Re: Outrageous Christian Proselytizing at USAFA Officer Commissioning Ceremony

Scroll below to see the original email describing the repugnant incident at USAFA

Dear Mikey,

I am a USAFA faculty member with over 20 years of service. During that time, I have attended countless commissioning ceremonies at both service academies and ROTC detachments across the country. During that time, I have never witnessed such an outrageous and disgusting display of the breach of the wall of separation between church and state as I did on Tuesday evening at an official USAFA commissioning ceremony for Cadet Squadron 13. At the conclusion of an otherwise beautiful ceremony honoring the accomplishments of over 20 outstanding cadets, including one of my advisees, the Academy trotted out a crusty old dinosaur, Lt. Gen. (USAF-Ret., thankfully) Fain, USAFA Class of 1963, ostensibly to provide the cadets with a gift from the Association of Graduates but in reality to infect the new Second Lieutenants with some toxic advice that, if followed, will no doubt contribute further to the erosion of good order and discipline within our Air Force. After advising the cadets to “kiss your wives every night,” a shocking insensitivity considering that three of the twenty-three graduates were women, (unless he was expressing his advocacy of same-sex marriage, but only for them and not the males,) he further reminded the cadets that the oath they had just taken obligated them to defend the Constitution against all enemies, “foreign and domestic,” and followed that with an editorial comment that, in the future, those enemies will be far more likely to be domestic. If he is referring to the Christian dominionists whose daily assaults on the Constitution are allowed to continue unchecked by our senior leadership, then I would have to agree. But, by far, the most egregious, disgusting and offensive statement was the suggestion that the graduates should “help return this country to the Christian values it was founded on,” a perverted interpretation of both our nation’s history and current events and, in reality, an appeal to lend support to the ongoing assault on our democratic values and the attempt to replace them with a Christian theocracy. That a retired officer with a distinguished career in both the military and the private sector holds these views is disturbing enough, but the fact that he felt an official commissioning ceremony was an appropriate venue to air those views, and that the Academy leadership permitted him to do so without comment or correction is a demoralizing statement on just how far our Academy, our service and our nation have fallen under the sway of those who would destroy the democratic values our founding fathers established and that we have ALL sworn an oath to protect and defend. Such repeated and egregious insults further convince me that we have “lost the bubble” on both religious diversity and simple respect for human dignity and, honestly, make me wonder why I continue to work so hard to produce educated and responsible officers for our Air Force when my efforts being undermined by careless at best and malicious at worst actions by others across our Academy.

(USAF Academy Professor’s name, title, rank, Academy Faculty Department and all related academic credentials withheld)

Mikey,

I’d like to thank you, the MRFF, and the faculty member that sent the e-mail [above] for bringing the incident to our attention. I can assure you that the Academy leadership is taking the incident very seriously. As a matter of fact, I just spoke with the Vice Dean of the Faculty about it and he said that as a result of this e-mail and other complaints received that the Vice Commandant (for climate and culture) is meeting soon with the Association of Graduates (AOG) to find out what sort of pre-brief/prep the 50-year-class commissioning ceremony speakers and representatives are given prior to showing up and (in some cases) speaking at these events. Whatever the answer from the AOG, that training will either be created or (if it exists) modified so that what happened below doesn’t happen again. (Of course, it may happen again, but it will be distinctly against instructions from the AOG and therefore some other action can be taken like barring that individual from future events).

As you know, though, the longer term question of how we make real strides to improve the environment for all at USAFA, though, depends upon the use of the chain-of-command to resolve these issues. As a favor to me, please pass the message above to the complainant faculty member. I strongly recommend that they first attempt to resolve issues like this through their chain-of-command. If they don’t feel like they can do this for whatever reason, then I’m available if that faculty member or others would like to talk–you know I’ll do what I can to resolve the problem.

Thanks,
(Senior USAFA Official’s name, rank, title, USAFA unit and dept. withheld)

Thanks–that’s all I was hoping for by bringing this up. You can also pass along that if I had a shred of faith that my chain of command would take these concerns seriously and not use them to further ostracize the “whistle-blowers,” then I would happily use it. Unfortunately, past events suggest that this is not the case. In fact, I don’t even fill out climate surveys anymore because of anecdotal evidence that my immediate supervisor has attempted to identify faculty who left negative comments. Thank God we have the MRFF!

(USAF Academy Professor’s name, title, rank, Academy Faculty Department and all related academic credentials withheld)