From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Sat Dec 22 2001 - 21:49:51 MST
On 12/17/01 5:37 PM, "Spike Jones" <spike66@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Actually I think we already
> have a number of Muslims in US uniform. I heard in WW2,
> they would ask every soldier his faith. The only choices were
> Catholic, Protestant or Jewish. If one said atheist he was told:
> Son there aint no atheists in foxholes, now pick one.
>
> Dont know if that story is true, but I did hear they now have
> other categories, presumably Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc.
> Anyone know?
They had several dozen religious categories when I was in the Army, and they
add new ones all the time; whatever you call yourself, odds are it is on the
list. They also sub-divided "protestant" into more categories (e.g.
"Methodist") to accommodate the nuances of various sects of religions. The
current military criteria for adding a new religious perspective to the
rather long current list of officially recognized religions in the military
revolves around the number of practitioners in the military. I use
"religious perspective" since the list contains a number of things that
aren't actually religions per se. There are a number of religions that many
people would consider cults currently on the list, so there is almost no
discrimination as to what actually shows up and the US military goes out of
its way to officially acknowledge the religious views of everyone.
In addition to all the specified religious perspectives, there is "Other",
"No preference", and "None". My dog tags had "None" on them, as I have no
religious perspective.
As for the number of Muslims in the US military, the number of self
identified Muslims (all sects inclusive) is around 2,500 soldiers.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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