You are quite right about the establishment of religion. I did fail to mention in my initial comment that it didn't matter which service (Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim) they went to, that was up to the individual, just so long as they went to something.

Um, still unconstitutional. If they're being told that "it doesn't matter what religion you belong to, so long as you belong to a religion," this is overtly discriminatory with regard to non-members and is a violation of their 1st amendment rights.

We as Americans might not like that there are atheists and agnostics in our midst, but that does not confer the right of any government institution to insist that they pick something or be treated differently than those who have.

At the time, the Academy had 6 chaplains: 3 mainline Protestants, 2 priests, and 1 rabbi. They were pastoral types with no recruiting coercive agenda by any faith. The Academy now has these same 6 positions PLUS 12 additional evangelical preachers (a 300% increase with much smaller cadet wing)-plus 25 evangelical reserve chaplains assigned to the Academy. During the orientation of 04 I attended, Chaplain Watties, side by side with 10 evangelical chaplains chanting amen’s and alleluias (not one mainline protestant or priest or rabbi was allowed to be present at the orientation reported by the exec officer) boasted of having half the cadet wing attend bible studies on Monday nights in the dormitories and challenging the new appointees to increase these numbers. The Yale Report (Yale Divinity School) after observing that summer's basic training stated the overt and strident evangelical themes from senior officer down were divisive and destructive. I know of no other federal or state institution that has this many chaplains, nor can afford such--one assigned to every sports team. None of this existed when I was a cadet, nor was there over coercive pressure from senior commanders or the chaplains staff. The base newspaper did not in the 60's print advertisements signed by half of the Academy staff and leadership stating that Jesus is the only true answer. When media pressure was brought to bare on these issues, DOD IG Joe Schmitz sent LtGen Brady, an evangelical, to investigate. The lack of accountability by the DOD IG, Joe Schmitz, a Christian Supremacist (read Blackwater) in giving Gens Boykin, Weida, Catton, Caslen, Sutton, Brooks, and others a pass leads straight to the top. Please google and observe the "Christian Embassy Video". Note Boykins connection to torture and rendition, Gitmo, and Abu Graib. Joe Schmitz is now an exec at Blackwater.

I suggest you read the “Little Blue Book” Code of Ethics written in 1997 after several egregious violations. In part, and in the same section with sexual predation, it states:

. Military professionals must remember that religious choice is a matter of individual conscience. Professionals, and especially commanders, must not take it upon themselves to change or coercively influence the religious views of subordinates.

I do find these egregious violations "outrageous” and unconstitutional—“amusing” not at all—and not related at all to your anecdotal stories about officer’s clubs and drinking.

The Supreme Court outlawed mealtime prayers decades ago, along with mandatory chapel. The military and our government has always been secular. “God and country” perhaps, but not a coercive “Born again, evangelical, dominionist God and country!” being pushed by senior military flag officers.

David Antoon
Colonel USAF Retired

This may be something new, and may be something that fits more with one service than the other, or it may be some changes with Iraq being in the picture.

Your 1st Sgt also used a specious argument about getting them away from the DIs. The only way he could do that was to deny the DIs the opportunity to attend services of their choice.

Your original instincts at the time were, indeed, correct.

It may make sense, but it is still clearly a violation of the 1st Amendment clause about the establishment of religion. By demanding attendance at church services, he was establishing the Christian religion as a part of the Marine Corps.

You are quite right about the establishment of religion. I did fail to mention in my initial comment that it didn't matter which service (Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim) they went to, that was up to the individual, just so long as they went to something.

As for other ways to separate recruits from DI's...no there aren't. But that is a discussion for another time.

It may make sense, but it is still clearly a violation of the 1st Amendment clause about the establishment of religion. By demanding attendance at church services, he was establishing the Christian religion as a part of the Marine Corps. There are other ways to separate the grunts from the DIs for 1 1/2 hours a week w/o violating the Constitution.

It’s quite likely that there are simply numerous isolated incidents taking place where real or perceived pressure is being applied.

That becomes systemic, though, when the command knows about the proliferation of isolated incidents and doesn't do anything about it (which could be as simple as reminding people in command positions to permit free exercise, etc.)

Things are certainly more "strait and narrow" these days than when I came in, in 1988. For instance as was noted above alcohol consumption was condoned and in some cases encouraged (certainly via peer pressure anyway) back in the very early 90's but by 1995 that had pretty much changed. Alcohol abuse started being identified and dealt with earlier. Profanity at least in public settings (around civilians or when addressing formations) is looked upon as being "unprofessional" (rightly so I think) but I've never been told that I was being "unchristian" for using it.

When I was a drill instructor at MCRD, San Diego from 1995 - 1997, the drill instructors of my company were instructed to make sure the recruits go to church on Sunday. I, being a paralegal before drill instructor duty, immediately spoke up and informed the group that you can't force someone to go to church. I was immediately informed by the 1stSgt, in a way that only 1stSgt can do, that he wasn't sending them to church to get religion in fact he could care less about them getting religion. He wanted them to go so that the recruits could get away from the drill instructors for 1 1/2 hours. The only time during a given week that they didn't have a drill instructor around. It makes sense.

I have had to deal with one situation where someone was clearly crossing the line in mixing military service and religion. When I was in Okinawa in 2002, I came out of a resteraunt to find a sailor in uniform standing outside the entrance passing out religious pamphlets from an offbase church. Looking at her rating insignia I noticed that she was not a religious programmer (chaplain's assistant) so I asked her why she was passing out religious pamphlets in uniform. She informed me that she didn't know she couldn't. I then informed that "now she knew" and directed her to leave. She left.

On the whole I haven't seen religion getting pushed on me or any of the Marines I've lead over the years. My experience though has been in the enlisted ranks. It may be entirely different within the officer ranks.

Those who are really concerned about “evangelical Christians” playing too prominent a role in our military and who don't hold those views themselves should join the military and/or encourage their kids or people they know who hold other beliefs to join the military. It's an honorable profession.

I'm not making a chickenhawk argument, merely the obvious observation that if those who join the military are preponderantly evangelical Christians, the beliefs of evangelical Christians will be prominent in the military. If there's a problem there, the way to solve it is to have people with diverse beliefs in the military, not to suppress the beliefs of those who are willing to serve.