MRFF Rails Against USAFA, While Admitting There’s Nothing USAFA Can Do
According to Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, a US Air Force Academy cadet recently sent him an email to let him know one of his academic instructors had asked him if he had accepted Jesus as his Savior. The next day, the instructor (perhaps jokingly) asked the cadet not to run to Mikey Weinstein.
With that information – and only that information – Weinstein employed former USAFA department head Marty France (who had previously been Mikey’s inside man in the USAFA leadership) to engage the Air Force Academy and demand…nothing. Said Marty to USAFA:
I’m not sure you can do anything about this particular case–the cadet won’t provide enough information to identify the instructor and we won’t divulge any information about the cadet without their permission, of course.
So, to recap, the MRFF is contacting USAFA so they can do…nothing.
Despite the MRFF’s own admission that they didn’t have enough information to do anything, Weinstein’s public response was typical of “Mikey’s Mad Libs” (a name given to his alliterative and adjective-filled tirades by his own research assistant, Chris Rodda) [bold added]:
The Academy has been maliciously maladroit, at best, and deliberately dishonest, at worst, in attempting to explain its sustained failures to stop this vile plague of majority faith exclusivism and exceptionalism.
The imperious refusal of the Academy’s current senior leadership to confront and destroy this systemic, pernicious, and pervasive fundamentalist Christian triumphalism and domination is both damning and deplorable…
The vile misfeasance and malfeasance of the Air Force Academy’s continuing blatant breaches of the Constitutionally protected civil rights of its cadets, faculty, and staff…
Well, that’s helpful, isn’t it? Wonder which MRFF staffer won the drinking game.
The story as recounted by the cadet (in an email intended for publication) was fairly short:
When my instructor asked me whether I’d “accepted Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior” during a tough [tutoring] session…I was shocked. I looked back at him and thought maybe it was meant to be a bad joke but that was not the case…
My instructor saw my shocked reaction and seemed to know that the line had been crossed. The instructor tried to kind of apologize or make excuses (“I’m just trying to help you the best way I know how”)…
The retelling is bereft of context. It is a rare person who just blurts “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” out of nowhere to a person they barely know. After all, Christians are keenly aware that the question itself is meaningless outside of a longer conversation.
It seems likely that the cadet had some kind of conversation with that instructor about faith at some point. Notably, the cadet said he was a Christian, but he also said
this instructor ask me about my personal religious beliefs about Jesus was pretty terrible and demoralizing. I was humiliated.
Why would a Christian be demoralized and humiliated by someone asking them if they were… a Christian? It seems like there’s more to the story — as well as a bit of hyperbole.
But, assuming the cadet is forthrightly telling the truth, it is inappropriate for a superior officer to randomly ask a subordinate if they have been saved by faith, or said the shahada, or found their inner om. (That said, there are situations when a superior officer could absolutely ask that question; it is not a blanket prohibition.) Importantly, the cadet said even the instructor seemed to realize that after he said it, and attempted to apologize.
According to both the cadet and USAFA’s attempt to assess the situation (with the little information they were given), there is no indication this or any other instructor has previously asked an inappropriate question of faith in a professional setting. It appears, as USAFA said, to be an isolated incident.
Despite that, if the cadet felt that some form of formal response was needed, there were dozens of potential formal military processes for him to engage. He chose, for some reason, to engage with Mikey Weinstein, whom he claims not to have even known about until the instructor mentioned him. That is his freedom. Oddly, the cadet didn’t even tell Weinstein enough information for him to do anything.
So what’s the point? What is the cadet’s goal? It’s not clear. He wrote a letter thanking Weinstein for “all the help,” without explaining what that help was. He was pleased the MRFF had written the Superintendent of USAFA – despite the fact the Superintendent wasn’t given any information he could do anything about. He also said
Getting this whole thing out in the public is the best way to stop that instructor and others who would also try to do these things.
It’s a somewhat odd characterization. Putting an anonymous accusation out against a nameless USAFA instructor isn’t the best way to stop anything. This future officer needs to know that if he identifies things that are wrong in his Air Force, he needs to engage the processes of the Air Force and the DoD to right the wrong. When that fails, there may be cause to go outside the military to seek help to correct a wrong the military will not acknowledge.
But it is the height of ignorance – and, simultaneously, arrogance – to claim that a vague accusation about an unknown person will “fix” anything in a government institution. The cadet seems to relish his anonymous time in the limelight, as well as have hints of a savior complex.
That’s a bad combination for an Air Force officer, and it demonstrates a severe lack of maturity. To be fair, though, part of USAFA is leadership training, and this cadet likely has yet more opportunities to develop the maturity to understand how to engage the institution he serves.
But if he graduates from the Air Force Academy thinking he needs to call his mom, his congressman, a lawyer, the press, or the ACLU every time he perceives an affront, he will likely have an angst-filled career (on both his part and that of his superiors) – one that will end, no doubt, with similar accusations of personal offense with which it began.
