"God's Basic Training" coming Under Fire

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,158531,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl

"The warriors pose for the camera in a group shot - some holding their weapons in one hand and their holy book in another.

Elsewhere, a poster bears a quotation calling for the killing of enemy leaders and forcing the defeated people to convert.

If you think the images come from Islamic fundamentalist training camps in remote regions of the Middle East you'd be wrong."

SNIP

This is scary as shit and it isn't from some left wing rag, it's from Military.com, an on-line magazine about what's going on in our armed forces.

there is no cure for what this country has.

flies and those flies pollute everything without shame. you would never find huckleberry or any of the others having their pictures with these guys but they are responsible for them feeling good enough that they can come out from under their rocks. it will take the total sum of the scorn of every good person left to drive them back underground. that is what it took to get Jim Crow defeated and that is what it is going to take to get this defeated.

Who else is going to fight this farce of a war but true believers?

where does Mannthrax Coultercaust stand on the al Qaeda assassination in Pakistan?

to ask during her next book tour.

Remember, the troops are to act like they are in "Theater" i.e. as in Combat. This means they carry they weapons and can do what they want if NOT on duty. if they want to form a religious group they can. If they want to form a drinking group they can (Through they better be sober by the time they go back on duty).

Now they is always a question as to such independent action, how much is from the unit. In studies from WWII it was found that the number one reason men did NOT desert they unit was do to NOT wanting to leave they fellow soldiers in their unit down. The Criminal punishment were a minor concern. The military has always recognize this and try to get the men to do things together. Go to the Bars together, go to mess together, see the local girls together, go the local whore house together etc. Notice the key is togetherness. Men want to below to a group, and once they are in that group, that group becomes the most important thing to them. Men will sacrifice themselves to keep their group safe. Thus the low desertion rate among solders who have been together for a while (and the low objection of the men in such a group to whatever the group does, for example going to church AS A GROUP, if that is what the group as a whole wants).

i go into the above because in many ways that is the problem. Is this something the men want to do on their own (which includes doing it as a Group) or is it something the group is doing because it wants to force its members to do the act? The former is complete legal, the later is borderline legal (IS a higher command forcing the group to go or is the group forcing its member to go for if they do NOT go they will be rejected by the group?). If higher command is forcing the group to go, then it is illegal, but if the group, as a whole, is forcing its members to go on the grounds they will be rejected by the group, that is legal as long as the rejected member is still given his rights as s Servicemen of his rank. This later concept is hard to pin down, when is the act,as a member of a group, no longer voluntary? If it is voluntary it is legal, if not illegal. The problem is when the act, like going to church together, is viewed by the members of the group as something required to be in good standing with the group.

Yes, this is a difficult area of the law, given the nature of the military (i.e. the Group is more important then the individual). AS written this is legal, but I can see it being abused.

Instead of ignoring so much of the cute little prop they seem to like so much? I mean, how does "serve one another in love" square with murder and forced conversion? Or are they a little more selective about what parts of the Bible they like?

they do ... and often with the same woman ...

Most have no idea what they are talking about, others are just bragging. I have heard of squads all coming down with VD because all of them used the same woman, but that is rare (But not unheard of, but then when I was in, the Army had a saying "If the Army wanted you to have a wife, the army would have issued you one". Then you find out that that Army will PAY you extra if you have a wife and Children (Thus for all practical purposes the Army DOES everything JUST short of issuing you a Wife, the Army leave one small detail up to the soldier, i.e the actual woman who is your wife is up to you).

I once discussed the History of "Washer-Woman" in the US Army. Under Custom from the Dark ages, till Congress passed a Statute abolishing them in the late 1880s, every twenty men were assigned one washer-woman. 20 men was a pre-WWI Platoon (The Size of Army units expanded during WWI and to a lesser degree WWII). Each such Platoon (I am discussing pre-1880 platoons) had one Sergeant and one Washer-Woman. There are many Right wingers who think these Washer-Woman were "Camp Followers", they were NOT. Washer-Woman received Pay and were IN the Camp, they did NOT follow the Camp. In most units (but not all) the Sergeant and the Washer-woman tended to be man and wife (So you would be a fool to even make such a proposal, your Sargent would have a good reason make your life miserable). In many (but not all) Regular Army units (More than units raised for just one Conflict) this may be multi-generational. The Washer-women NOT only were the Platoon Sergeants wives, they were the First Sergeant's Daughters or Daughters in law.

