\u201cI talked with my unit about my idea, and they fully supported me,\u201d said Hirt…<\/p>\n
“When we found out about Spc. Hirt taking the initiative to do this project, we wanted to ensure that he knew he had our full support,” said Capt. Todd Tompkins… “We worked toward providing additional supplies and arranged a humanitarian aid drop so it would be a complete effort to show we are here to make life better for the people of Afghanistan.”<\/p>\n
\u201c[The unit] bought prayer rugs and religious posters from the Sharana Bazaar to donate to the local mosque in a village west of the city of Sharana,\u201d said Hirt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Hirt also took time to pray with the locals, which had a unique impression on village elders:<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no idea that U.S. Forces had Muslims in it,\u201d said the local village elder who prayed with Hirt. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to know that we share the same beliefs as some of the soldiers who are here trying to help us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Contrary to some assertions, there are times when religion is not only helpful but is also crucial to the military mission.\u00a0 Religious freedom, too, is protected in the military, as evidenced by the military’s support not only of Hirt’s individual religious exercise, but also his practice with local Afghans of like faith.<\/p>\n
Photo caption: U.S. Army Spc. Stephen Hirt…[a] member of the Islamic faith, prays with Afghans at a village mosque west of Forward Operating Base Sharana, Paktika Province, Afghanistan…during a humanitarian aid mission to deliver school and religious supplies donated in part by his mosque in California. (Photo by Spc. Christina Sinders)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US Army SPC Stephen Hirt helped “bridge[] the gap between US and Afghanistan Muslims” during his recent combat tour. After his deployment to Afghanistan in 2008 and 2009, Hirt decided to unite his mosque, the Islamic Institute of Orange County – al Farouk, in Anaheim, Calif., with the Muslim people of Afghanistan during his deployment… Hirt’s unit was not only […]<\/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":[58,88,44,2,17,10,171,1641,1642],"class_list":["post-10514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-afghanistan","tag-army","tag-islam","tag-military","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-stephen-hirt","tag-todd-tompkins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10514","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=10514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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