Ed Brayton at Dispatches From The Culture Wars posts an email he received from a soldier in Iraq -- of which this is a portion:
One of our members, a young Atheist enlisted soldier, thought he would like to see if he could generate some interest in [Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers] meetings at his Forward Operating Base (FOB) here in Iraq (not the base I'm at, by the way). He got things coordinated and started hanging flyers, and after weeks of having to re-hang his flyers almost daily because some vandal kept tearing them down, he finally succeeded in having a small MAAF meeting. I wasn't there because the meeting wasn't on my FOB, but I knew he was holding it and was expecting to hear from him after the meeting. Keep in mind that this young soldier did everything right - he went through the Chaplain's office and jumped through all the hoops it takes to legally hold meetings that are religiously or philosophically based. Four soldiers attended this meeting - all of them very junior enlisted soldiers with the exception of one Major (an O-4), who claimed to be a "freethinker".
Well, to make a very long story a little shorter, the Major turned out to be a fundamentalist Christian who verbally berated the other attendees, accused them of plotting against Christians and disrespecting soldiers who have died protecting the Constitution, and threatened them with punishment under the UCMJ for their activities (said they were "going down") and said he would do whatever it took to shut the meetings down. Keep in mind that by this point, he had two of the attendees (one soldier fled when the shouting started) standing at the position of attention so that he could yell at them, berate them, and humiliate them. This apparently went on for several minutes at which time the Major shut down the meeting by saying he wasn't some "push-over Chaplain" and that he would not tolerate the meetings to continue.
This antiamerican asswipe has got a lot of balls berating these soldiers about the damned Constitution. It might help if he put down his Bible and read the Constitution for once in his life -- he might learn a little bit about religious freedom. The emailer says that they'll file a complaint, but with the state of the military today, don't expect it to go anywhere.
This is the America these treasonous bastards want, where religious freedom means you're free to worship Republican Jesus or shut the hell up.
Screw them. I don't care who this Major is or what the hell he's done over there, he's forfeited the word 'hero.' 'Freedom-hating steaming pile' is a more accurate description.
