The so-called “Nazi SS flag” is not that big of a deal.

Dear Military Religious Freedom Foundation,

As a young Jewish man, I can tell you that you and many other people are making a big deal out of nothing.

First, the Nazi “SS” symbol was almost exclusively white on black. This flag is white on blue.

Second, it was quite clearly explained that the sniper team thought that they could use the lightning shaped “SS” symbol to mean “scout sniper”, and they did not intend to offend anyone. Indeed, if such actions warranted public condemnations like the one your organization made (“The fact that United States service personnel were caught proudly posing with the emblem of the Nazi SS, which symbolizes the vile ideology of Hitlerian fascism, sends a menacing signal to religious minorities within the United States Armed Forces,”), you would have to condemn everyone who had a large mustache for offending Russians, who suffered greatly under Stalin’s rule. Was Michael Jordan called a racist when he had a small mustache? I don’t recall any condemnation, but if he received any, he shouldn’t have.

No individual or organization should ever make public statements such as the one yours did without first getting all the information. If a condemnation is warranted, make one. But if people in question, such as these brave Marine snipers, had no intent to harm, such statements are counter-productive and border on a form of hate all their own.

(name withheld)

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Dear (name withheld),

I understand that the historical significance of the SS lightning bolt symbol are not particularly well-known to a lot of people. Innocent ignorance would be understandable if that were the problem. In this particular case, though, the SS bolts are a part of the Marine’s hate group training and is already supposed to be prohibited. The leaders who allowed this can’t hide behind ignorace. There are about a billion ways to write “SS” and only one of them is a symbol of Nazi genocide. They knew exactly what they were flying. The particular flag they have was ordered from a Nazi paraphenalia website. This wasn’t just a few guys making a mistake – it’s been an ongoing leadership failure for a long time.

Dustin Chalker
MRFF Non-Religious Affairs Advisor

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If this is the case, then I agree with you. However, the media release on your own website makes no mention of this. I would think that such an important detail would be made public knowledge in order to force action. If such information was banned from being released, I’m trying to figure out why we are discussing it in an email.

(name withheld)

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The media always gets stories half-right. One problem is that writers filter information without a full appreciation of which details are significant. Then editors trim away even more of the context. Part of it is for brevity and sometimes it’s to intentionally sensationalize things. Anyway, all of the details are publicly available but it’s spread across multiple articles by different writers. No details are “banned” that I’m aware of.

Thanks for writing. I hope you look into MRFF and support our mission!

Dustin Chalker
MRFF Non-Religious Affairs Advisor