USAF Academy Fundamentalist Christianity; Welcome to the Meth Lab

To: Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF)

Sir, I am one of the very new USAFA cadet clients of MRFF. As per the several telephone calls I have had with you over the last week, sir, you know that I speak for at least 13 other USAFA cadets who have also called to relate their stories to you. It was easy to talk this week as we were all on Spring Break from the Academy. I have afforded my fellow cadets the chance to review what I’m briefly about to tell you and they have endorsed and approved of every word of it. I was selected as the one to send the e-mail speaking for the others so that MRFF, in turn, can speak for all of us. I will be as brief as possible.

Sir, we have been made well aware that there is a group of supposedly “outside and impartial” visitors, led by someone named General Gamble who used to work at the Academy and is now with the University of Alaska, at the Academy this week to “assess the religious climate” here. We are also aware that MRFF represents, with our new group included, approximately 236 USAFA clients of unconstitutional religious abuse. This number includes not only USAFA cadets but USAFA faculty and staff as well. Sir, none of us will consider talking to this Gamble group in any way, shape or form. On behalf of myself and my fellow cadets, let me tell you why. It is because we live and go to school in a “Religious Meth Lab” that is very good at hiding in plain sight and destroying those it finds as informants to anyone, especially you and MRFF. USAFA is an evangelical, fundamentalist Christian meth lab. What am I talking about? I will try to explain but it is hard to do it all in just an e-mail. But that is all I and the others will risk other than taking to you on the phone.

Sir, to begin with I am of the Christian faith as I was raised as such. It is by far not the most important thing in my life. Which does not make me a bad person or USAFA cadet in my mind at least.Right now, making it through this semester at the Academy and eventually graduating IS the only thing on my mind. It is very hard here. I know you remember what it was like to try to make it through here on even just a day to day basis., Mr. Weinstein. Most of the other cadets I speak for are the same; raised as Christians but being one does not define us and does not rule all aspects of our lives. A few of the cadets I speak for were raised in other faiths and some are just plain nonreligious. This is the point. At the Air Force Academy today, if a cadet is not totally defined by their faith, than that cadet is just not part of the team here. Lt. General Gould and Brig. General Born and the 40 Cadet Squadron AOC’s (Air Officers Commanding) and the other officers and officials of USAFA can talk until they are blue in the face about how we have religious equality at the Academy, but we don’t. We’re not close.They’re the leaders but they are The Problem. But tell them that and it’s over for you. They tell us to report these abuses, but that is impossible and I’ll give you just one good example, one of a countless number. They happen every day here. But report anything and you’re toast one way or the other.

Sir, I will not reveal what Class year I am a member of but suffice it to say that I’ve been here a while. My group has cadets in all 4 Class years in it. OK, here goes. A few weeks ago, I was asked by a faculty member, one of my own USAFA instructors, about what I thought of the Federal lawsuit that MRFF and some USAFA faculty members brought against Lt. Gen. Gould and the Academy as a result of the Academy’s actions in promoting through the military chain the “USAFA National Prayer Luncheon”. The Academy had invited a very fundamentalist former Marine officer to speak. My father is also an Academy graduate and served a long career in the USAF. He had witnessed this speaker talk before and warned me about his proselytizing at these official military functions. Firstly, the Academy told the media that no cadets were to be invited. That is a lie, sir. I received three e-mails from various Academy non-chaplain mission elements inviting me. It’s the same with almost all of the the others I speak for. Secondly, more than one of my faculty instructors and other USAFA staff openly talked about the event and made it clear that cadets would not be turned away if we could get to it from class. Nobody I know of was not aware of the Academy’s Prayer Luncheon. Nobody ever thought it was just a “chaplain event” as it came to us from non-chaplain sources. I slowly and carefully (but it seems not carefully enough) responded to my USAFA instructor by telling the instructor that I admired the other instructors who joined the MRFF lawsuit, especially Dr. Mullin who came out with his name with MRFF. I was very uneasy talking about this with an instructor who totally controls my grade in a class that I need a good grade in badly. I did not like that he asked me about this. But I thought that honesty would be best and that he would appreciate my frankness. Big mistake. My instructor got red in the face and mad. Madder as he spoke longer. For the next 15 minutes, my instructor lectured me about what I’d already learned from my first day at the Academy. Religion is what makes us strong. Religion and faith are essentials to graduate from the Academy and prosper in the USAF. Without religion, we lose the blessings of the Lord and the Savior. Without religion, there is no “moral compass”. Without religion, without religion, without religion. When he said “religion” I know he meant Christianity and not my kind of it. He told me that you, Mr. Weinstein, were a just a wealthy lawyer with too much time on your hands and a chip on your shoulder about being Jewish. When he said “Jewish” my stomach knotted up. He said you were just looking for vengeance because your children had been mistreated here a few years ago when things weren’t as “good as they are now”. He said the charges raised by your children had never even been found to exist. He told me that Dr. Mullin also had many “other agendas” and that the other 4 USAF staffers that joined MRFFs lawsuit anonymously probably also did not even exist! He told me that his own USAFA superiors had told him these things as well. I didn’t say anything back. I didn’t know what to say at all. Ii just nodded my head and said “thank you, sir, I didn’t know those things” and had to leave for my next class. I tried to make him think that he had won me over. I don’t think I did a good job of it though. I am probably not in my instructor’s good graces (but see below about what I may do to make him like me again). It’s a meth lab. And the meth is evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity and its many followers here. And many of the followers don’t see how there’s a problem with the way it is proselytized here and the oath we gave to the Constitution. And many other cadets and staff don’t see anything at all about the religion mess here. And if they don’t see it they believe it does not exist. So, if one of us who does see it so clearly tries to even mildly do something, it makes waves immediately and you will pay for it.

