Onward Christian Soldiers: How minority faiths are treated in the US Military

Why can't some people understand the concept of religious freedom?--Dictynna

By Lorie Johnson

Sun Dec 04, 2005 at 01:32:03 PM EST

I am a USAF brat and a USAF veteran. I was also one of a group of military Pagans and Wiccans who dared to poke our heads out of the broom closet and ask for fair treatment. That was also how I learned about how the hard-core evangelicals in the military treated minority faiths... the hard way.

My encounters with the hard-core Christians started early in my career- while I was in tech school. I was in the earliest stages of my own esoteric Path, studying Hermetic and Gnostic philosophy. Church and standard religion held no interest to me, but I was more indifferent to it than hostile. To be fair, some of the best people I knew during my Air Force career were chaplains, and one of my favorite hangouts was the Fishbowl at Keesler. I spend many a fun hour watching movies and chatting with friends there.

But I was constantly- and politely- turning away the religious prosetylizers. When I was in civilian clothes, I would often get sharply questioned about my choice of jewelry- a simple, small, and unobtrusive Ankh pendant. "That is a Satanic sign", one righteous fellow told me after cornering me in a base laundromat. "You will go to hell if you don't renounce Satan and surrender to Christ." I ignored him, just like I ignored the tracts slid under my door, the sometimes not-so-subtle invitations to go to 'parties' which turned out to be altar calls, and the insular cliques of fellow students who were bussed to evangelical churches off base.