CNN recently featured a frontpage story about US Army Chaplain Darren Turner, who served in Iraq. Upon his return, he suffered from the very things about which he counseled his Soldiers. His family fell apart.
When his 15-month tour was over, Turner returned home to face all the problems he had counseled his soldiers about: anger, depression, stress and – most important for him – preserving relationships with loved ones.
With God’s help, Chaplain Turner saw what was going on, and he Read more…
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.
“The deputy commandant for aviation [Lt. Gen. Terry Robling] directed VMFA 122 to maintain the unit identification as the Werewolves,” said Marines public information officer Lt. Col. Joseph Plenzler. “I called down there to confirm that they have changed the tail markings, squadron patches” and other places the squadron logo appears, he said.
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…
The “Werewolves” have become the “Crusaders” once again.
Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 122 (VMFA-122) is returning to its traditional name, reverting to the “Crusaders” by which it was known for 50 years.
During a 70th anniversary party last month, officials from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 122 announced that the unit would be again known as the “Crusaders,” a moniker used by the unit from 1958 to January 2008.
When Marine LtCol William Lieblein took command in 2008, he was concerned the “notion of being a crusader” wouldn’t “float” in Iraq, Read more…
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:
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…
Marine Capt. Jesse Hills…was the project manager for the refurbishment. He was responsible for finding out what exactly was needed to repair the mosque: the time and resources Read more…
US Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz and Iraqi Air Force Commander Staff LtGen Anwer Hamad Amin Ahmad visited Laughlin Air Force Base to see the graduation of LtGen Anwer’s son, Capt Mohammed Hama Ameen, from USAF Undergraduate Pilot Training.
“I am proud of him today because he is new,” said Anwer, who Read more…
The Koranic text can actually be used in such situations to control the Afghan anger and prevent its spread. In fact, the religiosity of people in these parts of the world makes the use of religious text more effective in controlling people’s anger than using formal apologetic approaches.
(Dr. Hamid joins a chorus of other resources who have written on the issues of “apologies” in the Iraqi and Afghan cultures. They are not viewed the same way a Western citizen would view an apology.)
Dr. Hamid suggests several Quranic texts that might be used to “defend” Read more…
As he has with every public controversy in the US military, perennial religious freedom critic Michael Weinstein claims Christians are to blame for the burning of Qurans at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
[The Koran burning] once again reveals a noxious undercurrent of fundamentalist Christian supremacist exceptionalism…This culture of religious bigotry is fueled by militant, unchecked Christian fundamentalism.
Weinstein pontificates for another thousand words (most of them adjectives, as is his tradition) without really saying anything more of substance. He does make some fairly ridiculous Read more…
A Quiet Reality, subtitled A Chaplain’s Journey into Babylon, Iraq, with the I Marine Expeditionary Force, is not just another war story. A Quiet Reality is unique both for the perspective it lends — a chaplain to US Marines during the invasion of Iraq — and the story it tells — the interaction of the US military with the historic site of Babylon, Iraq.
Chaplain Marrero’s story isn’t told in pure narrative. Rather, each chapter follows an almost sermon-like style, with a well-told narrative followed by a more deliberate explanation and analysis, with a concluding faith-based story or analogy. In each case, no matter how dramatic the tale, Chaplain Marrero is able to articulate the “quiet reality” of his experiences. It is a formula that works very well.
The crux of the story is Chaplain Marrero’s work with local Iraqis and US Marines to protect and explore the historic site of Babylon, Read more…
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the archbishop of the military, has said one of the unintended consequences of the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the resulting annihilation of the already-minority Christian community:
You can say in a certain sense that the invasion of Iraq did provoke this tremendous diminution of the Christian population in Read more…
It an interesting bit of trivia, 487 is the same F-15E that logged the only Strike Eagle air-to-air kill in Operation Desert Storm when it dropped a bomb on an airborne Iraqi helicopter. It also scored an air-to-air kill on a rogue Reaper in Afghanistan, fulfilling every fighter pilot’s dream…
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of any government, military, or religious organization.
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