RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Troops: Skipping Christian concert got us punished

Troops: Skipping Christian concert got us punished
By STEVE SZKOTAK (AP) – 1 day ago

RICHMOND, Va. — The Army said Friday it was investigating a claim that dozens of soldiers who refused to attend a Christian band's concert at a Virginia military base were banished to their barracks and told to clean them up.

Fort Eustis spokesman Rick Haverinen told The Associated Press he couldn't comment on the specifics of the investigation. At the Pentagon, Army spokesman Col. Thomas Collins said the military shouldn't impose religious views on soldiers.

"If something like that were to have happened, it would be contrary to Army policy," Collins said.

Pvt. Anthony Smith said he and other soldiers felt pressured to attend the May concert while stationed at the Newport News base, home of the Army's Transportation Corps.

"My whole issue was I don't need to be preached at," Smith said in a phone interview from Phoenix, where he is stationed with the National Guard. "That's not what I signed up for."

Smith, 21, was stationed in Virginia for nearly seven months for helicopter electrician training when the Christian rock group BarlowGirl played as part of the "Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concerts."

Smith said a staff sergeant told 200 men in their barracks they could either attend or remain in their barracks. Eighty to 100 decided not to attend, he said.

"Instead of being released to our personal time, we were locked down," Smith said. "It seemed very much like a punishment."

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation first reported on the Christian concert. The foundation said it was approached by soldiers who were punished for not attending or offended by the religious theme of the event.

The group's president, Mikey Weinstein, claims Christian-themed events are "ubiquitous" throughout the military, and he credited the soldiers for stepping forward.

"Whenever we see this egregious, unconstitutional religious tyranny our job is to fight it," he said.

Smith said he and the other soldiers were told not to use their cell phones or personal computers and ordered to clean up the barracks.

About 20 of the men, including several Muslims, refused to attend the concert based on their religious beliefs, he said.

Smith said he went up the chain of command and traced the concert edict to a captain, who said he simply wanted to "show support for those kind of events that bring soldiers together."

While not accepting blame, the officer apologized to the soldiers who refused to attend the concert and said it was not his intent to proselytize, he said.

"But once you get in there, you realize it's evangelization," Smith said.

Are you certain it's 80%?

According to Bernard Goldberg's book BIAS, and the many polls and statistics he cites, yes.

well if it's in a bernard goldberg book called "Bias" then it must be true.
Though you've proven yourself to be someone who has their own unique view on reality that is grounded in your own bias and hatred so what does it matter? you hate the media because you don't like the stories they put out there and you ignore every other story that proves you wrong. it's easy to say the media is bias when you have your mind made up about everything in the world the moment you wake up in the morning.
praise allah for fox news.

Dumbass:

First, you haven't read the book, so you're talking out your ass, with no actual knowledge of what you're talking about.

Second, Bernard Goldberg didn't make up these statistics, he just quoted them from well-known polling services, who tabulate using scientific methods. The one that caught my attention most was that reporters THEMSELVES categorize their views as "very liberal". And that 10 of 10 white house correspondents said they voted for Mondale and 0 voted for Reagan (10 of 10!).
Gee, I wonder how that might have affected coverage of the 1984 campaign.
We certainly saw that trend in the knife-jabs the media took at McCain, as contrasted with the endless fellating of Obama.

Where the media had clear evidence of Obama's marxist/radical-socialist past (ACORN, William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Valerie Jarrett, Van Jones, Mark Lloyd, teaching Saul Alinsky to activists in Chicago, Cloward and Piven Strategy, Obama's own mother and father's marxism...) they simply ignored it and chose not to report it. While every half-baked rumor of a scandal about McCain got maximumn coverage, and on several occasions the lack of evidence and double-standard blew up in their faces.

Similarly in November 2004 the Dan Rather scandal on the fake letter alleged to be from Bush's national Guard commander, proven fake, NOT by the media, but by bloggers more responsible than the media.

Similarly in 2006 the Mark Foley scandal, which was proven the liberal media knew about for a year, and unveiled as an October Surprise on the Republicans (with lots of false smear to Republicans way beyond Foley)
Both of these elections were hit jobs with the media and Democrats working in concert for victory.

The polls of reporters show similarly skewed numbers of overwhelming support for Democrat presidential candidates, way above the ratio of American voters who supported Democrats.

