President Barack Obama will speak at the US Air Force Academy graduation on May 23rd.
The President traditionally speaks on a rotation at each of the service academies. President Obama has previously spoken at the Coast Guard Academy, Annapolis, and West Point, making USAFA his final stop.
The Columbus Dispatch highlights a familiar connection of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers through Ohio State University.
Two of the most-prominent national organizations fighting for religious freedom in the U.S. military have roots at Ohio State University.
Retired [sic] Army Capt. Jason Torpy incorporated the nonprofit Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers while getting a master’s in business administration at Ohio State in 2006.
Air Force Reserve Capt. Casey Weinstein, whose experiences at the Air Force Academy helped lead his father to begin the [MRFF], also has an MBA from Ohio State. His wife, Reserve Capt. Amanda Weinstein, is working toward a doctorate in economics there now.
It’s interesting to see OSU as a common thread, but “prominent” is Read more
Michael Weinstein took a pay cut in 2010, so it looks like he felt the need to write a book to try to make up the difference. He wrote an “op-ed” printed on the Washington Post website, though it was characterized by a fairly solid theme: No new material, except for hawking Weinstein’s book.
It was refreshing, in some respects, to see Weinstein eschew the subtlety of some of his supporters and just come right out and say he and his “religious freedom” group are targeting Christians: Read more
Despite his claims the US military is overrun by Christians trying to take over the world, Michael Weinstein seems to have more public allies in military leadership positions than he has public enemies. In addition, Michael Weinstein seems to have some very well-placed friends in the US military, despite his claims he is a David fighting an institutional Goliath.
Weinstein’s “close personal…relationship” with an Air Force base’s commanding general has already been discussed, as has his unusual access to an Air Force Colonel’s non-releasable records. It turns out Weinstein also counts the recently retired JAG of the Air Force as a cheerleader for his cause.
In fact, Weinstein’s apparently unfettered access to military leadership is so unusual Congress has been asked to investigate it.
The most interesting example of Weinstein’s friends in high places was Read more
Despite his claims the US military is overrun by Christians trying to take over the world, Michael Weinstein seems to have more public allies in military leadership positions than he has public enemies. In addition, Michael Weinstein seems to have some very well-placed friends in the US military, despite his claims he is a David fighting an institutional Goliath.
Weinstein’s “close personal…relationship” with an Air Force base’s commanding general has already been discussed. It turns out Weinstein is also miraculously able to discern the private content of an Air Force Colonel’s non-releasable records. Read more
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
The Air Force Inspector General has determined two US Air Force Academy officials were “negligent” when they made “absolute statements” about the Academy. The IG’s conclusions:
The investigation was the result of a complaint lodged by MRFF-associate R. David Mullin, an Academy instructor who apparently lost his teaching position (apparently due to “performance issues“) around the same time he went public with various criticisms of the Academy. That has led to speculation on both sides — that Mullin has been targeted for mistreatment, and that Mullin is trying to exact revenge Read more
In 2010 some reacted with consternation after reports Christians had been to the circle claimed by pagans at the US Air Force Academy. As noted at the time, they failed to acknowledge the area known as the “LZ” had been used for Christian gatherings of one sort or another for some years before the pagans laid claim to the clearing.
It turns out Rock Beyond Belief — the name of the atheist counter-Christian event being held at Fort Bragg — has a Christian history, as well. The Christian music group Petra, named after the Greek word for “rock,” was one of the pioneering groups in the Christian music genre.
In 1990 they produced an album called Petra: Beyond Belief. As if predicting an association with the military, the album cover was graced by a photograph of an Air National Guard C-130.
The title track, Beyond Belief, is a call to Christians to do more than just “believe.”
Watch the video and see lyrics below the fold.
With credit to Barb for the point out.