A Navy article describes how retired Chaplain (Rear Adm) Harold Robinson, now of the Jewish Welfare Board’s Jewish Chaplains Council, personally presented the USS George Washington with a new, handmade Torah for its Jewish community: Read more
In her address to the 2015 USAFA graduating class, Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James called on the new Second Lieutenants to
have the moral courage to stand up for what is right.
It is a worthy, if nearly clichéd, reminder to graduates. It is curious, though, if some parts of American society or American government can remember what “right” — or moral courage — even is.
Notably, every news article covering the 23-minute speech by Secretary James (including the official ones) noted one specific phrase, in context and in bold below: Read more
Skip Ash of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) penned an article last week taking Michael “Mikey” Weinstein to task for Weinstein’s demand that the Air Force court-martial Major General Craig Olson. In the piece entitled “The Radical Assault on Faith in the Military Must be Stopped,” Ash called Weinstein’s allegations “outlandishly wrong” and “hogwash!” (This comes after Weinstein’s friend, Chaplain Ron Crews of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, described (PDF) Weinstein’s attack as “hysterics” from an “activist[] with an axe to grind against religion.”)
The ACLJ also revealed that they wrote their own letter (PDF) to Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh with a remarkably clear and simple explanation of the error of Weinstein’s ways (Crews wrote a similar one (PDF)). Referring to Weinstein’s imploring of General Welsh to “take a good, hard look” at the video of General Olson’s speech, the ACLJ said [italics original, emphasis added]: Read more
Update: Franklin Graham weighs in here.
Court-martialed Marine Monifa Sterling has enlisted the Liberty Institute to help her appeal her conviction, which included a controversy over Bible quotes she had placed on her desk. Sterling was convicted
of failing to go to an appointed place of duty, disrespecting a superior commissioned officer and four specifications of disobeying a lawful order. She was sentenced last year to a reduction in rank from lance corporal to private and given a bad-conduct discharge, a status that will stay on her military record and prohibits her from receiving benefits as a veteran…
Sterling was found guilty Read more
The US Army has reportedly changed a policy that will make it easier for Sikhs to obtain religious accommodation. An Army message entitled USAREC Message 15-032 Update, Religious Accommodation Exceptions to Policy, was released last month but does not appear to be publicly available. It reportedly allows applying US Soldiers to adhere to their faith tenets while their request for accommodation is being granted. The previous policy — and the policy that still exists in the other services — is that troops requesting accommodation were required to first adhere to general policies, only deviating from them after they were granted accommodation.
The change has been reported Read more
A Navy public affairs article talks about the services of the (New York) Times Square Church hosting services for 2,000 during fleet week — including US service members in town for the event: Read more
The Air Force Times reports that the US Air Force has “rebuffed” the demand by Michael “Mikey” Weinstein to court-martial Major General Craig Olson, who spoke at the National Day of Prayer earlier this month:
The Air Force has decided that Olson did not break Air Force Instruction 1-1 by speaking at the “congressionally-supported event,” said service spokesman Lt. Col. Pete Hughes.
“His remarks were his own personal opinions and do not represent the views of the United States Air Force,” Hughes said in an email Thursday to Air Force Times.
The article quotes both Weinstein and his assistant Chris Rodda as Read more
Update: Franklin Graham came out in General Olson’s defense, while Weinstein doubled down, saying
Olson was “not simply a harmless howdy-doody/’Stepford Wife/Ned Flanders type of character delivering homilies and platitudes to his assembled flock of like-minded fools.” He was, instead, part of a “Christian triumphalist” plan to subdue America, Weinstein wrote.
Michael “Mikey” Weinstein published a press release last week calling for the court-martial of Major General Craig Olson, who was the representative for the US military at the National Day of Prayer on May 7th.
You can watch the video of General Olson’s 20 minute talk at the National Day of Prayer courtesy of the MRFF, which recorded the broadcast and uploaded it here. In it, General Olson says:
I’ve been with fellow redeemed Christians who happen to be educators, who happen to be businessmen, who happen to be medical professionals, who happen to be public officers. I’m just a Christian who happens to be in the Air Force. So we all have things we do but we’re believers, when we love Christ and we love this nation. That’s the point of America. We get to be out and about in America as believers in the various places God appoints us.
Gen Olson spoke repeatedly of having experiences that reminded him of his reliance upon God. He spoke of the need for prayer for our military.