Reversed: No-Bibles-And-Such Policy at Walter Reed

Reversed: No-Bibles-And-Such Policy at Walter Reed


By Guest Blogger Richard Falknor
                                
Today we learned from the redoubtable Diana West that –
“US Military Ban on Bibles at Walter Reed [Was] Revealed (and Rescinded)”

Author West asked who advised “C.W. Callahan, chief of staff for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, who set the September 14, 2011 guidelines prohibiting visitors to ‘wounded, ill, and injured partners in care’ from giving away or using Bibles in the hospital.”
Iowa Republican Representative Steve King had exposed (see p. H8072) and blasted the policy (see video) on the House floor just last

Thursday –
“Here’s Item F, and I’ll read it into the RECORD. ‘’No religious items, (i.e., Bibles, reading material and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.’’

Mr. Speaker, these military men and women who are recovering at Walter Reed and Bethesda have given their all for America. They’ve given their all for America, and they’ve defended and taken an oath to the Constitution, and here they are. The people that come to visit them can’t bring a religious artifact?

They can’t bring a Bible? They can’t use them in the services? A priest can’t walk in with the Eucharist and offer communion to a patient who might be on their deathbed because it’s prohibited in this memo from the Department of the Navy, the Commander of Walter Reed and signed, Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, by C.W. Callahan, Chief of Staff.”

But let’s stay with first principles in looking at this troubling affair.

Our Judaeo-Christian tradition is the heart of our culture.
And our culture of liberty and piety is what we are all about and have been about.

It is not surprising that the Obama Administration makes war on this heritage.  It is profoundly disturbing that the House GOP leadership apparently ignores such assaults on our culture.

Only conservative Steve King of Iowa spoke out in the House.

The same Mr. King who was pushing a simple Obamacare repeal right after its passage in 2010, to the discomfiture of the then GOP (minority) leadership in that chamber.

The same Steve King whose vigilance about illegal immigration cost him a subcommittee chairmanship early in 2011 on the Judiciary Committee.

The Walter Reed kerfuffle over Bibles and allied reading material is hardly the first such incident.

Last July Michelle Lancaster in Big Government reported in her “Texas Congressman Goes Undercover at Houston National Cemetery,” how House member John Culbreson got the facts –
“The result?

Confirmation that the Director of the Houston National Cemetery is censoring freedom of speech and freedom of religion at the funerals of our veterans.”

Lancaster, the daughter of a veteran, writes –

“As you may remember, my previous article entitled God Bless Our Military … Just Not At The Houston National Cemetery , shared how the Houston National Cemetery Director, Ms. Arlene Ocasio, was requiring grieving families and volunteer groups to not use the words ‘God’ or ‘Jesus’ at any funeral ceremony without her prior approval.  This has been a hot topic here in the Houston area, but Ms. Ocasio remains in her position as are her expressed requirements carried out by her employees to ensure prayers are more inclusive of other religions.”

The calendar of the House Veterans oversight panel does not appear to reflect any investigation into the Houston matter — which, of course, might be just the camel’s nose of this kind of anti-traditional-values activity into the Veterans Administration.

Maybe GOP sachems who are more comfortable with ‘grand budget bargains’ and other fiscal humbug can’t grasp the importance of stealth attacks throughout the Federal Establishment on our core values — nor the danger of related  “nation building in Islam” adventures here and here that must mock the core values of many of our soldiers.

Some of their heavy-hitting colleagues should tell Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor that the now-rescinded Walter Reed policy is indeed the tip of yet another Obama Administration iceberg. The attempt merits significant public attention. Oversight hearings can bring in officials to tell us the key players who are orchestrating this anti-traditional-values line of attack from the Veterans Administration to the Defense Department.

Of course, readers may recall Angelo Codevilla’s warning last year in his “America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution”
“The ruling class’s manifold efforts to discredit and drive worship of God out of public life — not even the Soviet Union arrested students for wearing crosses or praying, or reading the Bible on school property, as some U.S. localities have done in response to Supreme Court rulings — convinced many among the vast majority of Americans who believe and pray that today’s regime is hostile to the most important things of all.”

Professor Codevilla also suggests that our ruling class includes significant representation from the GOP.”