MOUNTAIN PARK – The veterans came from all walks of life, from a variety of denominational backgrounds, and each with their stories of military service. But as they gathered at Mountain Park First Baptist Church on the first Thursday evening in June, they came with a common purpose – to enjoy a good meal and fellowship in a distinctly Christian atmosphere.
Task Force Patriot was celebrating its fifth anniversary at the monthly meeting in its usual low-key approach. It isn’t a flamboyant group and doesn’t seek to draw attention to itself. Like many of the modest veterans whom it serves, it keeps a low profile while serving others.
The group, which numbers nearly 300 active members scattered throughout metro Atlanta, is the brainchild of Jim Freeman and his wife, Peggy. Freeman, a retired major in the U.S. Army, served two tours of duty in Vietnam – first while flying 204 combat missions in 1967-68 and while serving as a company commander in 1969-70.
“There are a lot of good veterans groups out there that are doing a lot of good for veterans as well as the community,” Freeman says while recounting the early history of the group. “But there was one flaw which disturbed me – the alcohol and smoke-filled rooms that went along with the meetings.”
That’s what planted the seed for a distinctly Christian-based veterans fellowship that would allow both believers and unbelievers to gather together in a wholesome environment and establish friendships.
Within a matter of weeks the couple were standing at gas stations and other public gathering places conducting informal polls of those they profiled as possibly being veterans. They soon discovered that there were 6,000 veterans, both combat and non-combat, living within a stone’s throw of their church, Mountain Park.
In January 1999, about 40 interested persons attended an exploratory meeting at the church to consider the concept. Five months later, in a June meeting at the church, Task Force Patriot was birthed with the idea of meeting the needs of veterans through Christian service.
As if to affirm its purpose, the group’s new Web site, www.taskforcepatriot.com developed by Peggy Freeman, received 150,000 visits in its first three weeks.
Not just for Christian
“You do not have to be a Christian to be a member,” Freeman stresses.
That’s where the outreach comes into play. Unchurched veterans are just as welcome as those from across the denominational spectrum, and members seek to model a Christian lifestyle to those who may be seeking spiritual answers to their lives.
“Most veterans are modest individuals and they don’t always share their feelings very openly,” Freeman says.
Many of those who have been in combat have suppressed some of the horrors they have seen and carry those memories around, locked in a dark chamber of their heart.
Freeman says an organization such as Task Force Patriot helps such individuals who are still looking to make some sense from the madness of war to which they were subjected. And, he adds, the only true peace a veteran will ever experience will come from a personal relationship with Christ.
That’s where Task Force Patriot shines. In military life, the concept that completion of the mission – whatever it may be – always comes first. At Task Force, “The mission comes first” appears as its creed and symbolizes the underlying goal of the fellowship – “the fullness of life in Christ for all veterans,” Freeman explains.
The concept has caught on well and veterans, as well as active duty personnel, have been attracted to its unique approach. Two satellite groups were started at Robbins Air Force Base at Warner Robbins and at Fort Benning near Columbus. The groups were disbanded when they shipped out to Afghanistan early in the mid-east crisis, but they took the concept with them and many keep in contact with Freeman through the Internet.
“I heard from one individual who had received his orders that would take him into combat and he contacted me because he was concerned about the salvation of his family back in the States. We were able to minister to them, offer spiritual help, and let them know we were praying for them as well as for their husband and father,” Freeman says.
These days Freeman frequently receives emails several times a week from soldiers stationed in Baghdad who are seeking spiritual encouragement or counseling. Some are Christians, others are not, he says.
Partnership with JROT
Task Force also provides a mentoring program for high school students enrolled in Junior ROTC courses of study, and provides some community service ministry. During its first year it provided 20 Thanksgiving baskets for needy veterans families; within four years the number had increased to 150 baskets, divided between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Last year it gave 31 baskets to the Pregnancy Resource Center of Gwinnett, a ministry of the Gwinnett Metro Baptist Association.
The JROTC mentoring program is designed to model Christian behavior and provide positive role models for young men and women who are considering a military career. Freeman sees the outreach as a vital step in introducing future military personnel to patriotism and Christ. And with that comes a ministry to parents who attend some of the special events for the students.
High schools that have participated on various levels include Parkview, Berkmar, Stone Mountain, Brookwood, Grayson, and Shiloh.
Keeping veterans connected
But its veteran-to-veteran outreach continues to be the heart of Task Force Patriot.
“We are not a combat club; we do not differentiate between those who have served in combat and those who did not because in many times that was not a choice of the individual.
