Soldiers Punished for Refusing to Attend Christian Rock Show

At least two of the soldiers who allege they were punished for not attending an evangelical Christian concert in May say that the Army's equal opportunity program is fundamentally broken and have lost faith that the separation of church and state within the military is adhered to by command. The allegations have since led to an Army investigation.

Anonymous soldiers and Pvt. Anthony Smith, who is on active duty with the National Guard in Arizona, told Truthout they were among approximately 80 soldiers who were punished for choosing not to attend "The Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concert" headlined by BarlowGirl, an evangelical Christian rock group, at Fort Eustis on May 13.

After being punished by cleaning the barracks, Smith and another soldier that night organized approximately 20 of the punished soldiers to complain to the fort's Equal Opportunity (EO) office. According to the Army's Deputy of Chief of Staff's web page, the EO program "formulates, directs, and sustains a comprehensive effort to maximize human potential to ensure fair treatment for military personnel, family members, and DA civilians without regard to race, color, gender, religion, or national origin, and provide an environment free of unlawful discrimination and offensive behavior."

According to Smith and another soldier, they were clearly discriminated against because of their beliefs. "Why do Christians get to celebrate their religion while we get to clean," Smith said. "That's the f**ked up part."

By the next day, only nine soldiers met with their EO platoon sergeant. Subsequently, seven of the nine soldiers decided not to press forward with the complaint, although Smith and another soldier were determined to file the complaint despite pressure from EO advisers not to.

The first EO adviser they met with tried to persuade them that nothing was wrong, according to Smith. Both soldiers said EO advisers pressured them to not file a formal complaint. According to Smith, advisers he consulted with told him a formal complaint would create a paper trail as well as "a timeline." The adviser also told him that the complaint would become "a statistic." Smith believes this wasn't a lie. He said formal complaints are "100 percent useless."

Meetings with EO advisers and the chain of command were frustrating, another soldier, who asked not to be identified, said.

"During those times there were meetings and discussions with commanders and NCOs, but they seemed to deteriorate to mere definitions, language, and legalistic semantics; trying to reassign and re-purpose words and meanings," the soldier said. "Trying to hold their intellect steady to deliver a point felt like handling a bar of wet soap."

At one point, the soldier asked for a non-Christian EO adviser on the assumption that an EO adviser of another faith or no faith would understand why the soldier felt violated by the events that night. According to the soldier, his EO adviser got close to him and whispered that he wasn't a Christian, he was a Catholic.

Ten days after they were put in lockdown for the night, the soldier drafted a letter to his commander, provided to Truthout, which he decided not to send because he had lost all confidence in the EO system. Within the letter, the soldier explained why he felt so strongly that his rights were infringed that night.

"On May 13 the [non-commissioned officers] at Ft Eustis issued us a directive (equivalent to a law which we must obey) that we march towards a religious destination," the soldier wrote. "In my mind that was an unlawful directive. Not only that but it was undermining the fundamental motive of me being in the United States altogether. I felt betrayed that in this instance the intent of the constitution seemed present only on paper but not in practice, that whoever is in charge might be turning to the oppressor the founding fathers were escaping from ... and for a moment I had to pause and wonder whether I may have made the wrong choice" in joining the military.