Justin Griffith has the story of another soldier who was forced to take part in mandatory prayers and abusively berated by a drill instructor for asserting her right not to take part in religious exercises she does not believe in. It’s an all-too familiar story:
Second – and this infuriates me to no end – was the compulsory participation in the prayer at the Eagle, Globe and Anchor ceremony (and also later at graduation, but by that time it was a moot point). A little background first: everyone in my platoon knows I’m an atheist, and I had a lot of really interesting conversations with my fellow recruits about it, all part of my goal to be open but not pushy about my atheism in the hope that I can positively influence people’s perception of atheists while remaining keeping my integrity intact. Anyway…
The second night of the Crucible, after staging all our gear in our hooch, getting a quick hygiene break, we stood on line to learn about and practice what we’d do during the ceremony. The first thing we were told was that we’d be standing at parade rest, and the Chaplain would come out and give an invocation. When he said, “Let us pray,” we all were to snap our heads down so our chins touched our chest. Our heavy hat gave the order, and everyone snapped their heads down — everyone except me. Our heavy screamed, “(NAME/RANK WITHHELD)! You aren’t special, bow your fucking head down, recruit, and pray with the rest of us!” I yelled back, “Ma’am, this recruit is an atheist, she doesn’t pray!” Dead silence. The other recruits looked at me in shock – we all knew I was in for it. Plus, I was one of the good recruits – I never had a bad attitude, I took my ITs like a champion, I was good about sounding off, freezing when told too… In short, talking back like that and challenging the DI at all, let alone in front of the whole platoon, was completely out of character. But I couldn’t just go along without trying to stand up for myself; I told myself I was on the Crucible, for crying out loud! The final test, the one that would make me a Marine – if I didn’t have the courage to say something now, would I ever?
Then the other shoe dropped, as you might imagine. Think “Full Metal Jacket.” The DI started screaming and ranting at me, saying that “Oh my fucking god, recruit, no one is trying to change your religion, this is part of a ceremony that’s been going on since 1775, no one else has ever had a problem with it,” and so on and so forth for what seemed like forever. At one point I started counting the logical fallacies she made just to make sure I didn’t make the mistake of trying to talk over her and explain that I didn’t think the Constitution allowed them to force me to physically conform to their prayer. Finally, she said that I could either bow my head and pray with everyone else, or she would make sure that I didn’t participate in the Eagle, Globe and Anchor ceremony, that I could watch the group on the sidelines while everyone else received their symbol that they were Marines and I could go to the PX and buy myself one on my own during Liberty Sunday.
Knowing that she was deadly serious, I did what seemed like the smart thing at the time, and shut up and bowed my head, at that practices and at the actual ceremony itself (although I refused to say the “So help me god” at the end of the oath administered at the end of the ceremony). There wasn’t an opportunity to talk with our Senior DI before the ceremony to either informally or formally complain and request to not bow my head.
The positive part of this was that the majority of my platoon came up to me over the course of the next day and said that they were really glad that I had stood up for myself like that, that I was really brave, and that they agreed that I shouldn’t have to bow my head, but it wasn’t worth the risk of not being a part of the ceremony. They told me to think of it as a drill movement, but understood when I said I couldn’t just pretend like that, and why it was like a Christian being forced to participate in a ceremony of a different religion.
It’s one thing to go to someone else’s event and sitting silently through a prayer – you chose to go to that event, you have to be nice and not disrupt someone else’s plans. But this was MY ceremony, I had earned it and was going to be damned (hah!) if I was not going to be a part of it.
But I’m sure JD will be along soon to tell us either that this never happened or that it’s perfectly okay that it happened.
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Michael Heath
August 9, 2012 at 9:23 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed writes:
What I find most amusing about JD, where there’s little to be amused about given his dereliction of duty, dishonesty, and his purposefully causing increased human suffering to military personnel and their families, is that by the very beliefs he promotes, he’s destined for Hell. That’s given his being an unrepentant liar who purposefully acts contra to the the biblical New Covenant’s two commands; and promotes others also violating those two commandments.
I wouldn’t be amused if there actually was a Hell given JD’s behavior; it would be evil for me to wish such on any human where I just don’t have that level of hatred in me. So the amusement doesn’t come from JD’s destiny, but instead how hypocritical he is when it comes to biblical commandments, and the irony of promoting a belief system while simultaneously acting in a manner directly counter to what that system demands of its slavish childish sheep.
Michael Heath
August 9, 2012 at 9:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I kinda wish I didn’t take the JD bait now (above post). The blog post Ed links to reveals a Marine of great character. That Marine deserves our attention, not JD.
John Hinkle
August 9, 2012 at 10:09 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Boy if that isn’t an open and shut case, I don’t know what is. Her heavy hat should be eating crow and groveling with apologies. And why do they even have to have an invocation at the ceremony? Can’t the religious just say a prayer on their own prior to the event? Oh wait, that would be an affront to religious freedom! It would be persecution of the Christians! Release the lions!
eric
August 9, 2012 at 10:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I give her platoon 0.5 points. To get full marks, they should’ve stood up for her too. Gotten together before the ceremony and collectively decided that nobody was going to bow their heads.
davideriksen
August 9, 2012 at 9:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ll start by stating that I used to comment at the old place under my initials SDEJ but haven’t done so since 2009.
This post describes almost the exact same thing that happened when I graduated from Army basic training. At that point I was too exhausted (and high on Vicodin but that’s a different story) to stand up for my non-belief. Our Drill Sergeants used the argument that they weren’t ordering us to pray because they couldn’t. However, they could order our bodies into any position they wanted. I’m ashamed to admit that I bowed my head when the chaplain said, “Let us pray.” but I haven’t done so since.
John Hinkle asks:
It’s actually worse than that. Every military ceremony has both an invocation and a convocation. As to why, it’s tradition and good for morale or something. Since most of my comrades are of the authoritarian type, they’re perfectly willing to accept tradition as a sufficient explanation.
The most egregious example I’ve seen of this sort of thing happened about a year ago. It was my graduation from ALC, a leadership class for SGTs and SSGs, and it came from the Commandant of the NCO Academy at Ft. Sam Houston. Immediately after the chaplain gave the invocation, he took the podium and started talking about the importance of chaplains in the military and how there really was no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole. This same man was my CSM in Iraq in 2008-2009. I know for a fact that there were at least 5 of us working for him.
Improbable Joe
August 11, 2012 at 8:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I went through a similar situation when I was at Boot Camp, except my Drill Instructors weren’t idiots. They saw it, commented on it, shrugged their shoulders and moved on.