Similarly media coverage of the Bush/Gore and Bush/Kerry races. But never was the media working more as an extension of the Democrat party than in the 2008 election.
So far.

All of which is more quantifiably true than you talking out your ass about things you clearly don't understand.

That would have been funny if you'd started the post with an insult and not ended it with one.

Fuckhead:
Why would I devote the time to read any book that you use as a source? You're an idiot. This is not my belief, this is fact.
I have a very long list of books to read and only a finite time in my life to read them.


A. I give zero credence to anything you subscribe to. You're an idiot, this is fact, and I would feel foolish to spend even the little amount of time it would take to look on wikipedia for the names/sources/Klan speeches you like to site. I wasted my time on the bible talk and you proved yourself to be an idiot.
B. Maybe it's not a bias so much as an informed opinion that so many in Washington wind up not supporting the likes of Reagan and Bush. The people who study these guys, their speeches, their actions come away supporting someone else should give you pause.
C. I think the "liberal" media is actually bending over backwards to not be hard on republicans to the detriment of the American people. They were pretty nice to the functional retard who had trouble stringing words or cohesive sentences together, even after he began using ringers like the gay escort to lob softball questions. They were incredibly light in dealing with the daft old man and puffed up beauty queen while giving way more time than was needed to Ayers and Wright.


This is an old tradition of trying not to hit below the belt. They all have good reasons to try and play nice with any administration to risk not losing favor and being frozen out. The fact is there was a lot on Bush that should've been mentioned but wasn't. There was alot about Cheney especially that should've been focused on but wasn't.


And there's proof that it was a setup. There is plenty of evidence that what was in the memo reflected real facts but the memo was released and then disproved to quell the rumors. It worked and Rather's failure to be more thorough ended a long and distinguished career.


You do know the phrase "october surprise" comes from a republican dirty trick, right?


So what? For the most part journalists are supposed to study, understand, and then dissect and report on political happenings. Them personally leaning towards democrats reflects a bias as much as the great number of "biased" scientists who agree with Al Gore on global warming. you're just an idiot who wants the "facts" to reflect your preconceived notions in the same way you see the bible as a black and white reflection of your preconceived notions.


Not true at all. If anything I think the fact that bush pulled through both those races in spite of the numerous things that should've stopped him in the primaries only shows that the "liberal" media was playing nice and that fox news wasn't so in the end the coverage tilted right and smears against war hero kerry and the vice president from a very successful 8 years went undefended.
In 2008 you had the end of the very unpopular Bush presidency, the economic collapse, the war in Iraq, Katrina, and people in general were tired of it. Obama and Biden were simply better speakers than mccain and palin. ANd you have to admit that what was needed to win was to run against the failures of bush and that was a near-impossible sell for mccain.
That's not a biased view really, that's reality.

That didn't make one bit of sense.

Your AIDS-related dimentia is kicking in again.

Assfucker.

This whole story is bullshit. When I was in Basic Training and AIT in '93/'94, there were all sorts of events, secular or otherwise, where we had the options of attending or being stuck in the barracks cleaning up. Sounds like a bunch of sniveling entitlement babies. 'America's Best and Brightest' in uniform.

only wondy can respond to a long detailed post where's he repeatedly called an idiot by unironically saying it "makes no sense" and then misspelling dementia.

Or, just as likely, some reporter took standard issue griping out of context, blew it out of proportion and decided to make a scandal out of it.

The Foley scandal was hardly an October surprise. The Republican leadership knew about it so the only surprise may have been when the page he was bothering went public.

only wondy can respond to a long detailed post where's he repeatedly called an idiot by unironically saying it "makes no sense" and then misspelling dementia.

wasn't the whole scandal with mark foley over the fact the page was 16 at the time of the texts?

Since the army started an investigation prior to the reporting could we agree that this was more than standard issue griping? Or do you believe the army is blowing it out of proportion?

It was an October Surprise, because it was a story the media sat on for a year, and pounded nationally about 3 or 4 weeks before the election, alleging things that were untrue about Republicans as a whole, ....

The Foley story became a story when the page decided to go public. Anybody care to guess what WB would have been saying if the media had ran with a story without the page?

He would probably call everyone lying faggots and then beat off to glen beck.

I dunno, you seem to be able to make the Foley scandal all about democrats when it was about republicans.