Story highlights Pentagon officials are adamant there is no policy that prohibits members of the military from receiving religious items

Defense Department policies prohibit proselytizing at military installations

Washington (CNN) When President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting religious liberty on Thursday, he singled out the US military for preventing troops from receiving religious items.

"People were forbidden from giving or receiving religious items at a military hospital where our brave service members were being treated, and when they wanted those religious items," Trump said at the signing ceremony. "These were great, great people. These are great soldiers. They wanted those items. They were precluded from getting them."

It was a comment that raised eyebrows at the Pentagon.

Pentagon officials are adamant there is no policy that prohibits members of the military from receiving religious items at military installations.

Military hospitals are considered the same as a military base, so security and patient privacy concerns require that any donation of any outside items by non-military groups be reviewed and distributed with chaplains overseeing religious matters. And no outside group can enter a hospital or a patients room without permission, according to defense officials.

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