RICHMOND, Va. — The Army said Friday it was investigating a claim that dozens of soldiers who refused to attend a Christian band’s concert at a Virginia military base were banished to their barracks and told to clean them up.
At the Pentagon, Army spokesman Col. Thomas Collins said the military shouldn’t impose religious views on soldiers. “If something like that were to have happened, it would be contrary to Army policy,” Collins said.
Pvt. Anthony Smith said he and other soldiers felt pressured to attend the May concert while stationed at the Newport News base, home of the Army’s Transportation Corps. “My whole issue was I don’t need to be preached at,” Smith said in a phone interview from Phoenix, where he is stationed with the National Guard. “That’s not what I signed up for.”
Smith, 21, was stationed in Virginia for nearly seven months for helicopter electrician training when the Christian rock group BarlowGirl played as part of the “Commanding General’s Spiritual Fitness Concerts.” Smith said a staff sergeant told 200 men in their barracks they could either attend or remain in their barracks. Eighty to 100 decided not to attend, he said. “Instead of being released to our personal time, we were locked down,” Smith said. “It seemed very much like a punishment.”
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation first reported on the Christian concert. The foundation said it was approached by soldiers who were punished for not attending or offended by the religious theme of the event.
The group’s president, Mikey Weinstein, claims Christian-themed events are “ubiquitous” throughout the military, and he credited the soldiers for stepping forward.
I finally found a story I could use that pic with.
Why is Charlton Heston wearing a Kaftan and who are those lovely young women?
Another militarist liked to believe that religion was important for his soldiers. All had belt buckles with “Gott Mit Uns”
Just sayin’…
Home of the brave? Possibly. Land of the Free? Not so much.
WTF?
When I was in the Army during Vietnam, there was no pressure to attend any religious services.
One other comment: “Christian rock” is a contradiction in terms.
Some Staff S is going to be told he was bad for doing the General’s bidding and all will be forgotten.
sounds like an overblown non-issue to me. You can stay in the barracks, or go to this event. I see no “banning” in this made-up BS of a story.
Also, made up BS is posting that any Commanding Officer in the USA Military would EVER hold a “Commanding General’s Spiritual Fitness Concerts.” THAT is so stupid/un-American (from a Constitutional perspective)/ so UN-Military as to be unbelievable!!
Yea, verily.
Doesn’t sound like they were going anywhere if there wasn’t a concert. Doesn’t sound like they went anywhere if they went to the concert which appears to have been on base.
The options amounted to live Christian Rock Music tonight most likely because they were playing for free or listen to your MP3s or FM.
The and clean up your barracks while you are at was most likely a reflex by some lower ranking person who was appalled that somebody might not be using every minute “constructively”.
17 years in the Navy, never heard of such “Spiritual Fitness Concerts”. Well, Navy CO’s might be a little more apprehensive since that is the easiest job to lose.
I used to look forward to Sunday mornings in basic training. Go to church or clean the barracks. Two hours away from the DI’s. Move along nothing new to see hear except a couple of whiney asses.
Given a choice between going to a Christian Rock concert or cleaning the barracks, I’d choose cleaning the barracks.
And while I was cleaning the barracks, I’d thank God I wasn’t stuck in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Join the army, see the world, kill people.
Huffington Post has more details: http://huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/us-soldiers-punished-for-_b_687051.html including a link to a newspaper article about the concert.
Yes the Christian Taliban has infiltrated every branch of government including the military. Even arms are now provided with crusade scriptures on them.
Kudos to those military men for rejecting this bullshit and see them as true heros in defending our secular form of government.
Everyone loves Jesus but his fucking followers and their modern day Crusades need to be stopped.
ah, ft. eustis, virginia (aka: ft. uterus, vagina) when i was stationed there they would pull stunts like this all the time. one time our 1st sargent deciding he was going to hand out our paychecks. but in order to get our checks, we would have to “donate” money to some charity (cant remember which one).
the deal is, we just finished basic training (brain washing) when we reached ft. eustis, so the cadre always took advantage of our “do as you’re told” mentality. in my mind this has nothing to do with religion.
Half the soldiers didn’t go?
Probably not a punishment.
I call shenanigans. Fort Eustis is scheduled to be shut down soon. Basically all the solders are going to have to move 1 1/2 hours west to Fort Lee, I would not doubt that many of them are unhappy about this. In short moral has been low there.
When you have bad moral like this, everyone is on edge, and is basically offended by any little thing.
Should it be investigated? Sure, but do it fairly, and no witch hunts. If an officer was pressuring the enlisted to go to this, then that officer should be reprimanded, but really don’t destroy someones career over something as dumb as this. A simple counseling by a senior officer should suffice to correct the problem.
Well that is one of the aspects of volunteer military.
I see no reason to willingly join something that has the potential of leaving you dead or maimed for a pay rate that is similar to working fast food.
I turned it down when offered between ages 17-21 each and every time some yokel in a uniform came up to me. If they didn’t get fresh meat for the grinder we wouldn’t be fed baloney by our government.
They do a disservice to our nation by fighting for these old rich men that don’t want to fight themselves. Washington may have been rich and old, but at least he stuck his ass on the line.
Cursor_
#11: “Given a choice between going to a Christian Rock concert or cleaning the barracks, I’d choose cleaning the barracks.”
I was thinking the same. Sounds like those guys are complaining that they got off with far less punishment than those who chose to go along… 😛
”I finally found a story I could use that pic with.”
But Slash is a Jew.
You do what your told in the military. You have no Consitutional Rights. They could have you stand at attention in the rain for the lenght of the concert. Would you want to be on the battle field with someone who bucks orders. Enough said.
Oh, a few more things. You have no free time in the military. Your on duty 24/7/365. Instead of going to the concert you had extra training. Gee, what a bunch of cry babies in the military these days. No wonder we lose these wars.
Well, Doesn’t sound like they went anywhere if they went to the concert which appears to have been on base.
If you are dumb enough to join the military you should just suck it up when it comes to this kind of crap. It’s what you signed up for. Personally, I would rather clean the latrine than listen to a Christian “rock band”.
The Barlowgirls is just another T&A band anyway. Would have done the guys some good. They wouldn’t need to take a Playboy into the latrine stall.
What’s worse than Christian Rock? Christian Ballads. They ALL have a “Oh Jesus, even the dirt under your nails is holy *slurp**slurp**slurp*” theme.
# 4 Floyd “When I was in the Army during Vietnam, there was no pressure to attend any religious services.”
Floyd: Seems to me almost every patrol leaving our firebase was treated to a quick prayer from the chaplain. No one “forced” us but you didn’t really want to go on out ahead and wait for the others to catch up!
Guns and Jesus.
I love the idea of training people to stab others with knifes, shoot them with guns and blow them up with bombs, and then force them to attend a Jesus based concert. Irony rules the universe. Crazy is as crazy does.
#16 I refer you to the link from jccalhoun provided in post #12. very informative
And what HELL would have been raised if this was an Islamic rock concert. The far right would have called for the General’s head on a platter.
“In the Army.mil article, Maj. Gen. Chambers was quoted as saying, “The idea is not to be a proponent for any one religion. It’s to have a mix of different performers with different religious backgrounds.” But there has been no “mix of different performers with different religious backgrounds” at these concerts. Every one of them has had evangelical Christian performers, who typically not only perform their music but give their Christian testimony and read from the Bible in between songs…”
So these were students attending their MOS school? AFAIK, the Army treats privates in AIT like they are still in boot camp. So even if they didn’t have the option of this concert to attend, they would likely have been sitting in the barracks, cleaning anyway.