VA Sued for Harassing Christian Chaplains
Military pastors ordered to stop quoting Bible, leave Jesus at home
WND Faith
by DREW ZAHN
Two military chaplains are suing Eric Shinseki, secretary of the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, or VA, for allegedly being harassed and drummed out of a training and placement program because of their Christian faith.
Chaplains Major Steven Firtko, U.S. Army (Retired) and Lieutenant Commander Dan Klender, U.S. Navy, claim they were mocked, scolded and threatened for their faith while enrolled in the San Diego VA-DOD Clinical Pastoral Education Center program, which trains and distributes chaplains to military and VA medical centers in the San Diego area.
According to their lawsuit, Firtko and Klender allege the Center’s supervisor, Ms. Nancy Dietsch, a VA employee, derided them in classrooms and even had one of them dismissed for failing to renounce his Christian beliefs.
For example, on Sept. 24, 2012, the lawsuit claims, during a classroom discussion, Dietsch asked Firtko what he “believed faith was.”
Firtko responded by quoting Hebrews 11:1 – “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Dietsch told Firtko, on the first of several such instances according to the lawsuit, that he was not to quote the Bible in the chaplaincy program classroom.
On another incident in October, Dietsch allegedly shouted at Firtko for quoting Scripture again, banging her fist on the table and stating “it made her feel like she had been pounded over her head with a sledge hammer.”
The lawsuit also claims Dietsch told her students that the VA in general and she in particular do not allow chaplains to pray “in Jesus’ name” in public ceremonies.
Dietsch is also accused of allowing other students to deride Firtko and Klender, mocking them in front of the class and telling Firtko if he held to his beliefs on such things as evolution, salvation and homosexuality, he “did not belong in this program.” Eventually, the lawsuit states, she threatened to dismiss Firtko for refusing to recant his Christian doctrine and ordered he serve a six-week probation.
The lawsuit claims Chaplain Klender’s superior even encouraged him to challenge Dietsch for her “bias against evangelicals.”
Klender later left the program voluntarily, citing Dietsch’s alleged abuse.
Firtko, however, according to the lawsuit, was ejected from the program through a letter, signed by Dietsch, which stated his probation period was not “yielding the results” desired.
In July, Firtko, Klender and their sponsoring organization, the Conservative Baptist Association of America, filed formal complaint against Dietsch and the VA.
Now the lawsuit, filed with the help of Military-Veterans Advocacy, explains that Firtko and Klender have exhausted all administrative options and that the harassment the chaplains endured violates the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Administrative Procedures Act and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“No American choosing to serve in the armed forces should be openly ridiculed for his Christian faith, and that is most obviously true for chaplains participating in a chaplain training program,” said Commander J.B. Wells, U. S. Navy (Ret.), executive director of Military-Veterans Advocacy. “Not only was the treatment these men received inappropriate, it was also a violation of federal law and the religious freedom guarantees of the First Amendment.”
The lawsuit, Conservative Baptist Association of America v. Shinseki, has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
http://www.wnd.com/2013/11/va-sued-for-harassing-christian-chaplains/#lskaOfja2K53CTjU.99
A Tale of Prayer and Survival – Part 3
In 2001, at the dedication of the Risner memorial at the AirForceAcademy, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent letters of congratulations, calling Risner a role model saying, “Now more than ever, we need to draw on the strength from those who have gone before.” Yet a short five years after the dedication of Risner’s statue on the Air Force grounds, a continual barrage of gloating media reports revealed the Air Force Academy’s and the U.S. Air Force’s openly hostile position to the prayers of leaders like Risner. Pitching out the source of the “strength” of Risner and his fellow POW’s, and in spite of the unbroken American history of leader-led unit prayer that reaches back 230 years in our military, the Air Force Academy, the Pentagon, and the White House, are surrendering to provocative attacks by organizations like the ACLU, B’nai B’rith, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Jewish Committee, and their allies, with guidelines which severely limit prayers. This disregard for the long battle-tested tenet of training and practice for military leadership, which includes prayer, will no doubt, if you ask men “who have gone before” have a “real, not hypothetical, adverse impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, standards, or discipline,” for those in the future who will go in harms way.
