.

Rain early in the day may have affected attendance, much as the heat affected the Christian Rock the Fort the atheist event was meant to protest.  Rock the Fort reportedly drew 3,000 to 4,000 of the forecast 10,000 (and the atheists had been quick to mock the attendance numbers of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association event).

Interestingly, Col Sicinski was on site of the event and indicated the event wasn’t the controversy it may have been made out to be:  Read more…

US Army SPC Jesse Thorsen (previously incorrectly identified as a Corporal) has been given a Letter of Reprimand for appearing at a Ron Paul rally in uniform and giving a glowing endorsement.

The Army determined that Jesse D. Thorsen violated Read more…

The primary organizer of Rock Beyond Belief, the atheist festival occurring this weekend at Fort Bragg, has — again — drug Fort Bragg and the US Army through the mud in an apparent bid for publicity.

In a sensationally titled “Fort Bragg wont let us feed homeless vets at the atheist festival,” Justin Griffith says Fort Bragg denied their plan to do a canned food collection.  Griffith summarized [emphasis original]:

The ‘pro-starvation’ camp has prevailed…

At issue is Joint Ethics Regulation 3-211, which says the DoD can let non-Federal entities (ie, Rock Beyond Belief) use DoD facilities (ie, Fort Bragg’s resources) except for fundraising events.  Apparently, Fort Bragg determined canned food collection was fundraising.

Whether collecting canned food for a charitable cause constitutes non-Federal fundraising is a legitimate question.  Rather than take direct issue with that, however, Griffith took a different tack:  He said the Christians Read more…