According to a few sites supportive of the MRFF, Michael Weinstein was recently a speaker at the US Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. There is little public information on the visit, except that which MRFF allies have released. In one email, a supporter — who is an Air Force officer — described a less than supportive environment in the “Q and A”: Read more
As noted earlier, STS-131 pilot LtCol James Dutton was the top 1991 USAFA graduate, flew the F-22 as a test pilot, and is also a Christian and member of OCF. On May 7th Dutton spoke to a dining out of the USAFA Astro department faculty and cadets. Col Marty France, the Astro department head, had high praise for Dutton:
Col. Jim Dutton is exactly the kind of officer every cadet in this room should aspire to be… Read more
The Navy announced Vice President Joe Biden will deliver the address at the US Naval Academy graduation at the end of May.
Senior leaders generally rotate through the military academies. Biden spoke at the Air Force Academy last year, and Obama at Navy. This year, Obama will address the US Military Academy at West Point.
An article summarizing USAFA Superintendent LtGen Gould’s first year at the helm contained an interesting anecdote about a cadet “proselytized” by a Chaplain last summer:
Diversity and a culture of respect go hand-in-hand, General Gould said, adding that he is pleased with the culture of respect that has developed at the Academy in recent years. He recalled the story of a basic cadet from the Class of 2013 who complained of having been proselytized when the cadet went to see a chaplain. Read more
The US Air Force Academy certainly has its critics with regard to the experiences cadets must endure, but it also offers some significant and unique opportunities.
As a college student receiving a tuition-free four year education, how’d you like to head down the street to the school’s flying program and take an aircraft for a spin (also for free)?
Can’t really beat the view, either.
USAFA T-52A and T-41D line up for takeoff on a clear April morning on the USAFA airfield, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Michael Weinstein is truly the gift that keeps on giving. His latest attempt at infamy is to say that a red cross appearing on a military hospital’s emblem
violate[s] the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state and should be removed.
DoD Image
Apparently Weinstein has missed the long, international history of the cross in military medical use, as well as the US military’s equivalent treatment of Islam and Judaism that would allegedly “violate…separation of church and state,” pictured below.
Weinstein also objects to the emblem’s motto “pro deo et humanitate” or “for God and humanity,” despite the military’s description of the phrase as pre-dating Christianity.
The emblem in question is that of Evans Army Community Hospital at Fort Carson, near Colorado Springs.
Many distinguished (and some undistinguished) speakers come to the US Air Force Academy to speak to the cadet wing. Sometimes these speeches are done during a military training period within the school day; others are delivered in the evening.
A time-honored tradition at the US Air Force Academy is the presentation to those speakers (most, but not all) with a statuette of the USAFA mascot, the falcon. After the speaker concludes their remarks, a cadet leader enters the stage and thanks the speaker for their wise words. As he holds the statuette aloft, he then says that on behalf of the cadet wing, he would like to present the speaker with…
…and the entire wing shouts out: The Bird!
It is an interesting and entertaining example of both stereotypical Read more
The US Air Force Academy closed its investigation into the placement of the shape of a cross at a pagan site on the Academy grounds. No new information was apparently determined, nor was any action taken. To their credit, the Colorado Springs Gazette printed the most accurate description so far of the incident, saying
The cross – consisting of two railroad ties propped against a boulder…
Other organizations and individuals had inaccurately implied a ‘large cross’ was ‘made of railroad ties’ and ‘carried to the site’ to be ‘erected in the center’ of the pagan circle. The Gazette left out only the facts the two boards were not connected and were already on the site before the incident occurred.
In noting the end of its investigation, the Air Force refused to characterize the incident as a hate crime: Read more