RELIGION AND THE MILITARY
I have been
following the story of the young man who just dropped out of West Point six
months prior to graduating, citing intolerable persecution because of his
atheism. And I am in a personal quandary
as to how to react to the situation. As
an atheist, I would like to be able to support a fellow non-believer. I recognize that we atheists are among the
most hated minority groups in our country.
All you have to do is read the hate filled comments coming from those
who claim to belong to a religion that loves their brothers to see the truth of
that. But I am just not sure that I
trust his motives and/or perceptions.
Not having
been there with him, the only thing I have to go by is my own personal
experiences in the military, both on the enlisted and officer sides of the
house. Was I ever forced to attend
religious services? Depends on what you
mean by forced. First, everyone had to
state a religious preference when entering boot camp. At that time, late 60’s, your choices were
catholic, protestant, or Jewish; maybe it was called other. I’m not real sure. And you either went to chapel or you cleaned
the barracks. That could have been
considered a de-facto forcing to attend services. It didn’t bother me. I could sleep in church services and couldn’t
while cleaning the barracks.
In OCS I
just don’t remember the subject of religious services even coming up. I’m sure there were services for those who
wanted to go, but if anyone did they kept their faith private. The rest of my career was pretty much
religion neutral. Sure, there were change
of command ceremonies and such where a chaplain would pray. But I never listened to the chaplain any more
than I listened to the farewell speech from the commander leaving or the
introductory speech from the newly arriving commander. It was all words for the sake of words and
taking my liberty time.
Occasionally,
someone would ask me if I’d like to attend church or otherwise approach me
about religion. If they were polite
about it, I’d politely say no. If they
were what I felt was overly aggressive, I’d tell them I had no intention of
associating with a group of barbarians who advocated human sacrifice and
cannibalism. (The death of a perfect
person-Jesus- on the cross to save the sins of the believers is no different in
my eyes from tossing a perfect person-virgin-over a cliff or into the sea for
the same reasons. And if you believe the
preachers that the wine and wafer of communion actually transmute to the blood
and body of Christ, what else is that but cannibalism?) So this young man’s being called a heathen
doesn’t impress me as being overly abusive.
What I have
seen over the last few decades is actually a more open military,
religiously. The government has paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars to pagans, whose religious freedoms were
trampled for centuries. Now, wiccans and
other pagans can openly worship, and know that their supervisors can be
court-martialed and reduced in rank if they try to persecute them for such
worship. Yes, there are some too dumb to
understand that freedom of worship applies to all, not just them. But they are easy to put in their place. Their careers are the ones at risk, not yours.
Which brings
us to the present case. I could
understand the young man’s dropping out of West Point after the first year or
two if he felt that he was being mistreated.
I can understand a person of strong convictions STAYING IN and still
bringing suit for what he perceived as persecution. But to wait until he is told that his
clinical depression will keep him from receiving a commission (which it
should!), strikes me as being sour grapes.
I am not
proud to call this young man a brother atheist.
He brings shame to the rest of us.
