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MRFF Please Help Us! Prejudice and Bigotry at USAFA

Published On: June 24, 2011|Categories: MRFF's Inbox|1 Comment|

Mr. Weinstein and MRFF,

My wife, our baby daughter and I need the help of you and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation badly! As an enlisted member of the United Staes Air Force Academy, you always feel as if you are under someone’s radar. Since being stationed at USAFA I have learned about the force structure we are expected to follow, the volunteer duties that you are told to go to and how they are committed to excellence for our USAFA cadets. I worked diligently to earn my status as a good USAF airman and prove my worth both inside and outside our work area. My first supervisor was constantly talking about going to church, inviting us to pray with them and always offering to give rides to HER fundamentalist Christian church. This supervisor was disliked by many because of her lack of professionalism and failure to handle most duties assigned to her. Many chose to ignore her just to avoid uncomfortable talks about Jesus and religion. Since she was my official USAF supervisor, everytime there was a conflict between me and someone else, (normally because I would ask for proof when they would comment on things or say things were being done wrong) I would end up hearing about how I needed to go to church because it would really help. I was also told that if I ever married, I would need to remember about faith because it’s what keeps a family together.

Of course, I was immediately briefed on using the chaplain services to help handle stress, both at home and at work. The few chaplains I have encountered were normally upbeat but openly admitting being depressed and feeling like they couldn’t do their job properly. I made a choice to stop seeing the chaplains once I felt they could not meet my needs and seemed far too busy with planning the many, many large social Christian-based functions that the base commander/USAFA Superintendent organized.

I was brought up as a Protestant but not a diehard church attendee who spends all his free time helping the church. I learned this was a fatal mistake in my USAFA career. I began volunteering through multiple programs to ensure my performance ratings would be high but also to ensure I was giving back to my community. They announced that younger airman would be put in for awards all year long, provided we stayed out of trouble and represented the USAFA properly. I failed to earn Amn of the Qtr, Amn Year, earning my volunteer service medals and earning SrA BTZ when I was put up for them. When I asked why a specific airman had won, when I had literally three times the volunteer hours and workplace decorations for my duties, I was told it was because he volunteered at Church (the “right kind of church”) and they favor church-based volunteering more than anything else because faith is extremely important in the military. I later won Amn of the Year and top (AFSC withheld) for our group at a different time. I had begun questioning my leadership’s intentions and qualities when I suddenly began receiving LOR/LOC’s from my chain of command. There were people who had DUIs and multiple DUI’s that were being swept under the rug but I was receiving counseling for every little thing they could think of. The stress, anger and depression began setting in for me when I realized I was not going to be able to survive here at USAFA unless I started acting like they wanted; ie. being “the right kind of Christian”. I began talking about attending a church, off-base, and learned a few passes from the bible that I would use when they questioned my faith and if I was truly seeking help. Throughout this time I worked with a handful of USAFA cadets who admitted they simply tried their best to ignore religion and constant religious proselytizing at the Academy, despite their personal beliefs, because they did not want any trouble and did not want to be scrutinized over their choices. My hopes sank even deeper.

Despite my career being threatened, I managed to find the love of my life. I married my wife and instantly had come under fire from my chain of command. I was told I was supposed to get permission before marrying anyone. My wife met my chain of command and never told anyone she was brought up as a dedicated Southern Baptist. She had spent her time in advanced classes for school to become a leader of her faith but chose to pursue being a house wife and raising a family. There is no doubt my wife knows more about the bible and every other religion than most chaplains or other religious members. Within a few weeks she had become disgusted with my bosse’s treatment of us and the USAFA religious programs “study groups” that were populated with close minded, fundamentalist Christian believers that would rather verbally degrade you than have an honest debate about religious point of views. My wife felt so unsafe about the treatment of our family that she spent most of her time at home, avoiding anyone on the base. Worse off, she spent the majority of her pregnancy away from me because she felt unsafe dealing with anyone on base anymore. The stress continued to build. We began to fight more often and were both miserable. I tried my best to keep my work drama at work, but it poured into my home life and tainted everything that I cared about. I felt I could not lead a good role in my work, that I failed at every task assigned to me and now, my own family values seemed to be falling apart.

My wife became pregnant, which was a miracle and unexpected. Once my bosses found out that she had moved away to get medical care from her local doctors back home, they began telling me that I has made a bad choice by creating a child with my wife since I was not thinking about what the Air Force needed. I mentioned I had adopted a fake, “pretend” religion (fundamentalist Christianity) to help take pressure off my family and even went online and became an ordained minister, despite its weak credits, to try and make the pain of religious hatred stop. I barely slept, had medical problems hampering my every move and always I had people telling me that I had to pray more, attend a different, more fundamentalist Christian church and focus on finding my balance and support.

