Tag Archives: james mattis

Chaplains Group: Make the Military Great Again

Update: Now covered at the Stars and Stripes.

The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty is calling on the new Acting Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Robert Speer, to reverse a last minute policy by outgoing Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning directing the Army to conduct “training on implicit or unconscious bias”:

“The military exists to protect our nation, not to be used as a laboratory for social engineering — and especially not from an outgoing official’s 11th hour order,” said Chaplain (COL) Ron Crews, USA (Retired)…“This directive does nothing to increase military readiness but wastes valuable training time just to promote a political agenda.”

The letter (PDF) notes that “implicit or unconscious bias” isn’t Read more

Todd Starnes: Lackland Air Force Base’s Politically Correct Agenda

by Sonny Hernandez

Todd Starnes reported a controversial story about an email that was sent by a senior Air Force leader to an untold number of personnel at Lackland Air Force Base, which should cause observers to wonder if it is a politically correct agenda that shows partiality toward those who care more about sensitivity than service.

Starnes alleges an incensed Airman sent him a copy of an email which did not address integrity, service before self, or excellence — instead, the email addressed issues that could be construed as offensive to others. It would be expected for the military to ensure compliance that sexual harassment, slander, and moral turpitude would not be tolerated. It is ironic that the email did not address any of the aforementioned compliances. Instead, the Air Force advised the Airmen to study a list of words, which should cause observers to be vexed:  Read more

US Navy Chaplain Brings Islam to Africa

People tend to connect more through their faith than anything else.
– Chaplain Abuhena Saifulislam

US Navy Chaplain (Cmdr) Abuhena Saifulislam, stationed in Ramstein Air Base, Germany, as the USAFRICOM deputy command chaplain, recently spent a week in Djibouti

with members of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa Religious and Civil Affairs, they met with the deputy director of Islamic affairs for Djibouti, the Sultan of Tadjoura and representatives of the Red Crescent Society of Djibouti among others.

Besides meeting with local leaders, Saifulislam participated in religious Read more

Mikey Weinstein Pummeled After Prayer Breakfast Complaint

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein filed a complaint with the Inspector General at Maxwell Air Force Base because the 42d Air Base wing commander, Col Erik Shafa, sent out an invitation to the National Prayer Breakfast. As reported by the Air Force Times:

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, filed a third-party complaint…claiming the invite constituted a clear violation of Air Force Instruction 1-1, Section 2.12, Balance of Free Exercise of Religion and Establishment Clause.

Fortunately, Mikey Weinstein has been almost universally panned for the outlandish accusation.

As noted before, Weinstein assumes US troops are either cowards or sycophants — he thinks they either lack the intestinal fortitude to decline such an invitation, or they will attend solely to ingratiate themselves with their leadership.

Put another way, Tony Carr at John Q. Public wrote (in a cleverly titled “Why Weinstein is Right About Prayer Breakfast Invitation“) [emphasis added]:  Read more

SecDef Nominee Gen James Mattis Reassures and Worries LGBT Advocates

Retired US Marine General James Mattis sat through hearings with the US Senate yesterday on the path to his confirmation as Secretary of Defense. Gen Mattis is hailed as a no-nonsense, non-political straight-talker, yet his answers to the Senate Armed Services Committee managed to create opposite reactions from allies in the homosexual movement.

Josh Israel at the left-leaning ThinkProgress declared “Defense nominee Mattis won’t say if women and LGBT people should be able to serve,” while the infamous Ashley Read more

Military Atheists, Sexual Activists Torn over Mattis as SecDef

Military and veteran atheists, transgenders, and homosexuals are in conflict over President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to nominate retired Gen James Mattis for Secretary of Defense.

Military atheists have been generally supportive of Gen Mattis, noting he was wildly popular as a leader and, speaking to their primary concern, never gave them reason to worry over issues of religion.  (As an example of the conduct that helped his subordinates respect him, consider how he reacted when his pilots landed at the wrong airport.)

This has put some atheists at odds with their sometimes allies in the LGBT movement, who see Mattis as a potential means for Trump to undo their “progress” over the past few years — though they can’t directly connect it to a religious issue over which to complain.

That said, Don Branum, a former US Air Force Academy Public Affairs staffer who has implied he was improperly treated for speaking his views against Christians, still managed to claim Mattis is  Read more

C-17 Landing at Wrong Airport Blamed on Fatigue

Update: The Stars and Stripes reports on the corrective actions put in place to prevent future aircraft from misidentifying the runways.

The Tampa Tribune obtained the report of last July’s “unscheduled landing” of a C-17 at Peter O. Knight airport in Florida — when it was supposed to land at MacDill Air Force Base a few miles away.

The crew of a military cargo jet landed at the wrong airport in Tampa in July, in part, because of fatigue, complacency and a lack of flight discipline, an Air Force investigation has found.

Fortunately, the crew realized their error and were able to Read more

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