Thanks for sharing it.

for nothing. I found chaplains particularly useless.

When I was in the Air Force I and many others found the chaplains very useful. Go somewhere else with your hate and bitterness.

regardless of how you personally feel about the concept of religion, this country will never be "religious free."

Christian military. The controversy at the Air Force Academy is being caused religious bigotry and hatred being pushed by the evangelicals who insist that the Bible is the only way and gays are evil.

What about Muslims, Jews, etc.? Because plenty of them and people of many other faiths are in the military too. I think they and everybody else has a right to practice their religion in the military.

I have no problem with military chaplains being available for those troops who choose to seek out their services.

But the military has changed since I served. The religion of a trooper never came up and no one was coerced when I served the problem now is the pseudo Christians are trying to convert or intimidate people. None of my company or unit commanders ever mentioned THEIR religion. The subject never came up.

It is very different today. We have generals who go to their churches in uniform pushing their religion. I expect people to keek their "dumb ass religion" to themselves. If I am interested I will ask or seek it myself.

I agree that from all reports, there's a lot of proselytizing going on, but that's separate from what the chaplains are doing.

If anything, a well-regulated and moderate chaplaincy could act as a counter-weight to the freaky stuff that's going on. Eliminating chaplains won't eliminate the problem and could actually make it worse.

The nature of the military means that it is not always possible or easy for troops to decide to visit some church on a whim.

Perhaps a reminder not to coerce or push religion is all that it is needed.

But it's a long tradition.......

Even the Nazis had chaplains in the military in WW II.

Oops! Maybe that wasn't a very good argument for chaplains in the military.

A very large majority of our military personnel state a religious preference. It's even on their dogtags. Since they are subject to being sent to remote places, even within the US, their desire for religious worship should be answered by supplying chaplains to tend to their religious beliefs, whatever they may be.

I say this as one of the first, if not the first to have USAF dogtags that listed "Atheist" as my religion. That was a hard-fought battle back in 1965, when I enlisted. I was assisted in having that designation officially on my dogtags by a Jewish chaplain at Lackland AFB, where I had basic training.

When my request was denied several times, I asked him if he would help me with this, and he stepped right in and argued my case with both my training company commander and the base commander at Lackland. I met that Jewish chaplain when I began attending services. At Lackland, not attending services meant doing KP instead. So I attended services. After discussing my desire to have my lack of religious beliefs stated on my dogtags, he saw my logic and took up my situation.

Just before finishing basic training, a proper set of dogtags with the word "atheist" on the Religion line was delivered to me by that Jewish chaplain. In the military, chaplains handle the religion-related issues of the troops, even for those who are atheists. They perform a valuable service.

If we're asking our young men and women to accept the possibility of dying for their country, the least we can do if offer them a way of coping with that possibility.

Of course, I would also say that religion (Christianity) doesn't need to be as ubiquitous as it is in the military, and that religious tolerance should be promoted more than it currently is.

you can't reasonably expect that individual soldiers who have religious faith should just give it up; for those who have such faith, provisions for ministering to it are reasonable. There is no requirement that one attend religious services in the military. On the other hand, there are Catholic and Protestant and Orthodox and Jewish and Muslim chaplains in the US military; it's not an establishment of religion or enforcement of it, just recognition of it (and providing for the spiritual needs of service members). I don't see anything wrong with it, personally (and I'm an atheist).

There are officers who are actively and openly pushing their religion right now. As ex military I can see the difference and the RW religionists are pushing their Christian soldier agenda. Your version is now fantasy when it comes to the service academies. Right now there is a major demonstration against the Focus On The Family types who has been given far too much access to that institution. We have had intimidation problems there for a number of years now. In fact the Focus On The Family headquarters is just south of the Academy entrance. It is no secret that they have infiltrated the officer corp at the Academy. And the General in charge has NOT addressed the religious intimidation and bigotry that exists there right now.

This problem has existed for a number of years now and has to be stopped. If the general will address the situation he should be removed. And if he is a Christian and biased then there is more reason to do so.

Religion has NO place in the public forum as it exists now. I was raised Catholic and the cardinal rule was to keep your religion to yourself. It is a private matter and should stay that way unless you are in a religious school or church.

A person has the right to "freedom from religion" in the public sector. If you don't like abortion and birth control don't have one and don't use it. If we are going to have prayer then in public every religion should have an invocation.

Chain of command and UCMJ. The AFA has many serious problems that need to be addressed, but those problems are not structural. They're the result of individual corruption (in the sense of spoilage, not bribery) and a crony group that violates both the letter and the spirit of the military. The Academy needs a thorough cleaning and an audit as the first step.

I am nontheist, lived in the Springs for years and a mil brat. The chaplain's service serves a captive audience. During deployment, a service member can't just go to the private sector clergy. (We provide chaplains for prisoners for the same reason.) Further, counsel provided by the chaplains is confidential, UNLIKE psychological counseling. If a service member and spouse are having a problem and go to the chaplain for help mediating or negotiating, that does not enter the service member's record. If that same member and spouse go to psychological counseling, that is entered into their record and may be used against them. Chaplains are charged to provide grief and social support to all members REGARDLESS of religion. The AFA's chaplains are violating their orders and need to be disciplined.

We need more chaplains, including more humanist, nontheist and pagan chaplains.

For many of the poorest people in the world, the only taste they receive of American breed Christian charity and empathy is the barrel of a gun.
If anyone should want Jesus out of the military, it should be Christians, don't ya think?

I was fortunate to become a company clerk when I was with a combat unit in Vietnam. We had records of all of our troops who came through the company and battalion. A religion of preference was noted in their personnel file. We had that information and giving it was voluntary. That was because we would notify the proper chaplain for a soldier who needed one or requested one.

Outside of just having the information religion never came up. Unless I looked it up I never knew who believed in what. And when we went on operations there was not a prayer call. And we did not split people up for prayers. There were no chapels on our bases. That was true on any base I was on.

During the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars there are videos of prayer before operations. We never had religion so open in Vietnam. It was there but it was more private.

And I wonder if it wasn't pushed as a way to overcome the inability of some people to fire on command. I recall reading about a guy named Marshall would did a report in the 1920's showing that soldiers in combat were reluctant to fire their weapons, even under fire themselves.
I just read recently that the military did indeed start taking his report seriously after WW2, they set out looking for new and better ways to make soldiers more willing to pull the trigger.
Maybe they have found that as part of this programming, teaching soldiers a new doctrine, one in which Christ is a warrior and that they are chosen as his disciples on this earth to free the unclean from sin helps quell some of the inner doubts they may have had in the WW1 days. Or even your days, which I am sure was a quite different boot camp experience than WW2.
They could have worked wonders on Sgt.York today.

I do see the need for chaplains.

When you send somebody to die for the rich 1%, they do it more willingly if they think there's a reward waiting for them

Like the absurd promises of some other religions.

And your post brings up a brutal truth. Our troops are dying to protect the rich who are using the country for their own piggy bank. Most vets coming home have no where to go to work. And the GOP is cutting the government and laying off a lot of military veterans in the process.

The largest church in Colorado Springs was purposefully built facing one of the runways of the Air Force Academy... scary shit.

People worship. And our armed forces are often overseas, (or on-ship) in places that don't accommodate their faith. I see no issue with there being ministerial services provided for worshipers in our military, or to perform rites as needed.

Influence in the military structure and policy, I have no argument with you about.

A person who isn't a pacifist isn't a Christian.