Soldiers Forced To Attend Religious Event

Sometimes when people work their way into a position of power they forget that the rules still apply to them. That seems to be what has happened to Major General James E. Chambers. As a career military officer the general at some point swore to uphold the Constitution on the United States. But now that he is a base commander it looks like he doesn't think he has to follow that Constitution any more.

Chambers, who claims to have been "reborn as a christian" at age 16, now believes it is his duty to evangelize the troops he commands and force them to attend religious events he has arranged. When he became the commanding general at Fort Eustis he started a series of evangelical christian concerts, where the performers would not only perform religious songs but also give christian testimonials and read from the Bible. This would be bad enough since it is clearly an instance of government showing preference for one religion over others.

But the general, who now commands Fort Lee and has started the religious events there also, has taken this violation of the First Amendment even further. He, or at least the officers serving under him, are forcing soldiers to attend these religious events or be punished for not attending. Here is how one Fort Lee soldier described the punishment for not attending the general's religious concert:

"Those of us that chose not to attend (about 80, or a little less that half) were marched back to the company area. At that point the NCO issued us a punishment. We were to be on lock-down in the company (not released from duty), could not go anywhere on post (no PX, no library, etc). We were to go to strictly to the barracks and contact maintenance. If we were caught sitting in our rooms, in our beds, or having/handling electronics (cell phones, laptops, games) and doing anything other than maintenance, we would further have our weekend passes revoked and continue barracks maintenance for the entirety of the weekend. At that point the implied message was clear in my mind "we gave you a choice to either satisfy us or disappoint us. Since you chose to disappoint us you will now have your freedoms suspended and contact chores while the rest of your buddies are enjoying a concert."

At that evening, nine of us chose to pursue an EO complaint. I was surprised to find out that a couple of the most offended soldiers were actually Christian themselves (Catholic). One of them was grown as a child in Cuba and this incident enraged him particularly as it brought memories of oppression."

This is just so wrong. How can this general claim to be defending freedom when he denies freedom of religion (which includes freedom from religion) to his own soldiers? Several of the soldiers punished for not attending the religious event have contacted the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). Hopefully the MRFF can get this situation rectified and restore the soldiers' right to religious freedom.

What makes this especially egregious is the fact that the U.S. Military has many thousands of soldiers who practice a religion other than christianity or no religion at all -- not to mention the many thousands of non-evangelical christian soldiers who want to have no part of the general's religious events. No soldier, regardless of his/her beliefs, should ever be compelled to participate in any religious event under threat of punishment.

This unconstitutional practice must not only be stopped, but Maj. General Chambers should be severely reprimanded and/or disciplined. This action by the general makes me wonder if he is even fit to command troops.