“What we want to provide is a wholesome environment where veterans can come to enjoy a good meal, enjoy a program tailored to their interests, meet some new friends and, for those who do not have a spiritual foundation, have an opportunity to explore a relationship with Christ,” Freeman said.
The former Vietnam veteran says the organization’s dream is to eventually have Task Force Patriot groups meeting on the first Thursday of every month at Baptist churches nationwide. And based on its first five years of acceptance, seeing that dream catch fire might not be that unreasonable.
“This has been a ministry of impossibilities, but the Lord continues to bless us,” Freeman adds in an air of semi-wonderment.
With an almost boyish wonder, he adds, “I can’t wait to see what the future holds.”
www.christianindex.org
Thursday, May 03, 2007
THE CRUSADERS
By Robert C. Koehler
Tribune Media Services
Sixteen words may be all that stand right now between the apparatus of government and the Founding Fathers’ worst nightmare. And those words are starting to give.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”
When George Bush, in the wake of 9/11, puffed himself into Richard the Lionheart and declared he would lead the country in a “crusade” against terrorism — you know, crusade, as in slaughter of Muslim infidels — turns out . . . oh, how awkward (if you’re on White House spin duty) . . . he may have been speaking literally.
What’s certain, in any case, is that a lot of people in high and low places within the Bush administration — and in particular, the military — heard him literally, and regard the war on terror as a religious war:
“The enemy has got a face. He’s called Satan. He lives in Fallujah. And we’re going to destroy him,” a lieutenant colonel, according to a BBC reporter, said to his troops on the eve of the destruction of that undefended city in post-election 2004.
“I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol,” Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jerry Boykin notoriously boasted a few years back, speaking of a Muslim warlord in Somalia. And by the way, George Bush is “in the White House because God put him there.”
And, of course, just the other day, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, who conducted the first official investigation into Pat Tillman’s death, opined that Tillman’s family is only pestering the Army for the, ahem, truth about how he died because their loved one, a non-believer with no heavenly reward to reap, is now “worm dirt.”
Until I read the newly published “With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military” (St. Martin’s Press), Michael Weinstein’s disturbing account of anti-Semitism at the U.S. Air Force Academy, I shrugged off each of these remarks, and so much more, as isolated, almost comically intolerant noises out of True Believer Land. Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do . . .
Now my blood runs cold. Weinstein, a 1977 graduate of the Academy and former assistant general counsel in the Reagan administration, and a lifelong Republican, has devoted the last several years of his life to battling what he has come to regard as a fundamentalist takeover of the Academy, turning it, in effect, into a taxpayer-supported Evangelical institution. He charges that the separation of church and state is rapidly vanishing at the school, which routinely promotes sectarian religious events, tolerates the proselytizing of uniquely vulnerable new recruits and, basically, conflates evangelical interests and the national interest.
If you think this is just a fight over some abstract principle, with ramifications only for atheist, Jewish, Buddhist and other cadets who may be “offended” by fundamentalist God talk, I urge you to check out Weinstein’s book or website (militaryreligiousfreedom.org). He documents a chilling phenomenon: The whole U.S. military, up and down the chain of command, is coming to be dominated by members of a small, characteristically intolerant sliver of Christianity who truly regard themselves as Christian soldiers, on a God-appointed mission to harvest souls and battle evil.
Weinstein, whose family tradition of national service is pretty impressive, does not do battle lightly with those who now run his alma mater. One of his sons is a recent graduate of the Air Force Academy and the other is still a cadet there. His eldest son’s wife, a Christian, was his son’s classmate at the Academy, and Weinstein’s brother-in-law, also a Christian, is a grad as well. And his father graduated from Annapolis.
The fact that both sons endured anti-Semitic harassment initially spurred him to take action. But this goes deeper than disrespect for other faiths. The attitude he has encountered in his attempt to hold the institution, and the rest of the military, accountable smacks of a coup: “The Christian Taliban is running the Department of Defense,” he told me. “It inundates everything.”
Can you imagine a contingent of religious zealots, with their contempt for secular values (and such manifestations of secular order as the U.S. Constitution) — and with their zest for holy war — in control of the most potent fighting force and weaponry in human history? Is this possible?
Well, said Weinstein, consider the 523rd Fighter Squadron, based at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., which calls itself The Crusaders, and whose emblem consists of a sword, four crosses and a medieval knight’s helmet. Check ‘em out at globalsecurity.org, which reports that the payload on the F-16s they fly consists of “a wide variety of conventional, precision guided and nuclear weapons.”
And listen once again to Commander-in-Chief Bush, speaking in 2003 to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.”
