Tag Archives: lance sijan

Christian Fighter Pilot Tells Troops about Need for Faith

Guy Gruters recently spoke at a gathering at the Navy Medicine Operational Training Center at Pensacola, Florida. The first words of the official Navy article on the event are fascinating:

Guy Gruters is a religious man. You would be, too, if you’d been in his shoes.

Then-Lt Gruters was an Air Force F-100 pilot in Vietnam who, after his second shootdown, was captured and spent nearly six years as a POW. One of his cellmates was Lance Sijan, and Read more

Air Force Publishes Profane Euphemism But Doesn’t Know It

There’s a long fighter pilot tradition of “names” and “namings,” in which fighter pilots have a callsign bestowed upon them that will likely follow them for the remainder of their careers. As noted in the longer discussions on the tradition, callsigns are sometimes the result of a notable action, a physical trait, or a play on the pilot’s name.

For example, the current Chief of Staff of the Air Force is Gen David “Fingers” Goldfein, playing off his name and the James Bond reference.

Luke Air Force Base recently issued a press release about an award recognition that Read more

“Anti-Religion Hysteria” as VA Removes Bible From POW Table. Again.

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein recently declared “victory” after a second Veterans Administration facility altered the traditional POW/MIA remembrance table in response to his complaints.

An MRFF representative, retired US Army Capt Jordan Ray, had filed the complaint about the facility more than an hour and a half away from him — so far out of his way, in fact, that he asked the VA to take the time to photograph the “new” display so he didn’t have to drive down to do it himself, giving the MRFF a fundraising prop for free.

Writing at FoxNews.com, Mike Berry of First Liberty Institute decried Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s attempts to overturn the tables of POW/MIA remembrance memorials around the country:

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, founder and president of the deceptively-named Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), demanded an Akron, Ohio VA clinic remove the Bible from its POW/MIA remembrance table. This isn’t the first time the MRFF has targeted a symbol of faith for our nation’s POWs and MIAs. In 2014, it attacked remembrance tables in the Air Force and Navy.

It goes without saying that Weinstein has an issue with the Bible. Besides his Read more

Vietnam War POW Shares Need for Faith of the American Airman

Retired Air Force Capt Guy Gruters, who was a POW in Vietnam for 5 years, recently told his story to the 128th Air Refueling Wing in Wisconsin.

For a time, Gruters’ cell mate was Air Force Capt Lance P. Sijan.

Gruters told the audience, which also included…Janine Sijan Rozina, Sijan’s sister, that he and Sijan were in the same squadron at the U.S. Air Force Academy for three years. Sijan, a Milwaukee native, was solid as a rock at 210 pounds and had played football for the Academy.

“To see him hurt so bad was really difficult,” Gruters said. “They would torture him, and we would scream in our cells to get them to lay off him and they’d come beat us.”

Capt Gruters clearly conveys the faith that Read more