Air Force Academy

Published On: April 2, 2014|Categories: MRFF's Inbox|0 Comments|

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Dear Mikey

So, Mikey boy, are you and your little followers having fun suppressing religious freedom at the Air Force Academy? Kind of cool getting your name and your pathetic little organization MRFF in the news and on a few websites, eh? Come to think of it, ginning up this kind of phony controversy is probably the only way your little group can garner any publicity.

Funny how you can get your shorts in a twist over a mere Bible verse scribbled on a whiteboard. This violated no one’s rights because you do not have a “right” not to be offended by someone else’s expression of their beliefs. No one is “forcing” their religion on anyone. You and the cadets who “complained” don’t have to read it, you know. My God, are you people so overly sensitive and thin-skinned that a few religious words on a whiteboard results in PTSD? The military I remember required toughness and there was no sympathy for whiners. We were taught to improvise, overcome and adapt. Period. If the cadets you are representing were so easily offended and emotionally upset by a few Bible verses, perhaps these delicate flowers don’t have what it takes to be an Air Force pilot flying a $50 million combat aircraft.

You actually want the cadets who posted these dangerous Bible verses punished for “absolute misconduct”? Have you ever been around a mortally wounded comrade crying out for his Mother and for God to help him? I suppose you would try to censor him from praying to God as well while he takes his last few breaths on earth. Geez, I don’t know what your problem is but you people need to get a life. What exactly is wrong with you and what planet do you come from? Your secular, anti-American bullshit does not belong in our military. Please take it somewhere else.

Nobody likes a whiner – which is exactly what you are Mikey. You don’t have to believe in God, but please get a life and leave the rest of us alone.

(name withheld)


Yo (name withheld)!

Nice whinesplanation, bro! It made me tremble with fear. Fear that you and others like you have ever actually served, carried a rifle, or have seen combat without having an inkling of what the Constitution actually stands for.

You must have been raised in the “old school” military, right? Like the one that used to beat up the gays and treat women like second class citizens. Wow! That’s something to be proud of. I read a terminal lance comic about your generation of Vietnam vets and their ilk. You must be the ignorant caricature that the author was referring to.

I guess it’s a good thing you’re not in the military anymore. I’d smell a court martial coming if that’s how you still acted. Funny thing…I’ve lived my entire career in a military forged in the heat of TWO wars and I don’t see this weakness you speak of. In fact I’m in the most hard core branch – the Marines – and if I do see any change it’s a generation of smarter and smarter individuals becoming warriors and trained professional killers instead of the lower standards that were acceptable during your tenure of service during a single war, as opposed to my time in two wars.

I guess since you were only in the Air Force I could call you a POG and be done with it but I’ll refrain as I have met many an honorable and noble individual from the AF – Mikey Weinstein being one of them. You seem to be an exception from that class of nobility.

Well this has been a fun and exciting ad hominem attack but I would feel slightly guilty so I’ll leave you with something informative, although I question your cognitive abilities to comprehend the depth of the analysis I’m about to drop into your brain-housing group.

So, broseph, here’s how the 1st Amendment works. There are two portions in relation to religion. The Establishment Clause comes first – it states the government shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. The second is the Free Exercise Clause. It states that the government shall not prohibit the free exercise of religion by individuals. You following me so far ?…because this is where most people of your ignorance tend to start chasing butterflies and lose interest in the matter before getting offended by their own misunderstanding thus placing blame on those actually enforcing this next part:

The Establishment Clause precedes and overrules the Free Exercise Clause! Say what!?!?! Yes, brudda, that means that even the appearance of establishing a religion by a person or persons employed or in service to the government is a – dun dun dun – violation of the US Constitution. Ta-da!

So since these cadets fall under a government institution and are in a position of authority over….oh I dunno other US Citizens, they cannot display verses that promote their religious preference on a white board – THAT WAS NOT IN THEIR OWN PRIVATE ROOM. I wish you illiterate morons would seriously read… It was not a private whiteboard. It was publicly displayed, not privately.

I just felt the need to respond to you because you were such a whiner…

Very Respectfully,
Paul Loebe
Special Projects Manager
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
Chicago, I

Oh and since you’re such a badass I thought I’d pointlessly post my deployment info as well…

OIF Al Asad, Iraq 2007
OIF Ramadi, Iraq 2008
OIF Ramadi, Iraq 2009
OEF Marjah, Afghanistan 2010

*Disclaimer: Although I am a Marine Sergeant my views do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense, U.S. Marine Corps, or any affiliated branches.*


Hi (name withheld),

I’m very tempted to call you “Georgie-boy,” but I guess it won’t do me or you any good to get down to your level. The fact is, the only “pathetic little” thing in this exchange is the mindset you demonstrate.

But just in the hope that there’s an opening in your thinking cap big enough for a thought to get through, let me try to clarify a few things you don’t seem to fully grasp.

1) As was determined by the leadership of the Air Force Academy, the verse on the whiteboard in a public space violated the Academy’s and the military’s admonition against religious proselytizing. So your complaint would better be taken up with the Academy leadership.

2) The cadets and staff who found the posting of the verse inappropriate and contacted the MRFF are within their rights to do so. And in doing so they, not the person who posted the verse and certainly not you, are upholding military regulations in seeing to it that no one in a position of leadership flaunts her or his religious beliefs in a manner that can be interpreted as promoting that religious belief over another. Every person in the military is welcome to her or his belief or non-belief, and no one has the right to press a personal belief on another. Private religious practices are, of course, perfectly within regulations. It’s a question of time, place and manner.

3) Learning to live by military regulations and having the courage to do so even when it puts one under the pressure of scrutiny and disfavor are exactly the lessons we want those in the military to get. Your puffed-up sneering about “delicate flowers” is reminiscent of the ape-like bullying that used to pass as manhood. Apparently you missed a step or two along the evolutionary pathway. Or is evolution another one of those concepts foreign to you?

4) Yes, George, many of our staff and supporters have had serious experiences in the military and understand how it feels to lose a beloved comrade or suffer grievous wounds themselves. You can usually tell them because they don’t beat their breasts and brag about it.

5) Your misunderstanding about our work and the nature of this organization is tiresome. If you’d exercise your brain by reading up on the MRFF you’d know that we are neither anti-Christian nor anti-American, but I know that takes more time and thought than scrawling out a nasty, epithet-filled, juvenile piece of hate mail. But if you decide to get off the low road for a while, give it a try. You might be surprised.

Mike Farrell
(MRFF Board of Advisors)

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