Make a list. Check it twice

From: (name withheld)
Subject: Make a list. Check it twice
Date: December 9, 2021 at 5:27:10 AM MST
To: [email protected]

Mikey,
You should ask the families that are offended by wreaths to write letters asking that their family not be included.  Then, list in hand, you can go pluck them off the graves
God bless you Mikey.

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Regards,

(name withheld)

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Response from MRFF Advisory Board Member James Currie

Dear (name withheld)

I have been asked by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to respond to your recent email. I’m afraid that you have it exactly backwards: nobody should be forced to embrace a religious symbol that does not represent their beliefs. If anything, your proposal should be turned around the other way: there ought to be positive approval by the family of a deceased veteran before any religious symbol is placed on their grave. What we have before us is a private organization that has taken it upon itself to decorate every veteran’s grave with a Christian symbol, no matter the religious belief or non-belief of the veteran buried there. We don’t know your own religious beliefs, if you have any, but let’s assume for the sake of discussion that you are of the Christian faith. I pose this question to you: How would you like it if someone were to decide to decorate your grave—we’ll pretend this is sometime in the future—with a Jewish symbol, or a Muslim symbol, or a Hindu symbol, or a Confucian symbol. How would you like that? I’ll just bet you would find that offensive. That’s what this discussion is all about. It is about a private group not caring that many veterans are non-Christians and going ahead anyway and placing a Christian symbol on their grave. This is, in the minds of many of us who support the MRFF, a great insult to that veteran and to their personal religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs.

Even someone who is so ignorant as to think that “Let’s Go Brandon” is clever ought to be able to grasp this concept. You are truly pathetic.

Col. James T. Currie, USA (Ret.), Ph.D.

Board of Advisors, Military Religious Freedom Foundation

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Response from MRFF Board Member John Compere

On Dec 9, 2021, at 2:57 PM, John Compere wrote:

Your simple-minded sarcasm & suggestions reflect only on yourself & reveal only your misguided malcontentment. 

Any organization presumptuously putting & publicizing its promotional products on the personal burial sites of deceased military veterans should have the decency to seek & obtain permission of the families involved. It is not the responsibility of others to do it for them. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (composed of 85% Christians) represents, when requested, the rights of those families who do not want the religious wreaths of a religious organization to which they do not belong placed on the graves of their loved ones. We do so because we respect their wishes & will continue to do so.
Brigadier General John Compere,

US Army (Retired)Disabled American Veteran (Vietnam Era) Board Member, Military Religious Freedom Foundation

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