If this is a religious war — a “clash of civilizations,” waged by competing agents of God’s will — victory may be indistinguishable from Armageddon. God help the human race.
- - -
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.
© 2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Monday, April 30, 2007
EVANGELICAL INDOCTRINATION
AT A YOUNG AGE!
Friday, April 27, 2007
Article on Tillman inquiry references family's lack of
Christian belief as a problem
According to the Army officer who directed the first official inquiry, the Army might have more of a clue about the shooter's identity than it has let on. Asked whether ballistics work was done to identify who fired the fatal shots, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich told ESPN.com, "I think, yeah, they did. And I think they know [who fired]. But I never found out."
Mansfield and other Rangers who attended the post-incident meeting said — both in interviews with ESPN.com and in documents from the Army investigations — they were advised by debriefers that night that the unit as a whole bore the responsibility for Tillman's death and they should avoid placing blame on any one person.
In his interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich also said he was not driven to identify Tillman's killer.
"You know what? I don't think it really matters," Kauzlarich said. "And the reason I say that — you got to look at the overall situation here that these guys were fighting in. And somebody hit him. So would you hold that guy [who] hit him responsible for hitting him, when everybody was shooting in that direction, given the situation? We'll see how the [Defense Department Inspector General's] investigation comes out. But I had no issue on not finding a specific person responsible for doing it."
Kauzlarich said he is confident the current probe will not result in criminal charges against the shooter or shooters. He said investigators would not still be examining the incident at all if it were not for Tillman's NFL celebrity — he walked away from a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals when he enlisted — and the pressure brought to bear by Tillman's family on a number of Washington politicos.
"His parents continue to ask for it to be looked at," Kauzlarich said. "And that is really their prerogative. And if they have the right backing, the right powerful people in our government to continue to let it happen, then that is the case.
"But there [have] been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide, and the parents have basically said, 'OK, it was an unfortunate accident.' And they let it go. So this is — I don't know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs."
In a transcript of his interview with Brig. Gen. Gary Jones during a November 2004 investigation, Kauzlarich said he'd learned Kevin Tillman, Pat's brother and fellow Army Ranger who was a part of the battle the night Pat Tillman died, objected to the presence of a chaplain and the saying of prayers during a repatriation ceremony in Germany before his brother's body was returned to the United States.
Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family's unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives.
In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: "When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don't believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don't know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough."
Asked by ESPN.com whether the Tillmans' religious beliefs are a factor in the ongoing investigation, Kauzlarich said, "I think so. There is not a whole lot of trust in the system or faith in the system [by the Tillmans]. So that is my personal opinion, knowing what I know."
Asked what might finally placate the family, Kauzlarich said, "You know what? I don't think anything will make them happy, quite honestly. I don't know. Maybe they want to see somebody's head on a platter. But will that really make them happy? No, because they can't bring their son back."
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Because I love America: Reagan's Assistant General Counsel, Mikey Weinstein Speaks Out. with God on our side
By Mikey Weinstein
When I began asking questions about what I saw going on at Colorado Springs in 2004 I never expected that the inquiry would lead me to the horrifying conclusion that our country had been taken over by people who have used our own freedoms to enslave us. But that is what happened. When I began I, like most people, was focused on the personal. I believed that what was happening at the United States Air Force Academy, the harassment of cadets and staff with unwanted evangelism, was limited in scope. As the months passed, however, I found myself forced to constantly reassess my basic assumptions. The logic of events was stark and undeniable. Promises of an open inquiry were ignored; decent and courageous people like former Air Force Chaplin MeLinda Morton were intentionally muzzled to ensure the truth would not be heard and the wrongs righted.
As a Republican and an Academy graduate I find myself in head on conflict with my own oath to protect the Constitution. As a Jew I confronted a situation through ears that still hear the cries of my people walking silently into the brick buildings that would reduce them to ash. I cannot stand still and let that happen to my country.
You know about the law suit we filed; that suit took on the issue directly, based on the1st Amendment Right of members of the military to choose their own spiritual paths, unhampered by those placed in positions of authority and on the basis of the Establishment Clause and Clause Three of Article Six, which prohibit the existence of a national religion. That is what has happened. America now has a national religion whose tenets extend to a foreign policy that sees war in the Middle East as the fulfillment of its core mission . The power block responsible for the take over are now, effectively, in charge of the mightiest weapon the world has ever known, the United States Military.
My law suit was one element in the larger battle to take back America. That might seem excessive or alarmist; I only wish that was the case.
I undertook this campaign to oppose those who were violating the principle of separation of Church and State head on and to make the public aware. I now understand that to undo the damage done Americans must come together to organize the dispersed elements opposing these forces that have gone so far in converting America into a theocracy that substitutes one parochial world view of the Bible as law, displacing the democratic foundation of our nationhood.
