Creech AFB Advocates Christian-only POW Table
The POW/MIA Table is a well-known honor for military personnel captured or lost in battle. It’s important to remember those lost and to honor their service, whatever their beliefs may have been. However, at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, dining facility contractors supported by base leadership have chosen to give this special honor only to Christians. At the Dining Facility, they’ve posted a table with a Christian Bible, thus saying very clearly they don’t care at all about lost non-Christians or military personnel who aren’t Christian.
Were this table at a private event, a church, or someone’s home, there would be no problem with having this table specifically honoring Christians. But at the Dining Facility, a non-sectarian, general use facility, all we have is a government promotion of Christianity. Only removing the Bible can resolve this issue.
Hopefully media and leaders do not make this a matter of atheists being offended or about a witch hunt for the Airman that brought this issue up. Only those facility managers and base commanders given the power and authority by the US government to manage that facility can place and decorate the table. The outrage should not be directed at removing the Bible but at those government officials who chose to put the Bible out in the first place. They have abused their official position to promote their personal beliefs, and that shows a lack of integrity as well as a lack of respect for the diversity of belief within their unit.
MAAF spoke with dining facility contractors, Air Base Group command, and Public Affairs at Creech and Nellis AFB, but officials did not remove the Bible or explain their actions.
Air Force Regulations lay out a specific protocol for these tables. Air Force Pamphlet 34-1202, Jan 2013, lays out instructions that provide for an ‘optional’ use of a ‘book of faith’. The most appropriate translation is that this is for private or sectarian chaplain events that honor a specific religious tradition, not for the dining facility.
14.12.3.1. A round table, a white table cloth, six chairs, book of faith (optional), red rose displayed in vase, red ribbon, slice of lemon on a bread plate with a pinch of salt, place setting at an open table, and (6) wine glasses. (NOTE: All support material should be supplied by the host).
(Optional) The bound text is a book of faith to represent the strength gained through devotion to sustain those lost from our country. [excerpted from section 14.12.6]
The Air Force has successfully resolved similar issues at other installations. After ignoring MAAF requests to resolve this at the lowest level, hopefully national visibility will inspire Creech and Nellis AFB leadership to retain a POW/MIA Table that honors all, not just Christians.
The Navy equivalent, OPNAV Instruction 1710.7A June 2001, references the Bible specifically and promotes a Christian Nation agenda. The official Navy blog reported positively about this official Bible-only script just in 2014. These sorts of Christian-only military texts should be written out of policy as was the Christian Flag Folding ceremony recently being promoted among various military elements. MAAF absolutely supports the free exercise of religion and the rights of military personnel to grow in and express their theistic and nontheistic core values. There are too many that want privilege for themselves and ostracism for others. Religious freedom does not mean the right to discriminate against those you don’t like or the right to be issued a megaphone to promote your religious beliefs in your official duties, as is being done today at Creech Air Force Base.
Chaplains are doing good work at Creech AFB. The official Creech AFB website tells how an Airman was willing to seek out a chaplain, and how that chaplain made a proper mental health referral so the Airman could get the psychological help he needed. This shows how critical it is that leadership and chaplains be accessible and open to nontheists and not just a Christian-only institution, despite the Christian cross on the chaplain’s patrol cap.