{"id":10511,"date":"2011-04-01T02:00:15","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T07:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=10511"},"modified":"2011-03-28T00:14:43","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T05:14:43","slug":"sikh-soldier-endures-us-army-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/01\/sikh-soldier-endures-us-army-training\/","title":{"rendered":"Sikh Soldier Endures US Army Training"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A local paper notes the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ksat.com\/news\/27314626\/detail.html\">training of SPC Simram Lamba<\/a>, the first <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/16\/first-enlisted-sikh-graduates-army-boot-camp\/\">observant Sikh to serve as an enlisted line Soldier<\/a> in decades.\u00a0 For his part, Lamba seems to find it a non-event:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Lamba&#8230;said the most frequently asked question by his fellow soldiers is about his unshorn hair and beard.<\/p>\n<p>Lamba said both are considered Sikh articles of faith. He called them a &#8220;natural gift from God, and we&#8217;re not going to destroy it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lamba added the soldiers at his side treat him like any <!--more-->other soldier. &#8220;Anything happens, they&#8217;ll take care of me. Anything happens to them, I&#8217;ll take care of them,&#8221; Lamba said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Similar to <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/30\/women-in-the-military-statistics-and-the-first-female-jfacc\/\">conversations about race, gender<\/a>, etc, Lamba said he was inspired by the two Sikhs who became Army officers:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Lamba said his inspirations were two Sikh officers, a dentist and a surgeon, who preceded him at Fort Sam Houston.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He now hopes to be inspiration for others.\u00a0 Currently, the US Army still permits exceptions to dress policies (ie, hair and beard required for observant Sikhs) on a <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/01\/article-military-quietly-opens-to-sikhs\/\">case-by-case basis<\/a>, though one Senator has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/news\/article\/2011\/03\/16\/3086444\/gillibrand-presses-army-on-beard-policy\">asked the US military to reconsider its policy<\/a> in light of <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/20\/rabbi-sues-army-over-beard\/\">Orthodox Jewish Chaplains who cannot join<\/a> because of their religious dress requirements (beard).<\/p>\n<p class=\"smallfont\">Via the <a href=\"http:\/\/armychaplaincy.com\/2011\/03\/26\/sikh-soldier-training-in-sa\/\">Army Chaplaincy blog<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/armychaplaincy.com\/2011\/03\/16\/gillibrand-presses-army-on-beard-policy\/\">revisited<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A local paper notes the training of SPC Simram Lamba, the first observant Sikh to serve as an enlisted line Soldier in decades.\u00a0 For his part, Lamba seems to find it a non-event: Lamba&#8230;said the most frequently asked question by his fellow soldiers is about his unshorn hair and beard. Lamba said both are considered Sikh articles of faith. He [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[88,1640,2,17,10,171,59,965],"class_list":["post-10511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-army","tag-fort-sam-houston","tag-military","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-sikh","tag-simran-preet-singh-lamba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}