Chaplain (Capt) Jonathan Harrop, endorsed by the LDS, recently helped 14 members of the Arizona National Guard chaplain staff visit a Mormon Temple — relatively rarely seen, since they are not often open to the public:
While LDS church buildings are always open Read more
The Stars and Stripes repeated an article from the Newport News Daily Press noting Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s recent speech at the College of William and Mary. While Weinstein’s speeches are essentially verbatim at each venue, the article headlined and detailed an interesting quote:
“It’s not about eliminating God,” [Weinstein] said. “If that were to happen, we would be in someone’s face in two seconds. It’s about making sure you follow the procedures in deploying your version of God.”
His first sentence seems to be true. He has not advocated “eliminating God” — at least not the God he approves of — from the military or anywhere else. His second Read more
The Deseret News carries its own commentary by Amy Choate-Nielsen on the recent changes to the DoD’s rules requiring religious accommodation. Interestingly, it uses two Jewish Soldiers as the central points of its article — even though the two have nothing to do with the policy changes:
For [Michael] Handman, the new NDAA law comes too late. Five years ago, the private was called derogatory names because of his faith, ordered to remove his yarmulke and rebuked for reading Jewish canon. Then, a few days after his letter home, on Sept. 24, 2008, Handman was lured into a laundry room and beaten to the point of unconsciousness, an Associated Press story says.
That story was discussed in detail here at the time. Retired US Read more
The US Air Force Academy published an article featuring cadets attending a seminar on “ethical dilemmas.”
Eight special operations captains from Kirtland and Cannon Air Force Bases, Academy active-duty Airmen and Air Force retirees shared ethical dilemmas that have occurred in their personal and professional lives with about 70 cadets, to engage in reflective conversation, focus on character and leadership, identify pressure that make ethical action challenging and how to improve them.
While the class was certainly long-scheduled, the timing of the public affairs piece is probably not coincidental, given the recent focus on ethics — more accurately, ethical failures — in the US military.
The cadets were introduced to the USAFA Center for Character Development’s ARDA model for decision-making: Awareness, Reasoning, Decision and Action. They then rotated through tables where they interacted with active duty officers who spoke to them about ethical dilemmas they had experienced.
The program certainly gained much credibility in Read more
Agudath Israel of America, an “Orthodox umbrella group,” recently highlighted that the Defense Logistics Agency (which orders supplies for the military) had dropped a solicitation for kosher MREs (but kept the one for halal meals). Facing implications they were running out of kosher MREs, the military responded:
“DLA Troop Support has sufficient stock of Kosher Read more
LtGen Michelle Johnson, US Air Force Academy superintendent, recently sat down with perennial critic of her academic institution (and MRFF ally), regional newspaper columnist Pam Zubeck.
Among the several questions Zubeck reports in a Q/A format are one on religion and another on an accusation by Michael “Mikey” Weinstein:
[Zubeck:] Some cadets and staff are concerned there’s an atmosphere in which cadets are expected to have their first allegiance to God, not country. How do you deal with that?
LtGen Johnson’s answer was consistent with the same Air Force guidance that has been around for years, though she cited AFI 1-1 specifically [emphasis added]:
[Johnson:] Because we’re a college, we need to have open discourse, but we have to balance that with providing a successful climate. So what we have going in, it’s really kicked in well, is this religious respect training, not just for cadets but for permanent party. That’s really important, for permanent party to know the balance there. People are free to have their beliefs but not proselytize or impose them on someone else.
And we have the training to help Read more
In an article on the recent changes in DoD policy regarding religious accommodation, USA Today made this observation:
The wide variety of worship or lack thereof is reflected in the ranks of the 1.3 million active-duty force. Troops aren’t compelled to report but many do. The most popular affiliations: Christian, no denomination chosen, 346,752; no religious preference, 277,563; Roman Catholic, 262,248.
Elsewhere in the ranks, there are 301 Quakers and 1,561 troops who practice witchcraft. But you won’t an agnostic in the Army. There are 3,126 atheists but not one agnostic.
To be fair, the same demographics note there are more than 6,000 agnostics in the other three services. Apparently everyone in the Army is certain — one way or the other.
Repeated at the Air Force Times.
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When you see a story about thousands of high schoolers on YouTube after their performance in a local hotel, it doesn’t sound like it will end well.
This time it ended perfectly.
Michelle Johnson filmed a few minutes of the Read more