Welcome All Faiths in Uniform

Monday, November 23, 2009

A Globe Editorial

A FUNDAMENTAL underpinning of life in the United States and its military forces is the First Amendment tradition of religious freedom in which no faith - or lack of faith - is favored or denigrated.

In the immediate aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey issued a timely warning against any backlash toward Muslims. But acts of intolerance aren't the only threats to religious freedom in the military or at Fort Hood. Another challenge is the proselytizing of service members by evangelical Christians. The nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which assists troops who recoil at being pressured by church members, is handling 18 complaints at Fort Hood alone.

Indeed, complaints to the foundation come from US military bases all over the globe - 15,000 in the last three years, with 96 percent from Christians. Many say they are being pressured by evangelicals. Incidents range from mandatory attendance at military events featuring Christian prayers to complaints that troops' promotion chances are hurt because they do not attend a superior officer's church. For its part, the Defense Department says it has received just 50 such complaints in the past three years. The foundation says service members are reluctant to draw attention to themselves by bringing concerns to military superiors.

This is not a new problem for the armed services. After reports in 2005 of military-sponsored religious activities at the Air Force Academy, including a football locker-room banner of "Team Jesus," the military did an investigation. Since then, military officials say there has been additional training for officers in all services and a greater effort to ensure tolerance of non-Christian faiths.

The foundation says the academy investigation was a whitewash and did nothing to stop violations. In 2008, the group joined with Dustin Chalker, an Army combat medic who was decorated with a Purple Heart in Iraq, in suing the Department of Defense for forcing Chalker to attend three military events with sectarian Christian prayers. More effective than a successful suit against the Pentagon would be a clear statement from the commander in chief. President Obama should remind all members of the services that the Constitution they swear to defend prohibits the establishment of a national religion.

I Sat There...In Horrified
and Shocked Silence

Sunday, November 22, 2009

To: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation

Date: Nov. 22, 2009

My name is (withheld) and I am formerly of the U.S. Army, having served in Fort Eustis, VA and medically discharged in the spring of 2006. My time in the Army, despite the sometimes unpleasant and grueling nature of military life, is something that I am proud to have been a part of and would gladly repeat if again given the chance.

This story however is about a part of military life that I would under no circumstance repeat ever again. This story is relays an affront leveled not only upon me, but also upon hundreds, if not thousands, of service members each and every day. This story is one that is in direct violation of the core beliefs that this nation was built upon; the freedom of religion for one and all.

I am not by nature a person given to depression in my normal life. Certain events in life may cause the occasional bout of depression for a short time, but like most people such situations are swiftly dealt with and I move forward in my life. Howev...I am only human and as such I am just as easily afflicted with a more severe and lasting sort of depression to which there is no simple answer or speedy cure.

I've been out of the service for nearly four years now and thus you must forgive me for not remembering the exact nature of my visit to a military psychologist. What I do remember is that I was stricken with a deep and punctuating melancholy, an abject dolor for which I could find no method of relief. I remember that this particularly black pall remained with me for some very long time, and that with each passing day its unpleasant weight seemed only to worsen. I remember also attempting so very many things to relieve the problem; movies, drinking, working...and so many more useless activities. Nothing brought even a small measure of deliverance for me.

Finally I reached a breaking point. I was having difficulty sleeping, I felt little desire to eat. My work began to suffer as we...in short my life was beginning to unravel around me and I didn't care. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind a small voice managed to find its way to the forefront of my mind, urging me to seek professional help. Oddly enough I didn't bother to argue with the idea (a sure sign that all was not well in my world as I normally regard psychologists and the like with rabid scorn and disdain) rather I picked up the phone and scheduled myself for the first available appointment.

The day of the appointment came about and I went in and waited for my name to be called. I couldn't tell you now the myriad thoughts that went through my mind that morning as I sat waiting for the doctor. I didn't really want to see anybody about this; I was used to figuring things out by myself, or with the help of friends and family. I wasn't happy about having to go and seek outside help from somebody I didn't know, somebody that saw dozens of people every week, a person who in all likelihood cared very little for what yet another soldier was feeling.

Still I waited and eventually I was called back to see the doctor, a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army. He introduced himself as did I to him. He asked me, almost right away, how I was feeling and why is it that I wanted to see him. I told him just the same; that I was unsure of what was bothering me and that I had tried to figure the cause of this depression but that I had been unable to. I told him that I normally didn't seek outside assistance, and that I was there on account of being at the end of my proverbial rope.

The doctor listened while I spoke, and perhaps he even wrote down a few notes. When I was done he told me that he might have some advice that would enable me to pull myself out of that cheerless and hopeless blackness. I was slightly encouraged at this; perhaps this man had thought of something that I had somehow missed. I asked him what this advice was.

The doctor proceeded to tell me that virtually everybody experienced such feelings at one point or another in life, including himself. He then relayed that what helped him the most in finding his way beyond such things in life was his belief in 'Christ' and that perhaps if I 'found' Christ that I would find my answer, and my way past this unpleasant experience in life.

I sat there for a moment in a sort of horrified and shocked silence. I felt as if I'd just been kicked in the stomach. I am unused to asking for help, as I've said, and as such I was completely unprepared for his idea of a, for lack of a better word, cure. After a few moments I finally came to my senses and I asked him if he was serious.

The doctor, to my continuing incredulous horror, claimed that yes he was serious. Christ, he said, could do wonderful things for a person (I paraphrase here as I cannot remember verbatim what it was he said). Christ was a powerful answer to many of life's problems and complications. Christ was the salvation of mankind, on this earth and in the next world. Christ, he felt, would enable me to move forward and get past this time in my life.

Shock turned to an enraged revulsion in my mind. I did not come to a medical professional to be preached at and told to find Jesus as the solution to my problems. I came to a medical professional to find an answer that was based in this world, an answer that was founded in reason, or at the very least, an educated guess from an educated professional trained in finding answers in maladies of the mind. Somehow I managed to maintain a grip on my rising wrath and I told him that I had my own religion, a religion that did not involve Christ and one that worked very well for me. I told him that I had been a Catholic once, and that I found no solace in such beliefs, neither for my own problems nor for anybody else's problems. I asked him why he would recommend faith and belief in Christ over a medical opinion.

His answer, at least his exact words, is forgotten to me now. The basic idea of his answer was that Christ, or the belief in Christ, was a more powerful thing than any human science or cure. He firmly believed that this was an acceptable answer to provide a patient with, Christian or otherwise.

I sat in his office for a few more minutes asking a few more questions and countering his reasons. The entire time I felt a boiling rage rising within me. I left rather abruptly then, on the verge of saying something that, while I wouldn't regret, would end up costing me more than I was willing to pay.

I couldn't tell you how much longer I remained in that depression, nor what it was that enabled me to find my way out. All I can say with any certainty at all is that at the time I was truly and utterly depressed. The world through my eyes was a bleak and featureless place bereft of any sort of pleasure or happiness. Nothing was of any importance at all to me save for the pathetically weak desire to rid myself of that feeling. The one source of assistance I sought to aid me in that turned out to be a sermon in the end, something that served only to anger me and to depress me further.

I honestly don't know whether that dark episode in life passed without cost. I suspect that that period of time was longer than I care to remember and that it also played some part in a divorce that was soon to come. The so-called aid this particular military doctor offered me was of no use to me, in fact, it may well have caused a great deal more harm in the end.

(name withheld)

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