God and Country

When the Air Force directs its members to travel on official business, it attempts to provide them lodging facilities “similar to US mid-level, limited service commercial hotels” even on Air Force bases spread around the globe.  As of October 1, 2012, those attempts will no longer include the traditional Bible in the nightstand.

According to atheist Jason Torpy, his demands have resulted in the Air Force changing its policies on the placement of Bibles in Air Force billeting facilities around the world.

After inquiries from the Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers and a legal review, Air Force Services Operations [sic] has promised to end their Bible requirement…

Air Force counsel has recognized that…Air Force lodging managers are Constitutionally-bound to avoid entanglement with religion. Including a Bible in every room is a privilege for Christianity.

That isn’t exactly what the Air Force Services Agency said:  Read more…

FoxNews recently updated the Camp Pendleton cross controversy with an interview of one of the widows whose husband helped raise the original cross.

“It’s not a religious spot at all, it’s a place for the Marines to grieve and to grow to let go of their burdens of what they had in their soul, so they can go back down that hill and back into battle and put their own lives on the line,” says Marine widow Karen Mendoza.

It also quotes Col Nicholas Marano, the Camp Pendleton commander who retired at the beginning of the month:

Retired Marine Colonel Nick Marano tells us, “This wasn’t intended to be a religious memorial, it was just intended to be able to provide a fitting and a dignified memorial to their fallen comrades and frankly controversy was the very last thing on their minds.”

Jason Torpy has decried the memorial, which is located on the internally named Camp Horno portion of Camp Pendleton, as an example of “Christian 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…

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…

While stories of political insensitivity or incorrectness sometimes shock the public (or political) conscience, those within the military often find such displays far less offensive — or rare.

A few years ago, US Air Force F-15 pilot 1Lt Ali Jivanjee was killed in an F-15 training accident.  He was a Muslim fighter pilot who took it upon himself to sign his name “Jihad” — apparently because he’d been “teased” (hazed? bullied?) about his first and middle names being “Ali Akbar” (similar to “Allahu akbar,” a phrase often connected to “jihadists,” for those that don’t make the connection).

His F-15 peers eventually named him “Danny Boy,” because he “needed a good Irish name.”

A fighter squadron is definitely not a bastion of political correctness, or cultural sensitivity.

A recent Military.com article notes the same theme throughout much of the rest of the military.  Makers of accoutrements — including unofficial military uniform patches — with variations of “American infidel” on them are doing gangbuster business:  Read more…

The atheist Rock Beyond Belief festival has received a fair amount of press recently, though it has mostly come through a variety of outlets repeating a single story originally written by the Religion News Service.

Kimberly Winston of RNS wrote “Military atheists get ready to ‘rock beyond belief,’“ which, while a noble effort, still largely came across as a press release for the atheists.  (By contrast, the ChristianPost had a somewhat more thorough article.  In full disclosure, the ChristianPost article does cite ChristianFighterPilot.com extensively.)

What Winston failed to disclose in her original story is Read more…

In keeping with the theme that atheists cannot fellowship together without the ability to denigrate religion, organizers of the atheist “Rock Beyond Belief” to be held at Fort Bragg have secured the explicit “guarantee” of the US Army that they can criticize religion — and people who are religious.

According to their announcement, Garrison Commander Col Stephen Sicinski has said he respects

that the speakers may criticize organized religion or its practitioners…

Because this event is now “cleared” to criticize religion, while the Billy Graham Evangelical Association’s Rock the Fort was not, the MRFF’s Chris Rodda claims this is a coup.

She doesn’t realize the joke is on her.  Read more…

Rock Beyond Belief, the atheist event billed as a counter to the previous Christian Rock the Fort, has clearly announced a previously controversial song will be featured in its lineup.

In January, FoxNews carried the story of Aiden’s Hysteria, whose music video showed burning churches while the lyrics said religion “distorts the truth” and called for its “death.”

At the time, the lead organizer of the event, Justin Griffith, was quoted in the FoxNews article saying this was a faux controversy — though the public reaction, and Fort Bragg’s, seemed to differ.  While the FoxNews piece focused on ‘images of burning churches,’ the issue has always been Aiden’s lyrics that criticized religion.  Now, Griffith makes a point of stating Aiden will perform Hysteria [emphasis original]:  Read more…

In the wake of the Aiden scandal and questions about their acts’ previous behavior, Fort Bragg has reportedly made sure those behind Rock Beyond Belief are “fully aware” of the standards they must follow.

