US Army: Atheists Unfit To Serve

Religion • December 2010 • Views: 1,501

alstefanelli.wordpress.com

Did you know that the United States Army is concerned with the spiritual well-being of their soldiers? Did you know that if you choose not to believe in the supernatural that the United States Army can consider you unfit to serve? Allow me to enlighten you about an issue that was brought to my attention by my friend, Sgt. Justin Griffith, Fort Bragg, NC. The US Army distributes a mandatory survey called an SFT, which stands for “Soldier Fitness Tracker”. The purpose of this survey is to measure an individual soldier’s competency in four areas, Emotional, Social, Family and Spiritual. Justin is an atheist, as well as a highly dedicated soldier, but according to the SFT, he is “unfit” to serve specifically because he is a non-believer.

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16 comments

hellosnackbar Thu, Dec 23, 2010 10:55:20am

So! in order to be fit to serve one’s country one has believe the reality
of the world’s oldest fairy story.
Whomsoever formulated such an inane guideline is in my view unfit to serve;due to his/her perverted logic.

Decatur Deb Thu, Dec 23, 2010 11:04:55am

Someone upstream in the release of the story is making a case where none might exist. No soldier is going to get a gig on spirituality (unless his commander is a nutcase, which is a different problem). The DoD/VA have approved an atheist marker for soldiers’ graves.

Locker Thu, Dec 23, 2010 11:15:33am

re: #2 Decatur Deb
Soldiers have been getting spirituality gigs for a long time. Just a sample:

Are U.S. troops being force-fed Christianity?
[Link: www.csmonitor.com…]

Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity
[Link: www.truth-out.org…]

Decatur Deb Thu, Dec 23, 2010 11:18:45am

re: #3 Locker

Soldiers have been getting spirituality gigs for a long time. Just a sample:

Are U.S. troops being force-fed Christianity?
[Link: www.csmonitor.com…]

Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity
[Link: www.truth-out.org…]

Those cases will likely fall under “different problem”. I was an overt agnostic soldier or Army civilian for 30 years. I didn’t suffer for it.

Decatur Deb Thu, Dec 23, 2010 11:33:41am

re: #4 Decatur Deb

Ironically, as I write this I’m polishing the family’s massive Agnostic Christmas Menorah. It is a huge brass Christmas tree with 3 crosses molded through it and 9 candle holders on the tips of the boughs. We bought it in Itaewon while stationed with US Forces Korea because there were no trees from the Boy Scouts that year.

Steve Dutch Thu, Dec 23, 2010 12:30:23pm

OH NOES!!

The survey says he “may question his beliefs, principles and values”

Well, we sure don’t want people examining their values, do we?

How in the world do you get from “an area of possible difficulty for you. You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life” to “you are unfit?”

Political Atheist Thu, Dec 23, 2010 1:24:39pm

So how many soldiers have been discharged or jailed or demoted for being Atheists? This is obviously the harshest possible (well beyond reasonable) view of the questionnaire.

Locker Thu, Dec 23, 2010 2:35:38pm

re: #4 Decatur Deb

That’s great that your experience was positive. The fifth weekend of my basic training and every weekend after that if you were Christian you got to go to church and then the PX on Sunday, if you were anything else you had to stay and clean the barracks.

That trick was used a lot during my four years of service. Act like a good little American/Christian and you get rewarded, fail to comply and you get shit detail.

Prononymous, rogue demon hunter Thu, Dec 23, 2010 2:39:56pm

re: #6 stevedutch

OH NOES!!

The survey says he “may question his beliefs, principles and values”

Well, we sure don’t want people examining their values, do we?

How in the world do you get from “an area of possible difficulty for you. You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life” to “you are unfit?”

What rubbish. This is just a projection of some people’s religious feelings about atheists. Why should we lack a sense of meaning or purpose? I have never met an atheist that does - in fact quite the opposite. While I’m sure some atheists do lack meaning and purpose, some religious people do to.

Velvet Elvis Thu, Dec 23, 2010 3:15:40pm

I think it’s interesting that atheism is considered a choice, that you get to choose what is true. That makes no sense to me.

Our Precious Bodily Fluids Thu, Dec 23, 2010 4:11:24pm

Isn’t it a bit disturbing to think that an entity whose tools of the trade include a range of devices called “anti-personnel weapons” is suspicious of people who don’t have imaginary friends?

Decatur Deb Thu, Dec 23, 2010 6:47:48pm

re: #8 Locker

That’s great that your experience was positive. The fifth weekend of my basic training and every weekend after that if you were Christian you got to go to church and then the PX on Sunday, if you were anything else you had to stay and clean the barracks.

