{"id":16299,"date":"2012-02-20T01:09:45","date_gmt":"2012-02-20T04:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=16299"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:14:07","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:14:07","slug":"ltgen-ronnie-hawkins-berated-for-god-in-commanders-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/20\/ltgen-ronnie-hawkins-berated-for-god-in-commanders-call\/","title":{"rendered":"LtGen Ronnie Hawkins Berated for God in Commander’s Call"},"content":{"rendered":"

US Air Force LtGen Ronnie Hawkins is the new head of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).\u00a0 He\u00a0is reportedly getting grief over a commander’s call in which he listed the personal “rules” he has lived by since he was a Captain — and they included references to God<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hawkins, who just took over the directorship of DISA in January, said his presentation has been taken out of context…He stated at the all-hands meeting that \u201cRonnie\u2019s Rules\u201d were his personal road map for living and he has used it since he was a captain. He said he tries to live by these rules every day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The context of the briefing LtGen Hawkins cites is important (as context always is<\/a>).\u00a0 By themselves, the slides have the potential to be confusing, if not misperceived.\u00a0 For example, some of the “rules” use the second person “you” and may seem imperative in nature.\u00a0 On the other hand, the slides are titled “Ronnie’s Rules,” which is hardly what you’d expect to see from a three-star General’s directive.\u00a0 Said the General:<\/p>\n

\u201cThose two slides, in particular …were in no way a directive or expectation I have for our dedicated men and women,\u201d said Hawkins…\u201cThe rules are my own personal guide posts, or moral compass.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That seems entirely reasonable.\u00a0 It is not unreasonable that commanders share their personal leadership or life philosophies with their subordinates.\u00a0 In this case, in particular, it was an expanded version of ‘biographical information,’ or giving the members of DISA the chance to find out ‘who the commander is.’<\/p>\n

The response, however, has been farcical:<\/p>\n

The employee said that he provided the presentation to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group, \u201cin hopes of saving lives.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The anonymous employee degrades into “the Arabs will hate us” excuse for criticizing public mentions of God in America:<\/p>\n

The employee said what might seem like an ordinary presentation to Air Force employees can be easily obtained and used as propaganda in other countries \u2014 something he said a commander should know. People in Arab nations for example, might see Hawkins\u2019 comments as a show of support toward one religion by the U.S. government, he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is classic Michael Weinstein, who holds the position that the ability of Americans to exercise their liberties should be determined by those who are offended <\/em>by those liberties<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For his part, Weinstein doesn’t disappoint:<\/p>\n

MRFF\u2019s founder and president, Mikey Weinstein, is calling for Hawkins to be court-martialed for violating his oath to the Constitution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nothing in LtGen Hawkins slides violates his oath to “support and defend the Constitution,” nor does anything rise to the level of court-martial even if it was to be prejudicial.\u00a0 But Weinstein gets quoted in the press sounding melodramatic, which is all that matters to him.<\/p>\n

It seems Michael Weinstein has succeeded in marketing a hypersensitivity to religious references in the US military, to the detriment of religious freedom.\u00a0 As another commentary pointed out<\/a>, the environment of religious freedom in the United States, and within the military, has come a long way since General Dwight D. Eisenhower said<\/a>\u00a0prior to the D-Day invasion:<\/p>\n

let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that wasn’t even a qualified <\/em>imperative to pray to “Almighty God.”\u00a0 Shocking how far the culture has fallen in 60 years.<\/p>\n

What remains to be seen is whether the US military treats Weinstein’s hyperbolic vitriol in the manner it deserves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Air Force LtGen Ronnie Hawkins is the new head of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).\u00a0 He\u00a0is reportedly getting grief over a commander’s call in which he listed the personal “rules” he has lived by since he was a Captain — and they included references to God: Hawkins, who just took over the directorship of DISA in January, said […]<\/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":[134,96,82,2915,85,2,5218,7,17,10,171,2916,2917],"class_list":["post-16299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-air-force","tag-christian","tag-constitution","tag-disa","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-ronnie-hawkins","tag-ronnies-rules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16299","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=16299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}