For Blank and Country

According to Yahoo News, Jeremy Hall, a soldier in the US, is miffed that he got passed up from promotion, saying the reason he didn't get a new set of chevrons is because he wanted to hold atheist meetings while in Iraq. Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation are now suing the military, and have included Defense Secretary Robert Gates as a defendant.

So much for sleeping with the general's daughter or bombing Hanoi to end the war in Nam. Those are decent excuses for not getting a promotion. Atheist meetings? Talk about dull days in the military.

An attorney that brought the suit said, "It shouldn't matter if one is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist. In the military, all are equal and to be considered equal."

Not exactly Full Metal Jacket: "If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit. Because I am hard you will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here [insert racial bigotry labels]. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved Corps. Do you maggots understand that?"

Hall didn't receive Hartman's classic piece of motivational speaking. Instead, Hall says that his platoon sergeant told him that not praying with his troops or being able to put aside his personal convictions would be detrimental to leading his men.

If his platoon sergeant really said that, then I have a sneaking suspicion that Hall was not merely an atheist, but a loud-mouth one at that. And his platoon sergeant is absolutely correct. Leading men in battle might be a little easier if you weren't known as the NCO that says things like, "Boys, if you get shot, it's all over. Gomez, put away that Bible. That worthless pack of lies won't save your soul, because you don't have one to begin with. All right, let's synchronize watches."

A while back I read a piece by Ben Stein asking when the US had become an atheist country. Overnight, it seemed that religion (read, Christianity) had taken a nose dive and that it was now uncool to pray. I'm not one way or the other about praying, but I can see why the military would take an interest. The military is only concerned with two things: following orders, and winning. Having someone leading men who are going to die, while at the same time holding meetings that tell the same men their death will have no hereafter, is not exactly a pep talk.

Still, Hall has found the answer: he is going to plead in the biggest church in the USA. The courthouse.