You are wrong.
They did not care what I put on my tags. I wish I still had them because I think I put “other” LOL. Honestly, though, I don’t remember. None of this was an issue under anyone I served under at any time.
I enlisted in 1981. I actually asked my recruiter about the oath – telling him that I was an atheist. He told me to swear along with everyone else, but just shut my mouth when the “under God” was spoken. This worked for me as it was exactly the method I used (and still use) to pledge the flag – I say the whole thing, but am silent for the “under God.” My boot camp company didn’t have an evening prayer of any kind and church attendence was not mandatory. Nor were we ever told to “go to church or join a working party.” Of course, in boot camp they never just let you sit around – you’re always doing something. So, the fact that you’d be given a duty of some type if you stayed back from church was pretty obvious. And the Sunday-morning duties weren’t especially arduous or punishing. I ended up going to services about half the time, just to get out of the barracks. As for my dogtag, when they made it they asked my religion, I told them I was an atheist and they put down “no religious preference.” Close enough, I felt, since the point of having a religious preference on the tag in the first place is to get you the proper variety of chaplain, if you are too wounded to ask for one. One more thing, I was at a veterans cemetary recently – visiting the grave of my grandfather, a WWI vet – and I noticed a placard with religious symbols that could, if one chose, be engraved on the standard headstone. They had a whole range of symbols – including one for atheists. IIRC, it was an atomic symbol with a ‘A’ in the middle. Ah, here’s a cite. It’s an Adobe thingie and the list of available symbols is on the last page (page 4). Anyway, I saw a couple of graves with the atheist symbol there at Fort Rosecrans and, since then, at other veterans cemetaries… never a lot, but there’re always a few.
Cool! If I weren’t going to be cremated, I’d have one of those atom thingies on my grave!
Oddly, the symbol for “Native American Church of America” appears to be three corndogs being fed into a funnel, the Mormons’ is a silhouette of Bix Beiderbecke, and the “Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints” is a scene from The Wizard of Oz . . .
Alternatively, you could read the DD Form 4 and see where it says you have the option of affirming.
Basic: Fort McClellan, AL, 1985. No organized prayers outside chapel, chapel attendance was addressed matter of factly thru the “you are ALWAYS on detail if you’re around the platoon area” principle.
That atomic-looking symbol wth an A in the middle and the bottom missing is the official symbol for American Atheists, Inc.. This was the organization that Madalyn Murray O’Hair was the most prominent figure in, until she was abducted and (presumably) murdered.
I don’t have to tell you you’re wrong. Joseph McCabe has already done that job for me:
Not to mention that our own John Corrado is on record here as having once shared a foxhole with an atheist. (I’m not going to strain the hamsters; look it up if you won’t take my word!)
This is actually a really good idea. Even if you’re not personally religious, it doesn’t hurt to observe.
Was there more than one type of service available, or was it pretty generic?
As I recall from the Jacksonville military processing center in 1998, there was a pre-oath explanation by the person giving the oath, explaining that there was an alternate phrase you could use, and then carrying out the oath in the next room (Where family members were allowed to photograph and such).
They probably skipped the pre-oath instructions for the news show. FTR, we had choices of the various services we could go to, including Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and (General)Christian. If you didn’t go you got to sit on your butt in the barracks and read/ sleep. Lots of the devout were sacked out during church time.
I solemnly affirmed when I joined the Canadian army; no bible, no God references, no problem.
I’ve been roped into conversations with chaplains over the years and was given a pocket-size New Testament. Although I’m a stone-cold atheist, I’m also Canadian and thus genetically programmed to be polite, so I never kicked up a fuss.
Americans love kicking up fusses, I’ve noticed.
—Our company commander in boot camp made it a requirement to attend chapel on Sundays. He told those who weren’t religious to choose a service, go, sit quietly and learn about the faiths that their fellow sailors have.—
—This is actually a really good idea. Even if you’re not personally religious, it doesn’t hurt to observe.—
Yes, it is nearly as charming as how Native Americans were put in schools to quietly learn how to be white (unfortunately, white kids for some reason were at that time never asked to sit quietly to learn about Native American culture, much less to take on that culture).
In other words, it IS great to learn about the observances of others. But in this case, it sounds like just an ad hoc and condescending way to brush off problems raised by the fact that the system was never designed to tolerate difference.
Air Force Basic Training winter of '94-'95. We didn’t have to go sunday services. It was suggested. Everybody went the first week or two. By the 6th week 2/3rds of our flight was sleeping the sunday away in our bunks during service.
I went through basic training in '85 and skipped chapel most of the time. I wasn’t the only one - there were usually three or four others. We had a little cleaning to do, which we got out of the way quickly so that we could get some precious slack time.
If I recall correctly, we had a choice of Jewish, Protestant, Catholic and a few others.
Here’s the current schedule for Lackland AFB’s Chapel Services.
And I always had the option to substitute “affirm” for “swear” and to omit “so help me God.” The military is old-fashioned in a lot of ways, but we are pretty serious about respecting religious rights, including the right to opt out.
difference of this degree, I mean. And things may well be very different from when DtC was there. And, he is, after all, a cynic.
You betcha! If I couldn’t kick up a fuss, I’d curl up and die.
But they forgot the one for Scientology: $
Because it explicitly calls upon God to “empower” the oath. It is swearing by God. This is prohibited by Scripture. Whosoever does it does so in violation of Christ’s command.
Of course, if Christ’s sommands mean nothing to you, then that won’t be a big deal.
Yes, when in an “oath” situation, I have made it plain from the beginning that I would not swear upon God, a Bible, or any other thing as it was prohibited by that selfsame Bible.
I was an atheist in the army, and yes, I attended services regularly to avoid the extra work. It was a great place to relax.
I knew that affirming instead of swearing to God was an option, but I didn’t sweat the details. Seemed a silly thing to “kick up a fuss” about.
Also, even as an atheist, I always thought being a chaplain was the coolest job in the army (besides firing the big guns). Everyone loves the chaplain. He was always strolling over, passing out candy, chatting up everyone, and everyone wanted to hang out with the chaplain. He’d lunch with the commander and spend the afternoon chatting with the privates…what a life. I’m sure it sucked to deliver bad news to someone, but at least you were always helping people.
Part of our charm.