Soldiers tested on religion

The Army is desperately trying to figure out why their soldiers are committing suicide at an alarming rate. They're pulling at straws hoping to find something.

Who in the military sits around and thinks up these bone-headed ideas?

And then who is self-destructive enough to make the career destroying decision to actually implement them?

I'd say they're trying to look at all sorts of possibilities, mental status, belief systems, whatever. They're also looking for anything that might lead to being able to say the soldier was compromised to begin with so they can be denied benefits.

Got a piece of paper here that says you were abused as a child and don't believe in God... well your mental issues are preexisting so that's a no on VA money.

The military is know for administering all sorts of tests on their soldiers, I don't see this as any different.

I'm a bit lost as to how this:

I believe there is a purpose for my life.

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Is necessarily a way of trampling on someone's atheism. I know plenty of atheists who still feel there is plenty of "purpose" to their life. I would imagine that stating they don't have purpose would be awfully damn rude, but that isn't what the questionnaire did. It asked what the soldier thought.

Spiritual fitness, to me, is not something that being atheist is a deterrent to having. If you feel comfortable with what you believe, then you have spiritual fitness. If that is atheism, then that is good for you.

I know the Army faces a tremendous strain on them with PTSD issues. They offer many, many programs that are mostly counseling based (not religious). None of them are mandatory. Most of these things are opportunities for disseminating the available resources to soldiers. Like the article said, it wasn't pass or fail.

It's kind of like when they had speakers come in elementary school about sexual abuse. You always had a chance to talk to a counselor afterwards.

They have chaplains across the spectrum and offer Wiccan services at every post I have been to as well (which the chaplains co-ordinate, regardless of their religious affiliation). There are obviously no atheist chaplains, however the chaplaincy does interact with most of the counseling services and morale programs. They are extremely non-evangelical.

It would have been different if the people complaining were actually soldiers or military but they were NOT. I found that irritating. So those that thought it was invasive were people who didn't even have to take the assessment? OOOKAy. Yeah. You leave your family for 18 months and face death for a while. Then come back and talk politics with me.

amyashley said:

You leave your family for 18 months and face death for a while. Then come back and talk politics with me.

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Done that. What do you want to talk about?

Would you be offended by this? Or would you fill it in and move on?

I think it would bug me if they were using it to grade them, but they aren't.

amyashley said:

I think it would bug me if they were using it to grade them, but they aren't.

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You hope.

I am pretty sure they aren't using them to grade anyone. The military here has pretty stringent policies in regards to religion invading anything. They keep the chaplaincy itself in check quite a bit.

In itself, the chaplaincy is an extremely interesting inter-faith organization. The men and women within its ranks have to find a balance between their ministry and their service to country, as defined by their motto "Pro Deo Et Patria". They work with soldiers within their own faiths and without, providing counseling as well as religious services. They are NOT, EVER, permitted to proselytize. Doing so prevents promotion and can lead to lost jobs. If you want to preach, the military is NOT the place to do so.

Air Force Academy turning into a seminary? That sounds odd and something more do to funding, but I don't know anything about it. It wouldn't be the Air Force Academy if it was a seminary. A seminary has to be backed by ONE religious affiliation. I mean, which one were they trying to pick?

They ask these questions about soldiers' financial health, domestic lives, and other very invasive things too. Religion is the only one that seems to get anyone riled up.

With all the issues that crop up daily with soldiers, anything preventative that shows them where they can go (or maybe shows a buddy where to send them) isn't a bad thing, IMO. That's from the perspective of someone who is thinking of people who are hurting rather than people who are happy.

If you are happy, you would say that you were comfortable with your spirituality. Being atheist doesn't mean, to me at least, that you aren't spiritual. It just means you don't believe in God.

I'm more offended by this guy's implication that an atheist isn't a) spiritually complete, and b) has no purpose in life.

I wonder...was suicide a notable problem in any pre-industrial military?
(I wasn't sure what to do with this question actually. It's a bit of a derail to post it here, it probably requires an expert answer but it's not really story research, and yet I don't think it would fit the off topic section either :S)

That's a really good and interesting question!

I know incidents of domestic violence, DUI, drug use, suicide, and PTSD are really getting bad right now. I don't know what they were historically. I know who to ask. I can get back to you on that.

amyashley said:

That's a really good and interesting question!

I know incidents of domestic violence, DUI, drug use, suicide, and PTSD are really getting bad right now. I don't know what they were historically. I know who to ask. I can get back to you on that.

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It's rather hard to answer that question, if only because a lot of those issues weren't "issues" in the dim times. They were either ignored, unknown, or unremarked.

As is, though, I'd find this test and the insistence in hokey religious mumbo jumbo (which is how it'd feel to me) invasive and irritating.

But that's just me. I've never actually been in the military, so my theoretical musings aren't worth nearly as much compared to the posters who actually have or are serving.

Well, The Navigators HQ is there, as is Focus On The Family. Some big religious groups with big money.

They cannot simply take over the school. The Air Force won't let that occur. Sometimes it does take time to get people kicked out. Unfortunately, in a place like that, there are probably plenty of ways to bribe and cajole more people to swing your way. The Air Force can come down hard on one and another pops up to take over.

Th entire military is not like that.

LOG said:

I wonder...was suicide a notable problem in any pre-industrial military?