The reminder comes after the most recent question from an Army chaplain about the event’s ability to adhere to military guidance:  Read more…

Though an outcry over a Christian concert event at Fort Bragg inspired a demand for a non-religious equivalent, it turns out the US military has been quietly slipping non-religious events onto military bases for some time.

Mollie Gross, a comedienne and former military wife, recently visited Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, NC, to bring a little humor home.

“A lot of different comedians and musicians go overseas to Read more…

The lengths to which the US military will go to protect the free exercise of its troops have been noted here many times before.  From delivering fresh palm fronds at Easter to helping servicemembers build a Sukkah, the military generally does an admirable job of trying to provide religious resources to those it separates from those resources in the call to war.

Recently, the base chapel in Kandahar, Afghanistan, received its first Torah scroll, created in memory of fallen servicemembers.  Chaplain (LtCol) Avi Weiss explains the significance of the scroll:

Capt Rubin at Jews in Green recognized this for the support of religious freedom that it is.

Military atheist Justin Griffith, on the other hand, Read more…

NPR’s Barbara King has an interesting article on Richard Dawkins and the upcoming Reason Rally, wondering out loud if Dawkins might actually undermine the stated purpose of the event:

According to a press release, the rally is to be a celebration, and its chief mission is to “combat negative stereotypes about nonreligious Americans.”

Why question Dawkins?  He’s known to be critical, “hurtful and harsh” — “an especially scathing critic” — in other words, he embodies the negative stereotype of the scornful atheist the rally says it is trying to dispel.

If NPR questions Dawkins’ negative stereotype in his role at the Reason Rally — where the only risk is alienating some willing listeners — is there any wonder there are questions about Dawkins’ role a week later at Rock Beyond Belief?  There, he’ll step foot on the US Army’s Fort Bragg, where Dawkins will be required to avoid the acerbic criticism King — a self-described Dawkins admirer — seems to think is unavoidable Read more…

Air Force Chaplain (Maj) Kent Schmidt has an article on spiritual resilience, part of the four-pillar Comprehensive Airman Fitness, in which he encourages his readers to “focus on the why:”

It’s all too easy for those of us serving in a high tempo Air Force to get driven and consumed by the “What?”…Getting caught up in the reactive world, some call it the tyranny of the urgent, can cause us to lose sight of the “Why?” The “Why” becomes subsumed by the “What.”

I’d like to encourage you to make it a point to daily, take a deep breath or two, close your door, dim your computer screen and close your eyes and ask yourself “Why?” Why am I doing what I’m doing today? Why am I on this current trajectory?  Read more…

US Army Major Ray Bradley wants military records to be altered so he can express his religion as “humanist,” which is not currently an option.

[Bradley] can’t be designated as a humanist on his official records or dog tags, although he can be classified as an atheist.

The distinction may not seem like a large one to those unfamiliar with humanism, but the Fort Bragg-based officer says it’s the equivalent of being told that “Christian” is an acceptable designation, but not “Catholic.”

“Humanism is a philosophy that guides a person,” Bradley said. “It’s more than just a stamp of what you’re not.”

As to the confusion about whether atheists are humanists, or vice versa:  Read more…

The National Atheist Party (seriously) recently announced its association with the atheist Rock Beyond Belief occurring at Fort Bragg at the end of March.

In their short write-up, the atheists said this [emphasis added]:

While serving under an active duty enlistment, Mr. Griffith was ordered to attend a Christian festival hosted by Billy Graham, and subsequently detained for his refusal.

Now, what’s more shocking: that Rock Beyond Belief event organizer and American Atheist “military director” Justin Griffith was detained after he refused an order to attend the BGEA’s Rock the Fort, or that in the past 18 months this spectacular storyline has never been mentioned?

Wouldn’t this make a perfect military atheist persecution story?  The atheist party seemed to think so.

For anyone who has followed the story, there’s a simple explanation:

The atheist story isn’t true.

No one was forced to attend, and no one was “detained” over Rock the Fort.  Apparently, what really happened Read more…