{"id":2434,"date":"2009-12-04T00:25:55","date_gmt":"2009-12-04T08:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=2434"},"modified":"2011-02-25T23:17:26","modified_gmt":"2011-02-26T04:17:26","slug":"faith-and-profession-at-the-military-academy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/04\/faith-and-profession-at-the-military-academy\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith and Profession at the Military Academy"},"content":{"rendered":"

As noted here at various times, Christians are far from the only ones to struggle with conflicts between their faith and military service, or to organize in order to support one another in it<\/a>.\u00a0 They are also not the only ones who intertwine their spiritual beliefs with their patriotic ones.<\/p>\n

For example, in 2005 a Jewish cadet at the US Military Academy at West Point told how he was \u201cprepped\u201d by an older friend for his time in basic training:<\/p>\n

One of Bergman’s older friends told him to ask for permission to participate in prayer services on Friday nights during Beast.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

“No matter how scared you are during basic training, tell them you want to go to services on Friday nights,” Bergman remembers his friend saying.<\/p>\n

Bergman did and his commanders complied, allowing him and the other Jewish cadets to attend services at the school’s Jewish chapel.\u00a0 The multimillion-dollar edifice at the top of the campus “was a sanctuary during basic training,” Bergman says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jacob Bergman\u2019s experience<\/a> is in line with the military\u2019s intent: a servicemember asks for religious accommodation and, if the mission allows it, receives it.\u00a0 This institutional paradigm works far more often than it does not, though “success” in support of free exercise is rarely a newsworthy event in the US.\u00a0 Such support of a basic cadet is a far cry from those who claim the US military is bent on supporting a single religion.<\/p>\n

Bergman also continued his outward expression of faith in his following service:<\/p>\n

And they’re as connected to God as to country. When Bergman goes out in the field, for example, he makes sure he has his essentials, like his weapon and water. But he also carries a Bible and a camouflage yarmulke.<\/p>\n

“You believe in religion in a foxhole,” he says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bergman shows that the sometimes-criticized phrase that \u201cthere are no atheists in foxholes\u201d is by no means exclusive to a particular faith.<\/p>\n

Bergman, who is likely a\u00a0combat-experienced Captain by now,\u00a0displayed an admirable perseverance in his faith, and is an example to those who feel they may be challenged in their faith when they enter the US military.<\/p>\n

Will there be occasional difficulties?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 But a person of faith who commits to\u00a0live their beliefs even through challenging times in the military will succeed–especially with\u00a0the help of peers, superiors, Chaplains,\u00a0officers, and the local community.\u00a0 The military goes out of its way to make spiritual resources available to servicemembers.\u00a0 All one has to do is take advantage of them.\u00a0 All you have to do is ask.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As noted here at various times, Christians are far from the only ones to struggle with conflicts between their faith and military service, or to organize in order to support one another in it.\u00a0 They are also not the only ones who intertwine their spiritual beliefs with their patriotic ones. For example, in 2005 a Jewish cadet at the US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[20,4,1497,39,2,11,10,101],"class_list":["post-2434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-academies","tag-atheism","tag-churchandstate","tag-jacob-bergman","tag-jewish","tag-military","tag-prayer","tag-religion","tag-west-point"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434","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=2434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}