I love the military. Like many little lads, I played with toy soldiers often with jeeps and tanks aplenty. I’ve never served in the military but my dad did. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam. My younger brother went through basic training at Fort Knox. My older brother was ineligible due to health reasons but he took the ASVAB and the officer, seeing his test score, told him: “You could be anything in the military you want to be except Commander-in-Chief and President Reagan has that job.”
The highest ideals for which Americans strive are generally exhibited and embodied in our men and women in uniform. They are not perfect and combat soldiers have to be taught to kill. That can have lasting repercussions on their psychological health. Maybe that can be avoided better as we learn how the human mind works. But, by and large, our soldiers are exemplary citizens as they try to defend their families, their neighbors, and those with whom they have no affiliation except having been born under the same Stars and Stripes.
Among the many freedoms they defend are the Bill of Rights, notably our first amendment right to freedom of worship. It therefore comes as a shock and a major disappointment that this administration’s military is turning against the heart of our nation – the ability to share the Gospel with others and, more generally, openly display their Christianity. It is okay now to display your rainbow but not your cross.
Consider a few examples. An air base in Idaho had to take down the plaque: “Blessed are the Peacemakers” because it referenced the Bible. The Air Force took a video off YouTube because it had in it the words “God created a first sergeant.” It has been in the news recently that an Army Reserve training brief has listed “evangelical Christians” (among whom you and I would be classified) as a hate group, as dangerous as al-Qaeda.
The arrogant and determined homosexual lobby is pushing chaplains, not only to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples, but also to quit trying to “cure” practicing homosexuals. In 2012, an Air Force major had to remove a Bible from his desk where it had been for over two decades.
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Despite the disappointment, we need more chaplains in the military. We are not just at war with al-Qaeda; we – as Christians – are at war with all forms of spiritual darkness in high places and the Lord needs His soldiers everywhere (2 Timothy 2:3-4).
John Wells was a Navy commander but now a lawyer. He is defending a master sergeant who served Chick-fil-A at a party where he was promoted. Wells comments: “You know the old saying that there’s no atheists in the foxhole? Well God help us if all we have in foxholes are atheists” (qtd in World, July 13, 2013; pg. 37). What will happen when our military stops defending the first amendment?
Let’s say a word of thanksgiving and supplication on behalf of all our fellow Christian-soldiers who also wear the uniform of our military. Their work has just gotten harder.
–Paul Holland
