While saying the move was unrelated to Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s complaint a few weeks ago, the US Army “removed all university preferences from [its] assignment postings.”
In other words, the text “must be of Christian faith” will no longer appear next to Army staff assignments to Wheaton College.
This was previously discussed at length. While Weinstein called it a “HUGE MRFF Victory” [emphasis original], it Read more
Wheaton College — an unabashedly Christian university — has had an ROTC program since a few years after the close of World War II. Wheaton requires its faculty to be of the Christian faith, a requirement also levied upon its ROTC instructor, as the instructor is considered to be a member of the Wheaton faculty (though they are paid by the US military, not the school).
When the position of ROTC instructor was recently advertised among Army officers, the “must be of Christian faith” requirement caught the attention of a Soldier who pointed it out to Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s MRFF. Weinstein was typically unmoved [emphasis added]:
Wheaton and its fundamentalist Christian ROTC unit are to the United States Constitution what a dog with a full bladder Read more
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the US Army on behalf of Sikh Hofstra University student Iknoor Singh, who was denied entry into ROTC because he would not comply with Army grooming standards that conflict with his religious beliefs.
From the filing (PDF):
When Mr. Singh asked for a religious exemption from these rules…, Defendants denied his request, despite approving similar religious and medical accommodations for other uniformed Army personnel in recent years.
Mr. Singh is now left with an untenable choice: Enlist as an ROTC Cadet and abandon the sacred religious practices that he has followed his entire life, or forfeit his dreams of joining ROTC–along with Read more
The University of Arkansas Army Reserve Officer Training Corps is planning a lecture on April 24th specifically on the issue of religious freedom in the US military.
The lecture and discussion will provide a platform for students to learn more about religious freedoms in the military and discuss experiences with other veteran students. The event will give students and future service members the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the lecture topics and the speakers’ life experiences.
The speaker will be Read more
The US Air Force published an interesting story about 2Lt Abraham Morland, whose origins may be a little unique but whose desires about Air Force flying are probably pretty common:
Second Lt. Abraham Morland…held dual citizenship in both the United States and the United Kingdom. He was born to British parents in Tulsa, Okla., where his father worked as a flight simulator technician…
“My real love was America, I wanted to come back home to the states and join the U.S. Air Force,” he said.
As a result, his parents moved back to the United Sates so their son could pursue his dream of becoming an American pilot.
Morland ultimately enlisted and then spent years trying to Read more
A US Navy article recently highlighted the Navy ROTC program at the College of the Holy Cross, a Catholic university in the Jesuit tradition. While the friendly drill and athletic competition was the topic, it was mostly interesting to read the references to the Catholic college’s military program:
“I really enjoyed it,” said Holy Cross Midshipman 4th Class Annie Grimmke…
Given the sometime political sensitivity of associating the US military and religion, its a wonder a certain critic of Christianity in the military hasn’t demanded that Holy Cross either change their name or be stripped of their ROTC program.
The best part, though, is their mascot.
They’re the Holy Cross Crusaders.
The benign, perfectly acceptable, and normal NROTC program at that small school is probably giving that guy an aneurysm right now.
ADVERTISEMENT
Update: The military has said enemy action was not involved in the U-28 crash.
A U-28A — an AFSOC version of the Pilatus PC-12 — went down over the weekend during a mission from Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti (in the horn of Africa, for those unfamiliar). All four aircrew were killed. The least amount of deployments among the crew was 3 (in 5 years).
Of the three officers, one was from ROTC, one from OTS, and one was a 2009 USAFA graduate. That represents all 3 possible commissioning sources in the Air Force in one loss. While there are often good-natured rivalries among OTS, ROTC, and USAFA, risk and sacrifice know no bias.
Captain Ryan Hall…was a U-28A pilot on his seventh deployment. Read more
Students participating in the Army Junior ROTC high school program will now have more options when it comes to religious clothing in uniform. In October, Demin Zawity, a freshman at Ravenwood High School in Brentwood, TN, was told she could not wear her Islamic headscarf while in the Army JROTC uniform. While that policy was consistent with the US Army policy, there was some consternation even by Army officials, some of whom called JROTC a “citizenship” program, not a military program.
Now CAIR, the group that originally accused the Army of discrimination, has said the DoD told them
the Department of Defense will now allow Muslim Read more