{"id":41477,"date":"2017-07-31T00:20:38","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T03:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/?p=41477"},"modified":"2017-07-31T00:50:14","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T03:50:14","slug":"the-holy-helicopters-of-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/31\/the-holy-helicopters-of-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holy Helicopters of Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-41478\" src=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bagramchaplain.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"880\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bagramchaplain.jpg 880w, https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bagramchaplain-300x95.jpg 300w, https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bagramchaplain-768x244.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px\" \/>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.af.mil\/News\/Article-Display\/Article\/1261192\/in-harms-way-providing-spiritual-support\/\">US Air Force article<\/a> highlights the religious ministry support team at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, where chaplains rotate to geographically separated units to provide continuous religious support:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Thousands of feet above Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, two Airmen, riding in a helicopter, wearing more than 75 pounds of gear, hover around the city before landing. These Airmen are not pararescuemen or tactical air control party\u2014they\u2019re a chaplain and chaplain assistant.<\/p>\n<p>After landing, they travel to the nearby chapel, where <!--more-->they deliver a religious service to coalition forces before packing up and doing it all over again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>On one hand, it serves as a reminder of the risks these chaplains and their assistants take &#8212; and they do it all only to support the religious needs of the troops. A few years ago, military atheist Justin Griffith <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/2011\/08\/30\/military-atheists-miss-the-mark-with-chaplain-humor\/\">tried to demean chaplains<\/a> by claiming their didn&#8217;t actually serve in combat &#8212; the chaplains killed in combat, or receiving the Medal of Honor, notwithstanding. Sometimes, people need to be reminded.<\/p>\n<p>It also serves as a reminder that the US military officially supports the religious exercise of its troops. It even dedicates manpower, resources, and helicopters specifically to that purpose &#8212; even in combat, and even in a country that can sometimes be resistant, if not hostile, to the religious faith of US troops.<\/p>\n<p>Military religious freedom certainly isn&#8217;t perfect, but sometimes it gets done right.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A US Air Force article highlights the religious ministry support team at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, where chaplains rotate to geographically separated units to provide continuous religious support: Thousands of feet above Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, two Airmen, riding in a helicopter, wearing more than 75 pounds of gear, hover around the city before landing. These Airmen are not [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[58,134,1763,38,5284,785,1055,3038,2,10,171],"class_list":["post-41477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-afghanistan","tag-air-force","tag-bagram","tag-chapel","tag-chaplain","tag-chaplain-assistant","tag-justin-griffith","tag-kabul","tag-military","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41477","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=41477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}