Tag Archives: robbie risner

Christian Fighter Pilot Tells Troops about Need for Faith

Guy Gruters recently spoke at a gathering at the Navy Medicine Operational Training Center at Pensacola, Florida. The first words of the official Navy article on the event are fascinating:

Guy Gruters is a religious man. You would be, too, if you’d been in his shoes.

Then-Lt Gruters was an Air Force F-100 pilot in Vietnam who, after his second shootdown, was captured and spent nearly six years as a POW. One of his cellmates was Lance Sijan, and Read more

USAF Enlisted POW Cites Need for Faith

robinsonIn a interesting case of coincidental timing, at the same time Michael “Mikey” Weinstein was demanding the removal of Bibles from POW/MIA displays — Bibles that represented “the strength gained through faith” in captivity — the longest-held enlisted POW, retired Capt. William A. Robinson, was telling Airmen at Lackland AFB about the faith he needed to survive [emphasis added]:

“I had faith in myself, faith in those around me, faith in my country and faith in my God,” said Robinson.

Capt Robinson’s story was mentioned here in 2013 — the first time a POW/MIA table was attacked.  (Notably, the IG and EO office defended the table then, and the story died.) Of course, it isn’t just him. Retired USAF Col Fred Cherry said the same thing, as have many other POWs.

Faith in God helped Read more

“Anti-Religion Hysteria” as VA Removes Bible From POW Table. Again.

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein recently declared “victory” after a second Veterans Administration facility altered the traditional POW/MIA remembrance table in response to his complaints.

An MRFF representative, retired US Army Capt Jordan Ray, had filed the complaint about the facility more than an hour and a half away from him — so far out of his way, in fact, that he asked the VA to take the time to photograph the “new” display so he didn’t have to drive down to do it himself, giving the MRFF a fundraising prop for free.

Writing at FoxNews.com, Mike Berry of First Liberty Institute decried Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s attempts to overturn the tables of POW/MIA remembrance memorials around the country:

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, founder and president of the deceptively-named Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), demanded an Akron, Ohio VA clinic remove the Bible from its POW/MIA remembrance table. This isn’t the first time the MRFF has targeted a symbol of faith for our nation’s POWs and MIAs. In 2014, it attacked remembrance tables in the Air Force and Navy.

It goes without saying that Weinstein has an issue with the Bible. Besides his Read more

Religious Liberty Attacks in America “Resemble Time at Hanoi Hilton”

US Rep Sam Johnson (R-Tx), a Vietnam era Air Force fighter pilot, wrote at the Christian Post that attacks on religious liberty in the United States “resemble my time in the Hanoi Hilton.”

You see, I endured painful torture at the hands of communists. I brutally experienced what it’s like to truly lose the privilege to worship as you see fit. As a prisoner of war in Vietnam for almost seven years, more than half of that time in solitary confinement, I withered away in a cellblock so isolating it could only be called Alcatraz.

Referring to a report by Senator Ted Cruz, Johnson says  Read more

The Bible and the POW/MIA Table, Part II

“Eat everything they give you, no matter how disgusting; it’ll keep you alive. You’ve just been tortured, and that’s not the end of it; resist to the limits of your sanity, or to permanent physical damage. You’ll know when you get there.” And he concluded: “And pray; if you haven’t been, start. We’re going to get through this, and I’ll see you when it’s over.”

General Robbie Risner, prisoner of war and the Senior Ranking Officer in the Hanoi Hilton, to newly arrived POW Gen Charles G. Boyd, 1963.

Kind of makes you wonder what those POWs would think of the Air Force removing a Bible from their POW/MIA table. Read more

US Air Force Academy Will Restore “So Help Me God”

Removing the poster and editing the oath for all Academy students is extreme and unnecessary, and does a disservice to the countless individuals who wish to include the phrase as a solemn reminder that they are pledging their fidelity to God and country.

Letter to LtGen Michelle Johnson from Congress
18 November 2013

Lost in the recent hubbub over the US Air Force Academy Cadet Honor Oath’s inclusion of “so help me God” was an observation made by Patriot Post some time ago:  The phrase “so help me God” had already been deleted from the oaths included in the Cadet Contrails (the book of knowledge issued to each new cadet, which they are required to memorize).

Twenty-eight members of Congress recently wrote to USAFA Superintendent LtGen Johnson and reminded her that the Oath of Office, Oath of Enlistment, and Read more

Congressmen Introduce Military Oath Bill, Chide Weinstein

After USAFA appeared to capitulate to Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s complaints that “so help me God” violated the US Constitution, two Congressmen have proposed legislation that would require “Congressional approval” before changes can be made to military oaths.  The bill was proposed by Reps Sam Johnson and Pete Olson (R-Tx).  Though the text is not available, the current lengthy title says the purpose of HR 3416 is

to require congressional approval before any change may be made to the oaths required for enlistment in the Armed Forces, appointment to an office in the civil service or uniformed services, or appointment as a cadet or midshipman at a military service academy…

Astute observers will note that has nothing to do with USAFA’s Cadet Honor Oath.  Similarly, the oaths to which that legislation does apply are already enshrined Read more

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