That trick was used a lot during my four years of service. Act like a good little American/Christian and you get rewarded, fail to comply and you get shit detail.

That’s what the IG is for. Abusive commanders relied on the soldiers not knowing or trusting the systems set to protect them.

Locker Thu, Dec 23, 2010 10:14:53pm

re: #12 Decatur Deb

That’s what the IG is for. Abusive commanders relied on the soldiers not knowing or trusting the systems set to protect them.

True but I think generally it’s just the “don’t shit where you eat” kind of thing. Basically no matter how much shit detail they gave me I never would have complained, cause that just brings more shit. Lame but what can you expect from a 19 year old kid trying to make it through.

Escaped Hillbilly Sat, Dec 25, 2010 2:05:37am

Wait, wait, wait. Don’t go off the deep end. The survey says absolutely no such thing. I am in the Army and have taken this stupid online survey. You have to log on with your AKO log in or CAC card and is entirely private. No one else can access it. The only thing your leadership sees is a report that you have completed it and your overall score. The purpose is to find out if you are psychologically resilliant, not “fit” for duty. As many studies have shown people with strong spiritual beliefs are stronger psychologically when dealing with adversity, it measures this level of belief. It also measures family relationships, friendships, life experience, coping styles, etc. Then it combines your overall score to determine how ready you are to cope with emotional distress. No such tool is perfect. But you can’t fault the Army for trying to stem the tide of increasing suicides and mental health issues we have seen lately. I am myself a “No Rel Pref” Soldier and have been my whole career. I once had a Soldier who had “Fuckuism” as his religion and several have taken to putting “Jedi” on their official forms and dog tags. (No, those aren’t recognized religions, but nobody really cares.) The Army just doesn’t have time to care what your religious beliefs are. Below is a quote from CSMA Preston’s talk to Senior Leaders in Basra, Iraq[Link: www.usar.army.mil…]

“The GAT doesn’t replace good leadership,” Preston said. “The GAT is designed as an individual tool to show individuals where they stand.”

“Nobody sees how you answer those questions,” Preston said. “It is confidential. That is because we want you to be honest with yourself so that you can see yourself exactly how you feel inside.”

Preston said more than 800,000 of the 1.1 million active duty, reserve and National Guard Soldiers in the Army have taken the GAT.

Preston also recommended Soldiers complete the 20 online resilience modules available through CSF, the second tool of the program.

The third tool of CSF that Preston talked about was the Master Resilience Trainer course, which is now offered at Victory University in Fort Jackson, S.C.

The 10-day course teaches Soldiers resiliency techniques on how to solve challenges within the five dimensions of CSF.

It teaches Soldiers how to ask the right questions so they can understand problems from a bigger perspective, Preston said. From there, they come up with their own solutions to fixing problems.

Decatur Deb Sat, Dec 25, 2010 2:31:23am

I’m usually hyper-sensitive to Church/State, don’t even like Fed dollars flowing towards our Habitat building fund. The military chaplaincy is different, there has to be compromise there. The Evangelical penetration of the USAF Academy is much more of a problem. Army had bible-thumping 06’s, but they kept it in line.

Prononymous, rogue demon hunter Sat, Dec 25, 2010 4:02:09pm

I realize that I probably won’t get a response now that this is off the front page. I’d like some references for this:

re: #14 Escaped Hillbilly

As many studies have shown people with strong spiritual beliefs are stronger psychologically when dealing with adversity, it measures this level of belief.

It is a common claim that religion can heal, and makes one less prone to, mental disorders. But one that is never substantiated, IME. This chaplain says Jesus gives you a special “Spiritual Resiliency”. Under the Bush administration the armed forces increasingly tried to substitute spirituality instead of proper care as a treatment for PTSD. Probably as a cost cutting measure, as much as anything. A failure underscored by the rapidly increasing number of PTSD patients that have failed to receive proper attention.

Treating the existing and future cases of PTSD has been handled very poorly. It should be understood that treatment with medication alone often isn’t successful. Medication, social/religious connections, and therapy tailored to each case are much better, but also much more expensive. Simplistic solutions like medication or spirituality alone may be fiscally attractive but fail to produce good results.

So yeah, I’d like to see your source on that claim. I’m not denying that there may be a differential in recovery rates for atheists and theists. But you have to keep in mind there are more factors at work here then just belief in a deity. In many cases theists may have a better social network to fall back on. But also sometimes PTSD causes one to question their own belief system - not something one wants to go through during an already difficult time.

As for everyone that went through the military and didn’t experience discrimination (religious or otherwise) I want to say thanks. I’m glad for your service and glad that you weren’t harassed for your beliefs. It isn’t the case for everyone, but hopefully things are changing for the better.

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