I finally received a new boss, after a long battle of write-ups and being reprimanded. He promised to be different and help everyone succeed. He said family was the most important thing and that he “prayed for every person in our unit”. That statement was the first sign of the terrible problems to come.He explained he was a strong “faith based preacher’s son” and he prayed for everyone no matter what. He pulled us all into a meeting and spoke for over 2 hours about religion, praying for support, attending services and his devotion. He, of course, always tried to say he was not pushing religion on anyone. Within 3 days, ALL of the females in the clinic felt uncomfortable around him. At one point, one of the new troops started crying because she felt he was pushing his fundamentalist Christian faith on her and made her feel uncomfortable.

I met with him and bluntly told home the problems and how it caused the staff to act. He was shocked and said he would work on it. He spends less time in big meetings but now does more one on one meeting’s and always mentions praying and the Lord Jesus Christ. He told me he would protect me, my family and help remove the LOC/LOR in my files that he felt were improper to help regain some of the credit I was due. I thanked him and left before getting into another talk about his fundamentalist Christian religion. Later, I did ask him, if it was proper for a phone call to end with a military member saying “Have a blessed day”. I have heard this pop up over the base and I was told, “It is their religious right to be able to say it. If it offends you then please forward this up your chain of command for evaluation but in the past it has not caused problems”. Given that answer, I gave up trying to address any of these items. Why? Because, trying to use the “chain of command”, the IG or the MEO at USAFA only targets you for more abuse. It is as useful a shooting yourself in the head when it comes to complaints about terrible and intolerable religious pressure and proselytizing from your USAF supervisors. Everyone who is religiously oppressed here at USAFA, and there are MANY OF US, knows that and that is why there are never any complaints “officially” filed here at USAFA when it comes to religious disrespect and intolerance by anyone. That is why noone would go talk with the retired General (Gamble) or his group of “religious climate assessors”. That is why we all turn to you, Mr. Weinstein, and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. There is no place else to go.

Shortly thereafter, I had a serious medical injury and was bedridden awaiting surgery. My wife became upset that my boss was not taking the time to come to our home as promised for the “proper documents” to be filled out. He finally arrived after my wife began yelling at him and while they talked in a separate room. He asked about my past and my wife told him very little since she does not trust him. Then it happened. He told me wife that “His (meaning “mine”) injuries and medical problems seem to have no end. It’s sad but it seems like the Lord is punishing him (me) for leading a bad life of some sort”. My wife was absolutely SHOCKED!. She was speechless and appalled but kept her calm and listened to him talk about proper prayer and faith for over an hour. As always, he told my wife he was praying for her, my daughter and me. My wife decided she had listened to enough and asked him to leave our home.

Another staff member has been working here for over 12 years and said EVERY religious right she has ever had, has been denied or abused. She had originally been like me and tried to fight the system but ended up being demoted and denied jobs because the very people she fought over unwanted fundamentalist Christian religious issues called potential employers and told them “they had problems with her”. She now gets paid less than some summer new hire students, and she has been here over 12 years. She makes it clear that it all started when she wanted her USAFA bosses to respect her personal religious beliefs and fought the management when they would not stop the endless hurtful proselytizing.

I have been at the Academy for long enough to watch scores of people come and go. Despite the new blood, new ideas and promises made; the USAF Academy has proven that there is indeed terrible intolerance for any other religion except the “approved USAFA religion” of fundamentalist Christianity. Whether they understand the implications or the true lasting effects, it has become a staple here at USAFA to hear the upper chain of command say “it’s always been done this way”. My family life has suffered to the point I almost lost my wife permanently since she could not cope with the stress. My career has been destroyed from multiple issues I could not fight and it never seems to gain any recourse. Every friend that is stationed at another installation has never had these same types of problems and the few that moved to other bases even said they have no problems now. Some of them were even considered bad airman while here and now, are earning awards and accommodations everyday at their new base. MRFF has made a difference at these other bases I’m sure.

I am terrified for our new airman, the families stationed here and how many lives have been damaged or ruined from this structure and environment of poisonous religious intolerance and abuse towards anyone who is not a fundamentalist Christian. I wanted my daughter to go to the USAF Academy when she gets older but have been sadly reluctant to push this issue since I don’t want her to endure this personal nightmare of prejudice and bigotry for not being of the “right USAFA religion”. I don’t see how anyone with any other faith could survive at USAFA. Mr. Weinstein, please help us. We don’t know what to do to fight this anymore.

V/R

(USAF Academy Enlisted Member’s name, rank, AFSC and USAF Academy assigned unit withheld)

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One Comment

  1. nospam July 25, 2011 at 9:39 am

    Interesting letter as I was at a BBQ in Colorado Springs where an instructor at the Air Force Academy told me there was no more religious proselytizing at the Academy(he also told me he was a Christian).

    I asked him why I have not heard of religious proselytizing at the other service academies. He answered that they didn’t have Mikey Weinstein to contend with.

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