The value of prayer has been scientifically quantified. A major sociological study after World War II, confirmed the importance of prayer to those American fighting men who have gone in harms way: “The Studies in Social Psychology in World War II Series,” produced by the Social Science Research Council, was one of the largest social science research projects in history. Volume II, The American Soldier, Combat and Its Aftermath, Princeton University Press, (1949), reported data on the importance of prayer to officers and enlisted infantrymen. Prayer was selected most frequently as the soldier’s source of combat motivation. The motivation of prayer was selected over the next highest categories of “thinking that you couldn’t let the other men down,” and “thinking that you had to finish the job in order to get home again.” From the responses, “did not help at all,” “helped some,” and “helped a lot,” 70% of enlisted men in the Pacific Theatre (n = 4,734), and 83% in the Mediterranean theatre (n = 1,766) responded “helped a lot,” as did 60% of Infantry officers (n = 319). Prayer was the most frequently cited combat motivator “when the going was tough.” The majority of over 6,400 soldiers in both the Mediterranean and Pacific theatres responded that prayer “helped them a lot.” In their statistical analysis, the Social Science Research Council reports,
[T]he fact that such an overwhelming majority of combat men said that prayer helped them a lot certainly means that they almost universally had recourse to prayer and probably found relief, distraction, or consolation in the process.[1]
Virtue, honor, patriotism and leader-led prayer recall to all military and civilian leaders that, as John Adams said,
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Washington Times
Military units and personnel are being denied the essential training in leader-led unit prayer that will only be able to sustain them under the extreme challenges, deprivation, and death that accompany war. This is not the time to leave our fighting forces on the battlefield “without a prayer.”
Colonel Risner’s stand joined by other POWs against the North Vietnamese anti-prayer policy in 1971 caused them to be held in punishment and separate from other POWs until a few days before their final release. Risner’s memorial at the Air Force Academy stands like a mountain against all attempts to suppress prayer, and honors the American Military’s First Principles that sustain those called upon to go for us. Untested political experiments in wartime jeopardize the strength of future military leaders, who will someday need to draw upon “faith,” the same strength that sustained a courageous Command leadership through seven years at the Hanoi Hilton. The attempts to suppress prayer by the Air Force – especially in officer training – should be resisted with the same determination and force of will exemplified by Col. Risner and the other POWs in the prison system of communist North Vietnam, no matter what it may cost us.
[1] Social Science Research Council. The American Soldier, Combat and Its Aftermath. PrincetonUniversity Press, (1949), at 185.
A Tale of Prayer and Survival – Part 2
In violation of North Vietnamese prayer policy, on December 26, 1970, a choir of six voices sang from toilet paper hymnals, and officers officiated. No one POW was the sole prayer leader as all had a part in the church service; but on February 7, 1971, the enemy had had enough and broke in during a closing hymn, and ordered the prayer service stopped. The prisoners continued to sing and ended the service by praying the Lord’s Prayer together as Colonel Risner, not a chaplain, led and prayed the Benediction. In the next few seconds, the Vietnamese grabbed Risner to drag him to solitary confinement.
Pictured above: General Risner are Commander George Coker, Navy Captain Jim Mulligan and Commander Paul Galanti.
Today a 9 foot tall statue of Risner stands at the Air Force Academy. It is nine feet tall because as he was dragged out the remaining 46 POWs in the room began singing “The Star Spangled Banner” to show their faith and support. After his release from captivity, Risner was asked how he felt when the men began singing. “I felt like I was 9feet tall and could go bear hunting with a switch.” Despite severe persecution and torture, the POWs continued to hold prayer services – even while in solitary confinement by listening to each other pray from within their cells. Admiral Jeremiah Denton, who shared command in the Hanoi Hilton with Admiral Stockdale, Colonel Risner, and others, wrote of this time in his book, When Hell Was In Session,
A man does a lot of praying in an enemy prison. Prayer, even more than sheer thought, is the firmest anchor.[1]
[1] Quoting Jeremiah Denton, Jr. (1983). The Eyewitness History of the Vietnam War 1961-75. Ballantine Books. See also, Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr. When Hell Was In Session: A Personal Story of Survival as a P.O.W. in North Vietnam. NY: Readers Digest Press, 1976.
A Tale of Prayer and Survival – Part 1
Just a couple generations ago Americans fought a long and arduous battle in a country half way around the world. Brigadier General Robinson “Robbie” Risner was one of the few to return from Vietnam to tell his story of prayer and survival. At that time Risner was a Lt. Colonel and a senior ranking officer, who was held and tortured for seven and a half years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, a North Vietnamese prison for American POW’s. Senior officers, who rotated commands as they were moved in and out of solitary confinement or singled out for torture, remember reciting The Lord’s Prayer to bring courage to 47 POWs whose total days in captivity totaled 108,116 days. In those dark and terrifying times rotting away thousands of miles from home, Risner recounted in his book about their decision to conduct unit worship and prayer services in defiance of the communist North Vietnamese, another military institution like the Air Force hostile to prayer. To Risner and most other POWs there was little doubt of the absolute military necessity of leader-led unit prayer to their survival as an American military unit:
I could not have existed if I had not been able to pray. To be able to mention in prayer the names of my wife, children, friends or relatives, or one of my fellow POWs who I knew was being tortured or mistreated, brought us together. The thousands of miles, the walls of my cell, the guards, were all transcended by this dimension of communication.
