Thank you, spifflog, even though you made me cry. We are very proud of him – I’m feeling a bit emotional right now with him getting ready to leave on Wednesday. I very much appreciate the kind words.
Grease their cartridges with pork fat, and grind cow bones into the powder of Hindu troops: how do you think the Brits managed to trigger the Indian Mutiny?
*Actually it wasn’t a deliberate policy, it wasn’t widespread, and it was stopped, but a combination of blinkered pig-ignorance towards Hindu caste laws and Muslim prohibitions, together with an inexperienced officer corps who aggressively evangelised their own faith really didn’t help the perception that the Brits were out to Christianise India. The Flashman books really ought to be mandatory reading for all armies.
It depends on the severity of the offense. If there is any real grounds for the accusations leveled agains the major referenced in the OP, that’s a level of abuse of authority that calls for prosecution (and dishonorable discharge in case of conviction).
Apologies for not getting back to this sooner. It was a busy weekend for me.
Anyway, I have said before that these trends were very long-term, and have been noted by Peter Feaver of Duke University in several works in the past. It was also discussed at length by Thomas Ricks in the July 1997 Atlantic:
I have agreed above that any infractions ought to be dealt with, and that the UCMJ is more than adequate to deal with this - but I don’t think we should be at all happy that the military, and especially the officer corps, is becoming a monoculture. That’s not healthy, and I would be the first to state that even though that particular monoculture is one which has values I broadly share.
I was in the military in the 1990s, during the Clinton Administration, and noticed some of these trends firsthand. Ricks and Feaver noticed some of them around that same time, and events since 2001 haven’t made the problem much better - in fact, it is likely that the monoculture has deepened. Conservatives may have been willing to serve under Clinton, but liberals aren’t enthusiastic about serving under Bush.
I’m just not sure, Mr. Moto… My anecdotal experience just doesn’t add up to anything like a monoculture, although I don’t doubt there are some who would like to see that be the case.
While it’s definately true that the military (and my personal experience is all with the Navy) skews somewhat to the right; I’ve known plenty of sailors who were open Democrats. Now, my own active duty days were long ago (got out in 1986); and I was enlisted. But my husband just retired 6 years ago, and he spent the last 14 years of his 26 years active duty as an officer. He had shipmates scattered all along the political continuum – although there was a pronounced skew to the right in comparison to the civilian sector. No surprise there.
Kevin was an officer throughout Clinton’s term, BTW, and into Bush’s first term – there were certainly some vehement Clinton-haters among his shipmates; but there were plenty of open Clinton supporters, too. Same with Bush – some supporters, but plenty in the wardroom who thoroughly disliked him. There were frequent rousing wardroom debates about politics, but there wasn’t any opprobrium attached to the liberal folks – certainly not officially.
And, as I mentioned before, my son is active duty right now. Nick leans Libertarian himself, but does know some liberal guys, as well as some guys who lean far more to the right than he does himself. He is enlisted, and part of the medical community, which is known to have less military bearing than other communities. On the other hand, he is attached to a Marine unit and Marines have more military bearing than most, so it all levels out.
This is all anecdotal, of course, but I don’t think it’s any more so than the evidence Mr. Moto has cited.
Right. Most of the problems noted have been among the officers - the enlisted ranks are more mixed, though still skew right a little bit.
Still, I think this would tend to worsen problems like those described in the OP.
You have to register your religion when signing up for the armed forces? That’s really shocking to me. And very disturbing. What’s the stated purpose for their wanting that information? And can you refuse to answer the question?
It’s a standard form…you’ve probably filled out something similar a bunch of times and not even thought about it. IIRC it was something like ‘Religious Preference’. And you can pick ‘none’ if you want. Why do they ask? Probably the same reason large organizations ask anything…demographics information.
It’s really not that big a deal…and if you pick none it’s not like they won’t take you (again from memory that is what I picked).
-XT
Demographic, as xtisme mentions, I’m sure, and I suspect so that someone knows what kind of Last Rites/funeral to make sure the soldier has should that become necessary.
One is not required to register one’s religion when in the US Armed Forces. It’s an optional question.
They like to know how many chaplains they need to hire, and where to assign them.
Is your religious preference stamped on your dog tags? I ask because in the late fifties many high school students were issued dog tags when we thought the Soviet Union and the United States would probably blow each other up. They had our names, our father’s name, our addresses, blood types, and our general religious preference. (Note the singular; everyone in my school was Protestant. We were very boring for a public school.)
The problems at the Air Force Academy were extensive and caused a major scandal that lasted several months. You should still be able to find information on it by googling. I do remember that part of it involved a chaplin – a woman, I think. I think she was actually one of the victims.
Ding! Ding! Ding! And we have a wiiiiiiiinnnnnnner!
Yes. Mine say Methodist. This was before my conversion turned me into one of those Papists. 
That is a truly stupid statement. are you saying because you disapprove of Mailer lifestyle he can never be right. Is the corollary ,that your superior life style and values mean you can never be wrong.
Debate the subject and do not be a jerk.
I have not been to Iraq yet but we are getting ready to go. Trying to push your religion on Iraqis is a court martial offense. It is in the general order for those deployed to Iraq (somewhere between no alcohol and no porn).
I have been in the army for 19 years, both active and national guard. I have never seen this. I have always felt that there is too much religion in the military but that usually consisted of the chaplain saying a prayer before an event or mission. Most chaplains make it very nondenominational. The ones I can’t stand push their own agenda and religion. I have seen many Mormons in the army. I have never seen them harassed. I have seen many non evangelical Christians and I have never seen them harassed. Most (a very large majority) of those in the army that I have dealt with are not religious at all. Maybe not atheist but they don’t go to church. I have never seen anyone pushed into becoming religious or towards going to a specific church. The last time I was told it would be a good idea to go to church was in Basic Training and that was only because they couldn’t fuck with you there. If you stayed in the barracks on Sunday morning they might find something for you to clean.
Chaplains (in the US military, at least) are not supposed to be trying to convert the members of the military.
That’s true to an extent - but if a servicemember expresses a desire on his own to convert, the chaplain should facilitate this to the maximum degree possible.
I started to explore becoming a Catholic while I was still in the Navy, and chaplains of various stripes - Protestant and Catholic both - were very helpful in getting me any information I requested.
Chaplains are there to provide for the religious needs of servicemembers, and if that need includes conversion in an individual case, they have to provide for that as well. I don’t know of too many people who would find a problem with this.
The Religious Tolerance website has a good “detailed but concise” explanation of the charges and complaints at the Air Force Academy beginning in about 2004. There were at least fifty complaints which resulted in a rewritten policy for the entire Air Force.
There was only one complaint at the Naval Academy and none at West Point. I am left to wonder why this happened at just the Air Force Academy. I’m young enought to still think of it as “the new academy.” This is certainly a different place from the one where friends of mine graduated in the mid 1960s.
What is scarey to me is that the rewritten policy – which seems beautifully in line with our Constitution – was criticized by a well known leader of the religious right. That left me puzzled. What the hell does he want?
If you’ll look at my post above, you’ll find that the problem predated 2004 by a considerable degree.
Could a “Hail Mary” work as a cadence?