Army harrasses Atheists ???

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/atheist-claims-harassment-in-military/20080428092709990001?icid=100214839x1200945981x1200035546

Army Spc Jeremy Hall is suing the Army over alleged harassment.

Spc. Hall was raised a Protestant, but became an atheist while in the Army, although he was concerned what other soldiers would think of him.

According to Hall, the matter came to a head when a superior officer threatened to bring charges against him for organizing a meeting of atheists. I find this very difficult to believe, not that charges were not threatened, but that they would be for this specific offense, nor can I readily believe that religion or the lack thereof was the motivation.

Now, not having been in the Army I won't call him a liar, but having just finished serving 24 years in the Air Force I must say that I am skeptical. I have never, in my entire career, ever experienced anything like what Spc Hall alleges in the article. I have worked with Christians, Jews, Muslims, a couple of Wiccans, and one new-age crystal kind of person (not sure what she was)... and a lot of agnostics and quite few atheists too.

While I have seen invocations and benedictions performed during ceremonies, usually retirement ceremonies or changes of command, I presume at the request of the participants, as I have seen them performed without them. They have predominantly been vaguely spiritual, tough to pin down as any specific denomination, although I have heard the occasional reference to Christ.

I have never seen religion brought up in any other official capacity. I have never been asked what my specific beliefs were by my chain of command, and any discussion of religion has always been incidental to conversation among co-workers. I did have one superior, NOT supervisor, who was predisposed to proselytizing a 'born-again' faith, but she was looked at as the 'oddity' and not the other way around. She was good natured about it, never mean or disparaging to anyone who challenged her beliefs, would leave you alone if asked, and while her behavior was recognized as 'inappropriate' by most, she was tolerated as anyone else was.

I have, during the course of my Air Force career, worked closely with the Army being stationed on one Army base and one joint base. Never, have I witnessed any institutionalized religious bias at all, and I find it highly unlikely that there is any. I have worked with a few religious high ranking officers and have never felt any pressure or compunction to profess my faith or to convert to one. Religion has always been incidental to my career, as I am sure it is in any career, and never a part of it.

While I will not dispute the possibility, in a small unit, of an inappropriate inclusion of religion by any specific commander, officer, or senior NCO, yet I can't say I would find the term 'institutional' accurate in any way. That he was quite possibly harassed by his fellow soldiers I can believe, although personally I would doubt that his religious beliefs were the underlying motive, that he claims 'he feared for his life', I find to be extreme.

Keep in mind I have never been in the Army, so I can't speak personally on their specifics, but to claim that this is an institutional bias in the Department of Defense I find highly unlikely. The only times I have routinely seen chaplains, outside of the chapel, is when they have changed, and once when a coworker was killed in an automobile accident; and all he did was let people know that he was available if anyone wanted someone to talk to.

Overall I'd have to say that religion was pretty much irrelevant in my professional career, neither here nor there, but just somewhere in the background (as it should be), it would occasionally come up, usually in conversation about news articles like this.

~Finntann~