Every American should be awake to the real and present threat that the take over of America's military poses to our national security and to each of us personally. America is poised today on the brink of a disaster of global proportions. This situation has been moving towards its own logical conclusion while nearly all of us overlooked the clear and present danger signs posed by the coalition of unlikely forces who have come together in a voracious grab for power. Even those of us who have understood some parts of the larger problem have failed to see the connections. That is the past. Today we need to take action.
Those who have carried out this stealth operation, an imperious fascistic contagion growing for the last 30 years, have an agenda. That agenda demanded their patience. They have been. We must not be patient as we fight back. We must act now.
In late 2005 I founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org. As I studied what was happening I began to hear from our own noble and honorable sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen from all religious traditions at military bases in the US and all over the world. They all told the same horrifying story; my concerns grew.
Here is what we face.
First, the corporate interests: These for profit businesses have worked to ensure their streams of income, focusing on augmenting their own profits and avoiding liability for the damage they well understood they inflicted on America and to people around the world. To accomplish those ends they developed a collation of think tanks and not-for-profits that justified their actions, using ideas cauterized to make their actions seem plausible.
They knew they needed to change the institutions and expectations of Americans to ensure they would keep control. To that end they employed political operatives to build up the facade of respectability those ideas needed. Think of the Heritage Foundation and the words of such as Ann Coulter, John Fund, and Robert Novak. That facade is what we today know as the NeoConservatives or “NeoCons.” You can think of it as the public relations firm presently employed by those rapacious corporations which work through our government.
The third element, funded in large part by the corporate interests but acting from their own agenda, are those who are now coming out of the shadows. As their power grows their need to remain unseen diminishes. Paul Krugman and others identify these as the Theocons. It was the action of the Theocratic agenda that awakened me to what is happening. These elements are the broad strokes that bring into the light the behind the scenes action that is destroying our nation and the hope for peace and prosperity that has always been so present for Americans.
It is not simple until you understand who and why it has happened. The corporations wanted power and money; the NeoCons were willing to make it happen for power and money. The Theocons, a tool made up of elements from a formerly marginalized and unrespected segment of the Christian community, were able to realize their dreams of power and money by becoming the tool that made the whole possible.
Today the man with his finger on the button, those who will receive the order to strike; many of those who will then be expected to put their lives on the line to carry out American policy; have been molded by the influences of these elements. A power conversion has taken place that has nothing to do with freedom or religion. Many thinkers and writers saw the potential for such a threat over the last several generations. But it is our generation and those who follow who now have no choice but to take action.
Corporate interests and the patient and long range plan of Christian Reconstructionists have made this possible with the cooperation and coordination provided by the NeoCons If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would think it was bad science fiction. But when I wake up the nightmare continues. The threats to my family, the rising tide of violence aimed at me and those I love, and those whose courage has drawn them to stand with me affirm the truth of what we confront.
It began in the early 70s with the thought by a small group of Republicans that control of the GOP could be guaranteed by taking advantage of the newly disenfranchised Southern Democrats through elements in the Evangelical churches there. You will recognize the names of those whose plans have been drawn so large today. Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, John Hagee and Jack Abramoff were among them.
Largely credulous and uneducated the evangelical elements that became their raw material contained strains of thinking from individuals like R. J Rushrooney and Gary North. Margaret Mead once said that only a small determined group ever changes things. Ms. Mead was thinking of positive change; she could not have imagined the vision and motives that moved a small group of Baptists to take over the Southern Baptist Convention by stealth to achieve first a power base and to move on from there to apply the same methods to civil government and our military. But that is what happened.
Today the platform of the Republican Party in Texas reflects their goals. These are consistent and explicit, including the substitution of the Bible for the rule of law in America. In their world capital punishment for sodomy, adultery, for unruly children, and the end of free speech are desirable goals mandated by God. Lying to achieve the ends they believe are appointed by an unimaginable vision of God are entirely acceptable.
Paul Krugman said in his article of last week, For God's Sake, “In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement - the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right - suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. "Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure," he wrote, "and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order." “
Krugman does not cite the documentation of this, though it exists in a letter written by Dr. Steven Hortzel dated March 13, 1990 . The letter exhorts the recipients on how to take over their local Republican precinct. The back of the letter lays out the Platform which includes ending minority status for homosexuals, an end to the right to abortion, the sovereignty of the family instead of having that status rest with individuals, as intended by the rights theory on which America is founded. And most frightening, in their view the Church will control what is and is not a crime. The same letter sports the direction to, “Vote twice on election day.” So much for respect for our law and the institutions of America.
