The military and religion do not mix, nor should they. When a religious man has power over another, and therefore has the ability to force his views, the intent of the Founding Fathers is betrayed. Any who advocate for military preaching are betraying our nation's Founding Fathers. Of course, that goes both ways.

When I was a young lieutenant, I was leading a rifle platoon in the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii. I was just 23 years old at this point and had been an officer for all of 11 months. I had been trained by non-commissioned officers (NCOs) to believe that I should always follow the lead of the platoon sergeant in almost all circumstances. But there was one wise NCO who took me aside days before my commission and said, "I know you, you got this. You listen to your sergeants and you like them. But I got one more thing to tell you: If you get a bad one, stomp down, hard, and do not look back."

So it was that in the early summer of 1990 I walked into my platoon command post and found two privates at the position of parade rest in front of the platoon sergeant, who was seated behind his desk. He was lecturing them on the impossibility of the Bible and the stupidity of Christianity. My Platoon Sergeant was an atheist, the two privates were named Jesus and Diageo — you can guess their ethnic and religious background.

I dismissed the privates and closed the door. Then I did what I was taught.

"Sergeant, you now have an option. You can walk out of this door and go out across the division and find yourself a new job, because I know you are close to retirement and you only need a few more months. But that job cannot involve you being in charge of anybody, and all that will happen is that I will tell the truth on your report. Or, you can try to fight me on this, and you will be brought before a courts-martial for about 10 different charges that I can think of and probably a few dozen more that I don't even know but the lawyers do. You have 30 seconds to decide, but either way, you will walk out that door and one minute from now you will never set foot in this section of the barracks again. Is that clear?"

I did this because there was one other thing that the NCOs who created me taught me: Religion and the military do not mix.

And now we are witnessing a sickening trend. Whereas I once put a stop to an atheist effectively proselytizing a few decades ago, now there are religious groups actively seeking to "convert" people in the US military, and they are making a full-court press. Especially in the US Air Force.

Enter the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, created by Mikey Weinstein, an honor graduate of the US Air Force Academy himself and former White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, who when he learned that his two Jewish cadet sons were facing unspeakable anti-Semitism, including being called "fking Jew" and being told that they were ultimately complicit in and responsible for the execution of Jesus Christ, decided something needed to be done about that.

Since then Mikey and his foundation have helped a huge number of servicemen who have experienced religious discrimination of one sort or another within the US military, a branch of the US government. Typical of the hate mail Mikey gets (did I mention he is a veteran, the son of a veteran, the father of two veterans, and father-in-law to two more?) is this screed from a religious person who claims to believe in the Prince of Peace, Tell me, does this look like a message Jesus, a Jewish man, would approve of?

Subject: The Number One Enemy of the United States of America Mr. Mikey Weinstein you are the Number One Enemy of America. You don't deserve American citizenship. You deserve no safety nor sanctuary. You should be hunted down like an animal with rabies. You are our country's foremost enemy. Along with your Jesus-hating organization MRFF. You take no Christian prisoners Mr. Weinstein? Why should you receive any mercy? It makes sense that you have other American traitors as fellow travelers of deceit. Joseph Wilson is such a traitor. Mike Farrell is also such a traitor. Lawrence Wilkerson is a snake who betrays even his own Republicans. Edward Asner is a red godless communist like you are. But you are the slimebag responsible for it all. Your evil grows substantial. The father of lies is your benefactor. Lucifer leads you in your rebellion against Christ in our military. All of us with a clean heart and soul for the Son of Man see this. His Grace reveals your treachery. We pray to the Son that your days be few and your suffering be unbearable. That you live only so long as to see your children and wife despoiled. Ravaged and ruined before your eyes. We pray to Him that your tears be unending. Let your tears be of acid so as to burn your jew face of darkness threw to the bone."

Well done nice Christian. Want to see more loving Christians wishing this Jewish man and his family "Happy Holocaust Day" and the like? It is all right here. Is there any wonder why the Founding Fathers said, "no" to religion? And now we have this. No, politicians are now arguing that military leaders, with the power of life and death in their hands, should be able to tell subordinates about their religion. Even the Chief of Staff of the Air Force has problems with this.

"Welsh's irritation underscored the pressure the Air Force is under from Republicans in Congress, evangelical Christians and conservative advocacy groups to end what they allege is the service's suppression of religious freedom. Their charge isn't new, but the target is: a regulation designed to prevent religious bias by barring commanders and other leaders from "the actual or apparent use of their positions to promote their religious convictions to their subordinates."

Now Mikey and his non-profit charitable foundation need help. They have had successes, actually quite a lot of them, helping more than 10,000 Servicemen of all denominations. They are constantly being called upon to go to bat for those who cannot. These are the people who know the military well, and understand what "command influence" really means in the military, but now they are scraping the barrel. See what they have done in the past. I only suggest that you go to their site and give your support.

Me? I was raised Catholic but more recently have followed, alternately, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the faith of Dudeism. I alternate, and neither group seems to mind, funny enough. I do not care what religion, or lack of a religion, any soldier, sailor, airman or marine follows. But what I do care about is my nation, and our military, and making sure that nobody who has the power of giving orders that may involve life and death, is issuing those orders based upon the religion of those who must follow the orders.

Religion and military service should be mutually exclusive.

The opinions here are not those of the Pope, the Dali Lama, or any religious leader, nor those of the DoD, the Army, or any unit the author is affiliated with. I can be reached at R_Bateman_LTC@hotmail.com and any e-mails sent to that address constitute agreement to publish and pass to me the copyright on the e-mail.

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