MRFF Victory in Air Force Training Scandal

Dear MRFF:

“a quote from an ex-Nazi SS officer.”

Really. That is absurdly sensationalistic. Why not put, “a quote from Dr. Wehrner von Braun, leading scientist for NASA during the Apollo era”? And what was that quote? It was about why he and his fellow scientists surrendered and agreed to cooperate with the US.

The problem here was not that there were Biblical quotes, or that a chaplain taught it. The problem was that the Biblical quotes were selected to do a form of training that would turn missile officers into automatons who would obey orders without question. Had they done real just war training, which aims at developing critical faculties, so that officers can weigh individual acts, and emphasized that there are times when you must disobey illegal orders, that would have been something different. This just war tradition is rooted in Greek philosophy, and in Augustine and Aquinas, and is the basis for international law on war crimes. You don’t want that taught? What kind of military do you want?

(name withheld)

Hi (name withheld),

Rick Baker here, regional coordinator for MRFF, living in Colorado Springs.

As you might have guessed we have a ton of e-mail coming in on this story so many of our staff and volunteers are trying to get answers to sincere but sadly misled respondents such as yourself.

You seem to have answered your own question but missed a subtle but glaring fault in the logic.

It is not only the scripture that would turn a young officer into an automaton that violates constitutional provision but any religious scripture used by higher ranks to encourage our young men and women to perform their duties and engage in warfare in the name of a particular deity or religious belief.

However, religious beliefs held in the course of duty that are manifested by the individual or in a regulation service conducted by a Chaplain are within constitutional boundaries.

The fact that any exclusive religious material was employed in the training of missile launch officers was a red light to MRFF and others who recognized the serious divergence in SOP and the obvious intent to “Christianize” the procedure.

Your opinion is important to us and it is not our intent to sully the framework of religious belief in the armed forces but only to prevent unilateral religious control in the military. We simply want to share our years of experience and discovery with you so that you may make informed decisions relative to these matters.

Your interest in this matter and obvious patriotic support of the military indicate that you could be an important contributor to MRFF. You are invited to view our web site which has a wide spectrum of information relative to this and other MRFF involvements in Dominionist activities.

Sincerely

Rick Baker
MRFF