The Commanders at the Hanoi Hilton knew that the unit would need total participation to bolster morale and to resist their captors. Since there were a few agnostics, the unit agreed to make the service both patriotic and religious. The Code of Conduct, written for POWs, would be tested in a very matter-of-fact course of action —“I will trust in my God and the United States of America.” Along with the decision to pray, there had to be planning for the eminent possibility of severe life and death consequences to this simple display of loyalty to God and country by men who remembered that America’s national motto is “In God We Trust:” Despite blunt threats of reprisal, Risner reported:
[A] decision was made that we would have church service regardless of the consequences. The next task was to predict what the Vietnamese reaction would be, as well as develop some contingency responses on our part. We thought we knew how the Vietnamese operated, and we expected to have some losses.[1]
[1] Colonel Robinson Risner. The Passing of the Night. My Seven Years As a Prisoner of the North Vietnamese. New York: Random House, 1973, p. 217.
The American Dream
by Dr. Linda Jeffrey
The desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Isaiah 26:8-9
Yesterday I saw a microcosm of America that is opposite to the steady diet of media reporting, so I want to take the position of reporter today and relay the facts I witnessed. I donned my deep purple formal dress and velvet cape, and headed for the 238th Anniversary Marine Corps Ball in Lexington, Kentucky. The ballroom was full of young marines in dress uniform. They are a human gallery of art—each body is sculpted with a clean-shaven head to accent the set of the jaw, and muscular chests and arms fill out the gold-buttoned coats where ribbons hang to indicate combat tours. But more than their bodies were molded to perfection. When we expressed a need, we received immediate personal attention from a confident young marine. They were thinkers. They were problem solvers. As I listened to the buzz of conversation, the one distinguishable frequent word was “Sir!”
The program began with prayer, and for a moment I remembered the fighting with the ACLU and the relentless attacks on prayer in the military which the media report with utter despair for a praying American. No such prayers were prayed last night. It was a heartfelt prayer for the protection and success of the Corps, prayed by a man who surely knew God personally. I was awestruck.
The music alternated between a lone bugler and the Marine Corps band and each note pressed the observers to stand tall as the parade of flags and flashing bayonets marched crisply together in perfect rhythm. The honor for the fallen, and the remembrance of victory at a heavy price was presented in speech and multimedia. The Commandant of the Marine Corps gave a video message calling these young men to keep their honor clean.
It was my great privilege to contribute to the writing of the keynote speeches for the evening, so I was on the edge of my seat as Colonel Ray approached the podium. His advancing age and thinning hair have not diminished the quality of his Marine composure. Every eye was fixed with admiration upon the man who decades earlier lay in a rice paddy with a bullet in his gut because he has always believed that men must be free. He told about his years in Vietnam and the millions who died to keep communism from swallowing up all of Southeast Asia. Then our courageous Vietnamese friend, Yung Nguyen told of his harrowing escape from the Communists after the fall of Saigon, and he thanked the Marines for their service and sacrifice. Their testimonies were breathtaking.
Many lives were lost, many lies were told, much shame and despair was brought upon America by politicians and new media pundits whose immoral greed and godless agenda still rewrite the history of the Vietnam era. But last night, we heard from the men who were there. And the unique audience of soldiers understood in a deeper way that war is a moral decision of right and wrong. And only a moral people who understand the Military’s First Principles of virtue, honor, patriotism and subordination are fit to serve. Whatever the political backstabbing and betrayal that has colored the history, one thing is certain from this night of remembrance—
The Marines are still on duty. They still hear the call to keep America free. And these proud and determined soldiers are still willing to pay the price in blood for you and me. Sleep well my fellow Americans. The Marines still guard American soil, and for every communist oppressor, both foreign and domestic, there will be hell to pay if you cross them.
One more detail. Since I have no sense of direction, I couldn’t find my way from the ballroom to my car. Embarrassed, I approached a young man in uniform to ask directions, and was personally escorted to my car in safety. What an amazing night of remembrance! May God bless the Marines and the Land of the Free that they protect!