Today the Platform of the Republican Party of Texas reflects that agenda. The goal of the Texas Republican Party is to "dispel the myth of the separation of church and state."
Organizing and planning far in advance with funding provided by corporations through those we now know as NeoCons, they laid out the stealth plan that has been followed until the present day. You can hear this admitted in clips of a tape assembled recently by Dr. Bruce Prescott. The voices of J. R, Rushrooney, now deceased, and Gary North, his son-in-law, say it all.
No rogue elements were responsible for what took place at the Air Force Academy. Funding provided by those major corporations who put us in Iraq to augment their profits and ensure control of oil funded the NeoCons who wrote the orders taking us to the Middle East against all truth; through the same funding source grew the 'religious' institutions that have taken control of our military. To them the separation of Church and State, the first amendment of the Bill of Rights, is a myth like Bigfoot and Paul Bunyan to be dispelled, by their own words.
We can expect violence. The head cleric of St. David's Episcopal Church of Topeka, Kansas came out to support me; five hours later his church was burned to the ground. A synagogue where I spoke was desecrated. My home has been targeted by feces and beer bottles; our tires slashed; dead animals have twice been placed on our front porch. The death threats come in ceaselessly. It is not convenient and safe to confront and defy those in power; I know that but I refuse to back down. They may try to harm me but I will not go quietly; I will be a Jew from the Warsaw Ghetto, not Berlin. I will be an American from Lexington and Concord, not an American from Halliburton and Blackwater.
With all the bad news it is heartening to note that some people are standing up and fighting back. Every day we are joined by more Americans who hear, understand, and come prepared to take action.
Dr. Bruce Prescott moved to Norman, Oklahoma three years ago and started an organization called, “Main Stream Baptists,” that is challenging the primacy of Christian Reconstructionists in the Baptist faith in the same town that supplied those who carried out the take over of the Southern Baptist Convention. When Bush hosts 'religious leaders,' it is those people who receive the invitations.
Next January between 20,000 and 30,000 Baptists from all races will gather. They will be representing hundreds of thousands of Baptists who affirm the original belief that brought Baptists to America, the freedom to worship as they pleased. Together they will forge a New Baptist Covenant making them the largest Baptist group in the United States. The group includes former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; the announcement took place in Atlanta, Georgia in January of 2007.
Others, secular and religious, for instance the Methodists who stood up to oppose the Bush Library at SMU stand with us.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough that this is not a partisan battle. I am a Republican who had the honor of serving as Assistant General Counsel in the Reagan White House and as General Counsel to two time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot. I am a Jew proud to stand with Christians, Muslims, agnostics and atheists, and others who, like those I just mentioned, are committed to the vision of an America for which generations have laid down their lives. Stand with me on this and you stand with men and women who dreamed a freedom that the real Jesus would have recognized. At the end of the day, it's simply all about just one thing; our beautiful United States Constitution. Each of us free; each of us equal, living lives where we confront not the dead words of the past but the living truth that is tomorrow
That is America and it is worth dying for. As a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, the father of two graduates as well as one current Academy cadet, the brother-in-law of yet another graduate, and the son of a graduate of the U. S Naval Academy I believe in the vision that is America with every fiber of my being.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Blood Pressure Management HANDOUT from the Peterson AFB, CO
click to enlarge
Thursday, April 05, 2007
IT'S ABOUT TO GET EVEN BUSIER AROUND HERE...
Greetings! It's been awhile since I've posted so I thought I would bring you up to date on what I've been up to. I've just finished several whirlwind trips through New York, Los Angeles, and Denver, where I gave speeches, signed books, met with supporters, participated in debates, and attended the premier of the movie that my family and I are featured prominently in, Constantine's Sword. "Oscar-nominated Director Oren Jacoby's documentary screen adaptation of the New York Times bestseller by James Carroll which chronicles the 2,000 year bloody history between the church and the Jews"
We've been working hard responding to the countless e-mails we receive requesting our support, while keeping pressure on the Pentagon to complete their investigation into The Christian Embassy and several high ranking military officers' illegal and unconstitutional dealings that we recently exposed.
My schedule is about to get even busier in April, with exciting events from coast to coast along with a full slate of TV and radio interviews. See the 'Media Center' and 'Upcoming Events' sections of the site to see what we have on our plate this month, and to see the details of my upcoming media blitz!
On another note, we are taking a fresh look at our website and are going to be making some exciting updates to it over the coming weeks. Stay tuned for some great new features!
- Mikey
