"I, [state your name] , do solemly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

[The last sentence is optional, depending on the person's religious preferences.]

Notice that it mentions supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States. The person swearing this oath is prepared to give his or her life in the protection of the country that this document represents.

But there are people within the ranks of the Armed Forces- both officers and enlisted, who have sworn this oath, but who do not believe that it actually affects them. For them, their real alliegance is to "King Jesus", and falsely swearing to protect their country is a thing they must do in order to obey their 'true' leaders- their churches and their interpretation of Scriptures.

A Marine friend of mine supplied me with the official list of religious faiths from which a member can choose to have stamped on their dog tags. I counted 135 Christian sects. The list also included Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, Hindu, Wiccan, and "No Religious Preference", "None" and "Other".  It did not have Scientologists, but it did have Salvation Army, as well as over a dozen variations of Baptist, quite a few Churches of Christ, Assemblies of God, and other Pentecostal sects,  and some other sects that got my attention like Jehova's Witnesses, whom I thought eschewed military service, "Militant Fundemental Bible Churches",  and the catch all "Christian, No Denominational Preference". There were also some individual churches from states listed. (If there is interest, I can provide the complete list as a separate diary.)

The majority of faiths listed were Protestant Christian. And the majority of these sects are moderate mainliners, unless their congregations have been hijacked (as the SBC was) by fundementalist elements and repurposed along Dominionist lines. The research for this is outside the scope of this article, but if anyone wants to pounce on it, feel free to do so.

I got quite a few responses from this part of my original diary:

...I politely questioned my book-burning roomie's boyfriend about his priorities. Why was he in the military if he was so religious? The answer was surprising, and in retrospect, insightful: He'd joined because the military was a 'mission platform' enabling him to spread his interpretation of the Gospel to people all over the world. He'd hoped to go to Turkey or some other 'non-believing country' so he could save some souls. He didn't care about the Cold War, or defending the US. He only cared about religion, and even told me that his loyalty was to Christ, not to his superiors.

This revelation alarmed some readers, and I can understand why. But his remark, made back in the early eighties, has come to fruition in many ways. Many believers join the military to use it as a mission platform to spread the Gospel. Most of the time, this is a fairly benign thing- they are obeying Paul's Great Commission, which is to bring the Gospel to all believers. But when you look at the bigger picture- that desire of the Dominionists to 'turn the world to Christ' in order to hasten his return, this 'mission' takes on a more sinister cast. These people are not merely bringing the Gospel to the tiny minority of people left in the world who might not have heard it, they are attempting to forcibly convert people, often using deceptive and manipulative means to do so.

Back in the nineties, an effort was launched by several evangelical groups, led by Global Harvest Ministries (closely affiliated with the Colorado Springs-based New Life Church profiled by Jeff Sharlet in Harper's) to bring people to Christ who lived in certain areas of the world, the so-called "10/40 window". This was an area of the world whose predominant faiths were non-Christian, and the goal of this push was to convert as many of these people to Christianity as possible before Christ came back in 2000.

Since that didn't happen, they are changing their focus, to an area they're calling the 40/70 window. This 'window' of people to convert includes Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and most of Asia. Many of the people in these areas are either the 'wrong' sort of Christian (Catholic, mainline Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox),  non religious, or of another faith entirely.

It is also an area where many US military people are assigned. Sites like Operation Reveille are specifically targeting military members to serve as their means to contact and convert people in these countries.

These missions to convert tie in closely with the gradual infiltration and domination of the military by hardline Christian sects (chronicled by Katherine Yurica in her Infiltrating the US Military essay). A growing number of military chaplains now come from the more overtly dominionist Assemblies of God and other Pentecostal sects, and the numbers of moderate mainline and Catholic pastors and priests have dropped alarmingly. These newer pastors are not as willing to cleave to the overall mission of pastoral service to all troops, and often step over the line with sectarian prayers, coerced  baptisms, and other  tools and tactics. They see the troops as a mission field of its own, full of vulnerable young people who are away from their homes, friends, and families, and who are ripe for the picking.

That people like General Boykin and the staff at the USAF Academy were emboldened enough to shed the usual cloak of stealthy deception and hoist the triumphalistic Jolly Roger speaks volumes to how far this penetration of religious supremacists has gone in our armed forces.

I remember being a proud member of what we called the Night Watch- those intrepid folks who saw 3AM more than we wished to. We even had a poster which read, "Sleep Well Tonight- Your Air Force is On Guard".

I am not sure that is true any more- with the way things are going, I am not sure if I am going to wake up in the same country I fell asleep in.