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Try the historical fiction forum maybe.
That being said, there weren't very many pre-industrial militaries that could be compared to a modern professional military in social makeup. A typical medieval military consisting of a few feudal knights, men-at-arms and impressed peasants isn't comparable at all. I don't think there's anything comparable post-roman and pre-napoleonic times.
Anyway, i have no idea about the latter, but one thing to remember about the former time is that the very strong social stigma that's attached to suicide today is mostly a product of judeochristian religion.
And of course, a soldier during those times was living a much more dangerous life already.

Zoombie said:

As is, though, I'd find this test and the insistence in hokey religious mumbo jumbo (which is how it'd feel to me) invasive and irritating.

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I think what aggravated me about the article was that the man lodging the complaint has probably not actually been present during such a survey and thus is not aware of what is occurring. Neither are the authors of the article, and thus things are presented in a skewed perspective.

What actually occurs is probably a pretty invasive survey (most of what the military does with soldiers is invasive), followed by a presentation of 1) Financial aid options, including relief for student loans, general debt counseling services, and probably a 5 minute speech on whatever new savings programs or raises are about 2) A sexual harrassment and EO (Equal Opportunity) segment with contact numbers 3) A domestic violence portion with descriptions of abuse, what is and isn't appropriate, numbers and hotlines, and counseling options for soldiers and families (this runs a gamut from religious to medical and includes off-base facilities) 4) Chaplain portion offering chapel opportunities including counseling, contact numbers for on and off duty chaplains, and any morale activities (they offer many retreats that are non-religous for singles, couples and families as well as pre-and post deployment seminars)

There are probably more. Classes like this occur every 2 months or so. Some have questionnaires and some don't. Some surveys (it depends on who gives them) are used by the unit to help track soldiers having difficulty. Everything is confidential. Some are offered by Mental Health, which isn't religious at all. These are also confidential.

I think the opinion by TINY (who is a vet I believe - correct me if I'm wrong) and the fact that the soldiers don't seem to care (since they're not the ones complaining), says it all. It's a non issue. Depression is rampant, the army is doing what they can to address it. Perhaps their studies show that soldiers who have spiritual beliefs have a lower incident of suicide. I see NOTHING wrong with this. I doubt very much that a soldier is going to take offense to someone saying "your spiritual fitness might be something you want to look into."

On the issue of suicide, I had a roommate in college who was an MP in the military prior to going to school. She showed me the scars from her military surgery on her knee from a knee injury she suffered in the line of duty (she was chasing down a suspect across the base one night, saw him hop a 9-foot chain-link fence to escape, so she tried to hop it as well, and her boot laces snagged on the top of the fence, sending her dangling head-down by one boot and thus ripping her knee).

She said the military at first did not believe her injusry was real and accused her of lying and of trying to get a military discharge. She spent more than a month undergoing medical tests the doctors launched to determine if the pain was real and if the injury was real. They finally determined she wasn't lying and put her through surgery (the delay in surgery meant they had to deal with some really obstructive scar tissue that had formed -- had they done the surgery right away, that scar tissue wouldn't even have been there). She said when she recovered she STILL had pain and difficulty walking (probably due to the scar tissue), and they AGAIN accused her of lying. So she AGAIN had to undergo tests to determine if she really was in pain.

In the end she was found to be telling the truth, she was given a full medical discharge, and provided with excelent medical care for the continued treatment of her knee.

Meanwhile, she knew of another woman from the same base who --a year earlier-- had also suffered an injury in the line of duty. This other woman was also accused of lying, and yet (unlike my roommate) she was NOT given the thumbs-up by the doctors that she was telling the truth. She was returned to active duty and ordered to stop faking her pain and her pretend limping or she would be courtmartialed. Within a week she killed herself.

LOG said:

I wonder...was suicide a notable problem in any pre-industrial military?

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Rudyard Kipling's poem "The 'eathen" had the line "the young recruit is silly, 'e thinks o suicide." Kipling wasn't ever in the military and he wasn't pre-industrial (1865-1936), but it's the only thing that springs to mind. You might try looking at older military poets?

IIRC, it was pretty common practice to more or less kidnap people off the streets for the British Army & Navy (google 'press gangs'). Discipline in the military was brutal, and enlistment was for life. I've got to believe that would be kind of depressing.

The only thing I was able to drum up on pre-industrial suicide was what was discussed here already. Since it was largely frowned upon by a predominantly judeo-christian society (the person I talked to was not as familiar with non-European Armies), suicide went against religious beliefs in most cases.

Plot Device, the medical discharge issues do occur. I'd have to wonder if there were other factors leading to suicide. That's terribly sad. It is a difficult life and not for everyone. They do a better job taking care of people than I think some people realize, it is a huge organization however, and there are issues. It isn't perfect.

They are almost grabbing at straws with this, or putting Band-Aids on a sliced artery. regdog said it well, although it may not have been meant this way.

With wars on two fronts and global problems, this is what the Army is worried about.

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When you send soldiers every 6 months to every other year to a war front, there are going to be serious problems. Patching up their spiritual life may help some, but the problem is caused by the WAR.

Suicides, depression, all that isn't going to slow down until they stop sending them away all the time. Unfortunately they don't have control over that one.

amyashley said:

If you are happy, you would say that you were comfortable with your spirituality. Being atheist doesn't mean, to me at least, that you aren't spiritual. It just means you don't believe in God.

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Not true. I don't believe in God, nor do I believe in spirits, and I think "spirituality" is an amoebic concept that is tied in with both of the above.

I'm not in the military, but if I were, I wouldn't know how to respond to that question whether I was happy or not. And yes, I would find that irritating, as well as rife with implicit religious undertones.

Oh, I'm sorry... rife with implicit "spiritual" undertones.