The report from the Pentagram General who ran the investigaton of the religious problems at the Air Force Academy looks pretty much like the local ringknocker society protecting its' own.
The U.S. Air Force Academy failed to accommodate minority beliefs but there is no overt religious discrimination at the college, an Air Force report on the religious climate at the institution said on Wednesday.
...
"There was a lack of awareness on the part of some faculty and staff, and perhaps cadets in positions of authority, as to what constitutes appropriate expressions of faith, particularly in this setting: in superior-subordinate relationships in a government institution," Air Force Lt. Gen. Roger Brady, who headed the report, told a
Pentagon briefing.
...
A team from Yale Divinity School said in April it found evangelical Christian proselytizing commonplace at the academy, which has about 4,400 students, and cited "stridently evangelical themes" by staff. The team described a campus chaplain telling cadets they would "burn in the fires of hell" if they were not born-again Christians.
The Air Force report said that it found "the root of this problem is not overt religious discrimination." Brady said problems were neither pervasive nor institutionalized, and that faculty and staff who acted inappropriately did not do so with malice.
...
The religious bias investigation followed a decade of sexual assaults and harassment against female cadets at the academy that a Pentagon report last December blamed on leadership failures by top Air Force officials.
Brady's report found a "perception of religious intolerance" at the academy, and called for new guidelines for commanders and supervisors on appropriate religious expression as well as training in religious diversity and respect.
Yeah, let's see...the Air Force Academy, which holds itself out to be Just Fucking Wonderful has now been having scandal after scandal for going on a decade now. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that there might be an eensy-weensy little problem with the Air Force's leadership?
The Navy has taken it's lumps at Annapolis, but I don't seem to hear that they have anymore than the occasional "honors" scandal, the same at West Point. My community, Naval Aviation took it in the shorts with the whole "Tailhook" scandal...but took the "lessons learned" for what they were worth and moved on.
The Air Force has this seemingly blind spot about their Academy, that it's some kind of breeding ground for some kind of infalliable warriors or something. That attitude, has in my opinion, contributed to the problems that they are having now...
And that's a shame, I know many good AFA grads who probably don't like being tarred with this brush, but are getting tainted all the same.
Unfortunately, I don't think that either the Air Force leadership or Congress will take the requisite actions to make a real, lasting change for the better of their Academy. A few classes and some sensitivity training aren't going to cut it. Some "slash and burn" leadership needs to take place if anyone is going to take any changes seriously. If they need a historical example of how it can be done, they should study the tenure of Admiral Elmo Zumwalt (remember Z-Grams?), when he was CNO. Love him or hate him, and many were in both camps, his leadership changed the Navy for the better, and made it a place to be proud of, not just a place to be from. The Air Force could learn something from him, if they're not too proud to stand down and take a lesson.
posted by Jo Fish on 06.22.05 at 09:42 PM
Comments:
This is why the place is such a mess. The difference between the bootstrappers and the old hands from West Point and the "managers" that came in from Colorado was night and day.
Maybe if they move the whole thing to Death Valley where the air is thicker, a few of these people would get a clue.
This is really painful for those of us who have worn AF Blue. Myers is a political puppet and all of the leaders get pushed aside for thinking.
The problem is you believed all the press reports before you allowed the offical report to come out.
The press reports showed an incredible ignorance about how the military does things and based a lot of their allegations on people who have an obvious ax to grind.
posted by: gene on 06.24.05 at 10:09 AM [permalink]
Gene, there you go again, saying silly things. Actually, I wrote this post after reading the whole report. The issue, as I see it, is not just the proselytizing and evangelical hyper-Christianity going on but the whole on-going nature of the problems at the AFA.
Bryan (above) hits the issue pretty much on the head, when he talks about "managers". From my experience working with the AF, and it's somewhat limited, but not terribly, their culture emphasizes and values "management" over "Leadership". Problems are approached with a Tom Peters approach, not an Omar Bradley approach, and AF officers who don't go along with that don't last long/get promoted.
I think that that viewpoint has allowed the AF higher-ups to believe that they could "manage" the scandals and misbehavior by using their "management tools" rather than just applying some good old-fashioned chain-locker leadership to the problems; you know, something really outside the box like a USMC or Army general officer who is an Annapolis or West Point grad, an Aviator and a proven leader. Let him put on a purple suit for three years, and clean the place up.
Hey, who knows, it might return them to their former (illusion of, heh) greatness. Whatever. The current plan ain't cutting it on any level.
As a retired AF SrNCO (and secular humanist) I must say that I was able to see this kind of crap from the inside. For instance, the chaplains were using taxpayer funds to send single people on a singles retreat to Estes Park (Rocky Mountain National Park), supposedly nondenominational. I was single, so I said I'd like to go. But a 'Christian' heard about it and tought it was wrong for an 'atheist' to be using chapel funds (I should have then said that I'd like to have a voucher, just to piss him off). I went on a camping trip with friends instead. Another example: Far too often Christians were adding things they were doing for their church as community involvement on their performance reports, so I added my involvement with the Council for Secular Humanists. Result: My score by a panel of HQAF SrNCOs reviewing my performance reports (all EPRs were well documented with Outastanding achievements and were fireball 9s, highest score possible) to grade them for promotion points resulted in a significant drop in promotion points. Since everything else was sterling, including receiving a Outstanding on a recent high level inspection, gee, I don't know what could have caused the drop (try religous bigotry!!!)...