When you seek to be an offended martyr, you will never have a shortage of opportunities.
Interestingly, that’s how Mikey Weinstein’s short career went. He entered the Air Force proudly claiming he struck an officer and was saved only after a mysterious after-hours meeting on a dark hill with a man who somehow made the criminal act disappear (along with the witnesses, apparently). Weinstein ended his career claiming he had to threaten to sue Air Force over the details of his service commitment.
If all of your interactions are confrontational, perhaps its time for a little introspection and self-awareness. You may discover the common factor is you.
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Mr. Weinstein needs Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. I left a message for him after I believe his son reported me for putting a Bible verse on my emails. I am a Jewish believer in Jesus. I know his speech is not upright. He is a very sad person; being used of Satan. Pray for his salvation.
@Barb,
The Bible-verse-email thing has long been a mis-used regulation. It applies only to official email. The definition for “official” is actually very, very limited. (Official emails are actually required to be filed, indexed with a reference number, and archived every year.) But, it’s easier to tell you to change your emails than it is to tell Weinstein to leave the military alone.
I am a Christian as you know. And I am beyond disgusted by all of the alleged Christians engaging in nationalism, dominioniam, and this Christian militarism! It’s all absolutely disgusting and not Christian at all. In fact, Jesus kept himself separate from Rome and so should we. The church doesn’t belong in the government or military. To do so is very anti-Christ and unbiblical. Any person who wants to mix church and state has never read the Bible and has absolutely no concept of what makes a Christian. The NAR cult movement has taken over the majority of westernized churchianity and corrupted the rest of the world with their heretical apostate teachings. Feel free and post my comment to the thread if you like, if it’s appropriate to do so. If not, no worries!
Lyn Leahz
Christian TV Show Host,
Truth Hunters
@Lyn Leahz,
I didn’t know, actually. Interesting that your comment doesn’t actually talk about the article above at all, which makes it seem you’re here not for the topic but for another purpose.
Your comment also contains a lot of straw men. For example, we’re all happy to know you think “the church doesn’t belong in the government or military.” Since no one is saying that it does, you seem to have won that argument with yourself.
If you’re interested in a conversation about Christians serving society and the nation, consider starting here:
http://christianfighterpilot.com/2011/08/02/can-a-christian-serve-in-the-us-military/
Prior to 1976 such a question about one’s worldview, Christian or otherwise, would have caused no trouble at all. It would have been handled between two men exchanging their views, pro and con, without one needing to “run home to mama” for comfort and support. Since 1976, the feminization of our service academies has proceeded apace with that of our entire culture. Today we have 59+ varieties of fake genders whose feathers are ruffled at the slightest disagreement and who need a “safe place” to recover from their shock when confronted with anything out of their ordinary expectations. The USAFA mascot of a fierce falcon is no longer appropriate. Today it should be a pigeon.
The “IT” cadet who tattled ITS petty complaint against Christianity should hope that IT never has to meet a real warrior in battle. Then IT will be in real trouble, and so will the American nation who depends on IT for its defense. When the Academy removed its “Bring Me Men” sign in 2003, it was an overdue confession of its own emasculation which began in 1976. Today it is a ghost of its former self. For the moment, many dependable real men remain within the ranks, but they are increasingly surrounded by weak women and the sickly spawn of feminization: lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and queers, all according to their own favored LGBTQ moniker.
As if that wasn’t enough, we now have the racist Sec Def Austin and the boot licking Gen Milley who, at the behest of our corrupt, Marxist leaning president, are indoctrinating cadets with their despicable “Critical Race Theory.” They are teaching them to be racists, to be suspicious of one another, and to hold our country and its ordinary citizens in contempt. Military ranks at all levels are being purged of real patriots. For promotion, military merit is secondary to leftist political correctness. Incompetents like Milley, a Princeton graduate, and Austin, a West Point graduate, are the result. They couldn’t even manage our humiliating retreat from Afghanistan without letting billions of dollars of valuable military equipment fall into enemy hands. They literally gave our weapons to the enemy so that they can kill our soldiers in any future combat. Outrageous is not the word for it.
I used to wear my USAFA graduation ring with pride. Today, I am ashamed of what the Academy has become, and my ring sits in the back of my desk drawer. I hope and pray that someday our nation and its service academies will rediscover their former strength of patriotic purpose and courage. But unfortunately, that will not happen until the consequences of what we have become works its way out in our next war(s). We have not won a real war since WWII because of the failures of our elected politicians and their sycophant generals. Their latest debacle in Afghanistan is just the beginning of the price that will have to be paid in blood and treasure before the American people wake up and recover their Christian heritage — if it is already not too late.
Michael Martin
USAFA 1966