My point is such women in the unit were NEVER whores. Whores were outside the Camp (and sometime inside but in well known locations). Right Wingers see Women in the Army and can only think of Whores, and these women were NOT. They were part of providing unity of mission to the member of the Platoon, making sure the members of the Platoon did things together, so they thought the unit first and themselves second.

The best example was the 1850s case where a Ship full of Soldiers was sinking on its way to India. The crew of the Ship abandoned ship. The Army unit, finding out that most of the Lifeboats were unsafe stood at attention when they officers said "Women and Children First". This was the first time that cry has ever been heard on the high seas. The washer-Women and their Children were able to get on the life boars, the soldiers, Officers and Enlisted went down with the Ship (The crew of the ship also escaped. Off American about the same time another ship went down with only the crew surviving. Since these two sinkings occurred within months of each other, they were always compared and after the 1850s "Women and Children First" became the Order. Thus "Women and Children First" came from soldiers protecting their units Washer-Women.

First if this is VOLUNTARY by the people involved it is legal, to forbid it would be a violation of the Free exercise of Religion clause of the First Amendment.

At the same time, you have "group think" in the military, as people think alike and this is ENCOURAGED in the Military. The problem is when does an act done by a group cease being a Voluntary Act and becomes a mandatory act? Especially when NO LEGAL PUNISHMENT IS EVEN MENTIONED? Do you want to be the only man out of your Squad, when EACH OF YOU DEPEND ON EACH OTHER? How do you build TRUST in someone who does NOT show he trusts you? To build Trust you do things together, and that is where the problem is. When Religious participation is one by one, there is no problem, but the Military is noted for acting as a group. If one is NOT a full member of that group how can the others in the group trust you? How can you get them to trust you? The answer is by doing things together. One of those things is Religion. In fact, since religion is internal to each person, it is more powerful way to unite a group. Religion (And this is ANY religion, including Communism and other "religions" that reject the existence of God) brings people together by providing a common theme in their lives. This is how religion is used within the Military (Especially in Combat units).

The real issue is NOT that Religion is being used, it has always been used that way, but under the First is this the Free exercise of Religion? If the act is Voluntary it is covered by the First amendment, if it is NOT it is forbidden by the First. The problem is when is something voluntary and when it is not? The Second question when does something cross the line?? When does something that is voluntary become involuntary? That is something we have to watch, but we need clear evidence of such unconstitutional forced Involuntary Religious participation.

And that is, why is it these clowns -- out of all the bonding experiences available to them -- have to settle on fucking around with the Bible, making my life harder?

If you dislike it, there is NOT much you can do about it. The First Amendment not only forbids Government encouragement of Religion it also FORBIDS anything that interferes with the Free Exercise of Religion. The troops here are using their right to exercise religion, that is protected under the First Amendment. If the troops all agree it is constitutional. As long as no one is forcing any one member to join the group, in this exercise of religion, it is Constitutional. HOW a group of people "bond" is up to that group. If they choose religion, as long as no force is used to get people to join the religion, it is legal. The issue is, given the nature of being in the Army, when does act like this cross the line from voluntary to involuntary activities? It is a hard to determine and the real question regarding this activity.

Of course there's not much I can do about it. That's why I wish they'd either choose something else to bond over, or actually crack a Bible once in a while (or at least get off their favorite masturbatory "smiting" passages for a change), because for it makes life harder for someone who has a more inclusive (shall we say) interpretation of the Christian Testament.

I don't give a flying fig about the troubles the Army might have in monitoring or policing voluntary versus involuntary activities. I just wish that whatever these guys are doing in the name of unit cohesion didn't get the cross and the flag tangled up. They're two separate masters, and Jesus had some very definite assertions about a person serving two masters.

You know WHY they are doing this, don't you?

:wow:

... gang members and illegal immigrants, who get amnesty in return for killing. The U.S. military is pretty much a soul-sucking death machine, and are pretty flexible about who they use to do the killing.