Sir, you cannot understand how this “meth” is everywhere here unless you live and go to school here. The passing out of fundamentalist Christian flyers, the solicitations by our USAFA superiors and even classmates and upperclass cadets to those who are below them in the chain of command is sometimes so subtle that outsiders would not notice and sometimes so obvious that it makes you and everyone else believe that it has to be part of the approved USAFA culture and site picture. Many who do this have no idea that what they’re doing is wrong. And many who do this know that it is wrong but also know that the meth lab bosses approve of it, so what or who can stop them? But that is not the main point of this e-mail to you, Mr. Weinstein.

Sir, the main thing is that, if you work in a meth lab, getting caught or just even suspected of talking to the cops will get you killed. Here at USAFA that means endangering your chances to graduate and maybe having to repay the costs of your government-provided tuition and board. They hold that over our heads all the time here. Everyone knows that even if you graduate but fail out of your initial post graduation training you will get kicked out the USAF and they still might make you pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars. We all know former cadet who graduated who are going through this now. Mr Weinstein, even if any of us wanted to talk to the this Gen. Gamble group sent here to look at the “religious climate”, why would any of us risk being caught as “narcing out” the fundamentalist Christian meth lab bosses? And what could these “climate assessors” even do? The e-mail sent out about their visit, we have all seen. You sent it to us this past week during Spring Break to review and comment. You pointed out to us that the e-mail makes it clear from the beginning that this visit is “not an investigation” and is “not a compliance Inspection” and that there will be no “final report”. So why would any of us risk our necks to talk to them? If you have cancer, why would you talk to a dentist who can listen to you nicely but can’t do a thing. What can these “climate assess” people then do? How can they be made to understand how so many of us are afraid of “outting” the overwhelming fundamentalist Christian meth labbers?. If those many of us who have turned to you and the MRFF for help do not speak to them, who will be left to do it? It’s so bad here, Mr. Weinstein, that only the MRFF can be talked to about it. Because we can open up and vent to you and you only. It was my dad, the USAFA graduate, who suggested that I and the others call you over Spring Break. Talk to our chain of command? Talk to the JAGs, the chaplains, the IG and others and you risk talking to one of the meth lab bosses. Lt. General Gould says he wants us to talk to him as well. But my AOC has told me what Lt. General Gould thinks about you and MRFF and those that ask MRFF for help instead of USAFA, so that’s out. Is Gould a meth lab boss? We don’t know who is and who isn’t one here? I didn’t know that my instructor was one, for sure, until 4 days after our “little talk” when he gave me some prepared written material from The Navigators and campus Crusade for Christ and “welcomed” me to talk to him about it ” a little later when I had time”. I haven’t yet. But now that I’m just back from Spring Break, I am considering it to repair the damage done before. And as I said, if the meth lab bosses find out that we’re talking to MRFF we’re done. They’ll view us as disloyal to The USAFA Cause for ratting them out. You do not survive here if the meth lab finds out you’re not a meth lover and that you don’t agree that the meth is The Reason to live on earth.

Sir, you asked me what I and the others thought needed to be done to try to fix this meth lab of fundamentalist Christianity? I am not sure, but there are two things; education about the religious boundaries regarding proselytizing under the USAF regs and the Constitution and enforcement for anyone found violating it. None of either of these things are here now. The meth lab bosses will tell you they teach us about the Constitution’s religious boundaries and that violators are punished. I’ve been here for enough years to know that they don’t do either and that they do not even want to do either. The Meth Lab is too strong and hides too well (and says that it does not even exist!) and those we might try to complain to may be the very enforcers of it themselves. Welcome to the USAF Academy Meth Lab of the fundamentalist Christian religion.

Sir, thank you and the MRFF for letting me express my fears and the fears of the other cadets I am speaking for and for being there when noone else is. And for not “judging” us for not standing up and identifying ourselves to the Academy or anyone else.

(name, Cadet Class Year and Cadet Squadron withheld)