Army Spc. Jeremy Hall, an atheist who served two combat tours in Iraq, has filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against the government. Chuck France/ASSOCIATED PRESS Visit the Photo Place

There are, in fact, atheists in foxholes

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Date published: 6/1/2008

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.

Just ask Army Specialist Jeremy Hall, who is making a splash in the news because of the way his atheism was attacked by superiors and fellow soldiers while he was risking his life in service to his country.

Hall, 23, served two combat tours in Iraq, winning the Combat Action Badge. But he's now stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., having been returned stateside early because the Army couldn't ensure his safety.

There is something deeply amiss when we send soldiers on a mission to engender peaceful coexistence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, yet our military doesn't seem able to offer religious tolerance to its own.

Hall recounts the events that led to his marginalization in a federal lawsuit he filed in Kansas in March. He is joined by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group devoted to assisting members of the military who object to the pervasive and coercive Christian proselytizing in our armed forces.

Hall's atheism became an issue soon after it became known. On Thanksgiving 2006, while stationed outside Tikrit, Hall politely declined to join in a Christian prayer before the holiday meal. The result was a dressing down by a staff sergeant who told him that as an atheist he needed to sit somewhere else.

In another episode, after Hall's gun turret took a bullet that almost found an opening, the first thing a superior wanted to know was whether Hall believed in Jesus now, not whether he was OK.

Then, in July, while still in Iraq, Hall organized a meeting of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. According to Hall, Maj. Freddy Welborn disrupted the meeting with threats, saying he might bring charges against Hall for conduct detrimental to good order and discipline, and that Hall was disgracing the Constitution. (Err, I think the major has that backward.) Welborn has denied the allegations, but The New York Times reports that another soldier at the meeting said that Hall's account was accurate.

Date published: 6/1/2008

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