Another response to MRFF “Detractor”

The following is an additional response from Chris Livingston to the MRFF “Detractor” (Click here to see the original debate). The letter referenced below can be found here.

“Detractor”,

I thought you might be interested in the following letter. This was recently sent from an Airman at USAFA to the MRFF. As you can see from reading, his situation is quite desperate, and Mikey Weinstein’s MRFF is the last place he has to turn. This letter is no anomaly, it’s just the latest in a steady flow of desperate entreaties that go to Mr. Weinstein.

I hope you will consider this Airman’s experience and fold it into your own assessment of the religious climate at the Air Force Academy. For one thing, this is proof enough that everything is not well, and that the problem of religious proselytizing at USAFA is far from being solved.

I also want you to consider the impact of your words on the careers and families of young airmen like the one we have here. While your cadets may not have noticed any negative religious climate at the Air Force Academy, it’s evident that others have not been so fortunate. Your decrees that the religious climate at the Academy is all cleaned up, while members of our Air Force family suffer, as the Airman below has, amounts to a whitewashing of a serious problem. Were you able to convince anyone around you that the religious climate at USAFA is satisfactory, while ignoring the entreaties of airmen like this, you will have convinced others to believe something that is false.

When anyone is able to successfully whitewash an institutional problem (as you are attempting to do), the people who suffer the most are the ones who are most vulnerable. Were everyone to buy into the nice, rosy picture you are trying to create of the Air Force Academy, airmen like the one below would come and go, suffering quietly in dark corners of the Air Force.

What the MRFF attempts to do is shine a light on these dark corners, and say “here is the problem!” We should all be grateful, because the treatment this Airman has had to endure is reprehensible, and not befitting our Air Force. This brings me to what I see as a point of central importance:

We all want the Air Force Academy to be seen as a great and elite institution. There are different paths to acquiring a reputation for greatness. The easiest way to constantly proclaim one’s greatness, trumpet one’s achievements, and cover up one’s failures. The other way is to actually earn that reputation, by scrutinizing one’s practices and addressing any problems in an open and forthright manner. The latter path is the honorable one, more befitting an elite institution like the Air Force Academy. Graduates like Mr. Weinstein (with the support of many other grads like myself) recognize the need to take the Academy down the hard path.

I know it’s uncomfortable to have to face the fact that there may be a problem in this institution you’ve grown to love, but if you truly care for the Air Force Academy, you will take this Airman’s distress to heart, and support Mr. Weinstein’s efforts to make USAFA a truly great place.

Sincerely,
Chris Livingston
USAFA 2005