[Excerpt]
Last week, a cadet publicly quit the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, citing forced prayer and churchgoing. Republican strategist Shirley Husar, in a debate on HuffPost Live, asserted that West Point is “a religious institute.”
Merry Christmas, Shirley, but West Point is not a religious institute—though that’s not for want of trying on the Christian right’s part.
The cadet in question is 24-year-old Blake Page, who described being “severely punished” for not going to church while in basic training. “You scrubbed floors for four hours or went on rock flipping detail so the rocks could get an even tan or you mowed the dirt,” he said in an interview published on the website Alternet. “Basically whatever they could find to keep you busy.”
Read more at the New York Observer.
1 comment:
Do you know what the word Religious means? Religion is a collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. The purpose of the United States Military Academy Preparatory School (USMAPS) is to prepare candidates selected by the United States Military Academy Admission’s office for the academic, physical, and military challenges of the United States Military Academy at West Point. The system is design to make or break you. Page did not make The CUT".
Page clearly did not do his homework before entering in West Point. West Point was established by President of the United States Thomas Jefferson who was a man of faith. Jefferson was a very private man. In regards to Jefferson religious beliefs. His grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, stated that “his codification of the morals of Jesus was not known to his family before his death, and they learned from a letter addressed to a friend that he was in the habit of reading nightly from it before going to bed.” Listen to some of Jefferson’s words on the subject of faith in Jesus Christ:
“My views of the Christian religion are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.
I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be-sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others….West Point religious ways are not an injection into our service academies it is the BLOODLINE that was establish by Thomas Jefferson (one of "The Founding Fathers") in 1802. West Point understands the importance the training of spiritual mental toughness needed to have in battle and in war. For Blake Page to attack the bloodline of West Point practices that are part of the academy preparation for a strong soldier of war, for his resistance mindset of Page way is futile. He did what was right by quitting and for he clearly did not have what it takes to be part of West Point. Pages disruption to the blood line would have weaken his squadron by not complying to the rule process of West Point. My question is why did he not do his homework for entering in the academy?
The United States Military Academy was established at West Point in 1802 and has the longest continuous service of any United States military installation and is the nation's oldest military academy. When he died he stated at death "I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God, – my daughter to my country". Jefferson wrote his own epitaph, which reads:
HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON,AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.
Blake Page has failed only himself, by not looking at the history and the foundation of the military academy. Blake was not willing to make personal sacrifices He was not will to do so. If you have ever done something just because you felt it was expected of you, you have sacrificed something to a Higher Power. Maybe this involved serving in the military or on jury duty, or maybe just paying taxes. Whatever it was, if you did it out of a sense of obligation rather than because of a reasoned calculation, you sacrificed to a Higher Power. The West Point Military Academy is that higher power.
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