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Stars and Stripes - September 16, 2007
Muslims in military say ‘everybody belongs’
Many troops in Pacific say their faith has been met with tolerance
By Jennifer H. Svan
While serving their country, they find time to pray to Allah at least five times a day.
On Fridays, they recite their Jumah prayers in community worship, whether at the Camp Foster Chapel masjid on Okinawa or at a room set aside for them in the base chapel at Misawa Air Base, Japan.
Like other members of faith groups in the minority among U.S. troops, their numbers at Pacific bases overseas are small. But their religion is center stage in the U.S.-led war against terrorism and Islamic extremism.
Things have changed for Muslim service members since Sept. 11, 2001 — not necessarily for the worse.
They get more questions from mostly curious — but sometimes sarcastic — colleagues about their beliefs, and some have searched their souls for answers on how their faith squares up with military duty in this current war.
But even as some American Muslims continue to report discrimination and other difficulties in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks, some U.S. Muslim service members in the Pacific said they haven’t experienced any collective backlash.
They said they openly practice their religion without fear of ostracism or discrimination and report few, if any, incidents of unfair treatment.
“It’s never been an issue,” said Keith Cherry, a U.S. Air Force technical sergeant with the 35th Logistics Readiness Squadron at Misawa Air Base. “I’ve always been forthright about being a Muslim.”
Cherry, 34, from Louisa, Va., recalls how the military reached out to support him after Sept. 11. He was stationed at Langley Air Force Base, Va. After the attacks, his chief enlisted manager, someone who didn’t share Cherry’s faith but often discussed religion with him, called him and said that if Cherry got so much as a bad look, “I needed to route it up to him,” Cherry recalled. “I never got any bad stares or anything.”
“We’ve got protection,” said Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sgt. Hafiz Camp, a building administrator for Marine Wing Headquarters Squadron One, First Marine Aircraft Wing, on Okinawa’s Camp Foster, and a practicing Muslim. “We’ve got equal opportunity advisers at each level of the command that closely monitor activities of discrimination. In the civilian world, it’s not that easy. It’s a very serious issue in the military, and it’s not tolerated.”….
http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=48781
Macon Telegraph – September 24, 2007
Practicing Islam can be difficult
at armed forces installations
Gene Rector
Talib M. Shareef and Rashad Abdul-Azeem see no disconnect between their Islamic faith and their jobs at Robins Air Force Base.
Certainly no mixed loyalties. No lack of purpose or focus. No argument with the mission.
Chief Master Sgt. Shareef - a 28-year veteran of the Air Force - is chief of personnel service delivery and field operations for Air Force Reserve Command. Abdul-Azeem, a civilian employee, works in the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center's critical software maintenance group.
Both are Muslim lay leaders at the Robins chapel, where about 20 military active duty members attend Friday prayer services with some frequency along with a few civilian workers and contract employees.
With the global war on terror raging against radical Islamic elements in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not easy being Muslim in America. It can be especially difficult in the military.
And suspicions can be heightened during the current month of Ramadan, a 30-day period of fasting, prayer and reflection that began Sept. 13.
Shareef, 46, is at peace with his faith and who he is. His chest bears the military distinctions of exemplary service. He sees no conflict between his faith and Air Force objectives.
"I love the Air Force. I'm dedicated, very loyal," he said. "This is home and I'm not going to allow anybody to come in here and tear it up. There is no disconnect at all for me."
Abdul-Azeem, his black beard sprinkled with gray, is in agreement. He opposes terrorism and any role played by Islamic groups.
"On a personal level, I reject it in my heart because I know that's wrong," he emphasized. "It does not represent Islam. When I see terrorism, I know it has no place in the Quran or in the authentic practice of the prophet Muhammad. It is strictly condemned and the people doing that are astray from the message of Islam - very far astray."…..
http://www.macon.com/197/story/144011.html
The Truth.Org - September 19, 2007
Pentagon sued over mandatory Christianity
by Jason Leopold
A military watchdog organization filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday against the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and a US Army major, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The suit charges the Pentagon with widespread constitutional violations by allegedly trying to force the soldier to embrace evangelical Christianity and then retaliating against him when he refused.
The complaint, filed in US District Court in Kansas City, by the nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), on behalf of Jeremy Hall, an Army specialist currently on active duty in Speicher, Iraq, alleges that Hall’s First Amendment rights were violated beginning last Thanksgiving when, because of his atheist beliefs, he declined to participate in a Christian prayer ceremony commemorating the holiday.
“Immediately after plaintiff made it known he would decline to join hands and pray, he was confronted, in the presence of other military personnel, by the senior ranking … staff sergeant who asked plaintiff why he did not want to pray, whereupon plaintiff explained because he is an atheist,” says the lawsuit, a copy of which was provided to Truthout. “The staff sergeant asked plaintiff what an atheist is and plaintiff responded it meant that he (plaintiff) did not believe in God. This response caused the staff sergeant to tell plaintiff that he would have to sit elsewhere for the Thanksgiving dinner. Nonetheless, plaintiff sat at the table in silence and finished his meal.”
Moreover, the complaint alleges that on August 7, when Hall received permission by an Army chaplain to organize a meeting of other soldiers who shared his atheist beliefs, his supervisor, Army Major Paul Welborne, broke up the gathering and threatened to retaliate against the soldier by charging him with violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The complaint also alleges that Welborne vowed to block Hall’s reenlistment in the Army if the atheist group continued to meet - a violation of Hall’s First Amendment rights under the Constitution. Welborne is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
“During the course of the meeting, defendant Welborne confronted the attendees, disrupted the meeting and interfered with plaintiff Hall’s and the other attendees’ rights to discuss topics of their interests,” the lawsuit alleges.
The complaint charges that Hall, who is based at Fort Riley, Kansas, has been forced to “submit to a religious test as a qualification to his post as a soldier in the United States Army,” a violation of Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation said Defense Secretary Robert Gates is named as a defendant in the lawsuit because he has allowed the military to engage in “a pattern and practice of constitutionally impermissible promotions of religious beliefs within the Department of Defense and the United States military.”
The lawsuit seeks an injunction against Welborne from further engaging in behavior “that has the effect of establishing compulsory religious practices” and asks that Gates prevent Welborne from interfering with Hall’s free speech rights.
Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization that seeks to enforce the law mandating the separation between church and state in the US military, said the lawsuit would be the first of many his group intends to file against the Pentagon.
“This landmark federal litigation is just the first of a galaxy of new lawsuits that will be expeditiously filed against the Pentagon in a concentrated effort to preserve the precious religious liberties guaranteed by our beautiful United States Constitution,” Weinstein said Monday. “Today, we are boldly stabbing back against an unconstitutional heart of darkness, a contagion of fundamentalist religious supremacy and triumphalism noxiously dominating the command and control of the technologically most lethal organization ever created by humankind: our honorable and noble United States armed forces.”
Weinstein, a former White House attorney under Ronald Reagan, general counsel H. Ross Perot and an Air Force Judge Advocate (JAG), has been waging a one-man war against the Department of Defense for its blatant disregard of the Constitution. He published a book on his fight: “With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military.” Weinstein is also an Air Force veteran and a graduate of the Air Force Academy. Three generations of his family have attended US military academies.
Since he launched his watchdog organization nearly two years ago months ago, Weinstein said he has been contacted by more than 5,000 active duty and retired soldiers, many of whom served or serve in Iraq, who told Weinstein that they were pressured by their commanding officers to convert to Christianity……
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/19/3954/
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