Aug 23, 2010 -- 11:53AM, mountain_man wrote:

Aug 23, 2010 -- 11:40AM, Erey wrote:

...That said, an awful lot of people, including military love a good christian music concert.

They can enjoy them all they want - on their own time. To punish a soldier for not attending is just plain wrong, unAmerican, and should be dealt with in the most severe manner.

This is an issue on which Mountain-man and I are in total agreement. My policy in every unit I commanded was that soldiers must be able to observe their faith and mingle, share things, pray with co-religionists as much as they wished as long as it never interfered with their duties, and that off duty religious events, etc., were fine and supported, and in general NOT cared about one way or the other. But my policy also was that soldiers who wanted no part of anything religious would never be 'bothered' by anything religious... and that it was fine for soldiers to switch back and forth... observe when they felt like it... not observe when they didn't want to... and anything remotely smelling like coercion either way by any of my junior officers of my NCOs was a fast way to get me more than a little pissed! The few occasions when I had a fundamentalist minded officer or NCO under my command always resulted in a private talk, and in the one instance when the particular man (a first lieutenant) wasn't able to get the message, I had him transfered, and arranged for him to NOT be in a position where he was actually leading troops. And the OER  (officer's efficiency report) wrote on him effectively ended is career. I didn't object in the slightest to his religious beliefs (very evangelical protestant something or other). What bothered me and made him unfit to be an officer in my opinion (and that of the reviewer of the OER who endorsed my comments) was that this officer could not leave his religious beliefs where they belonged, and that was off duty and private.

I am personally opposed to holding large scale religious events on any military base. Doing something as pat of worship services iIn a chapel is fine. Of post is fine. I'm also opposed to senior officers, and by that I mean those commanding battalions on up, as in lieutenant colonels up through flag rank, doing anything to promote their religion to soldiers on post. Again, off post and off duty and OUT of uniform is fine. But, making sure that soldiers who wish to pray together, or have fellowship meetings together, particularly in combat zones, MUST be both approved and facilitated. I had no problem with this.

Ken