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Letters

Airmen’s real strengths

I do not understand the basis for Capt. Thomas Worden’s opinions on having our physical training test mirror that of the Marine Corps [“Capt.: PT test should measure combat fitness,” April 20].

I am not detailed to the Army but I am familiar with the process of filling Army billets with airmen. Has Worden bothered to ask the Army what they think of our airmen? If he did, he would learn that Army leadership raves about their intelligence, professionalism and can-do attitude, and they keep asking for more of our people. They do not complain that our airmen lack the physical toughness to keep up with their soldiers.

Worden’s solution solves problems we don’t have and creates problems we don’t need. If leadership wants to give us a PT test like the Marines’, that’s fine. But let’s do it because it makes sense for the Air Force, not to address some imaginary problem. The better answer is to adjust what we have and then enforce that standard.

Maj. Christopher D. May

Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan

Fear and the NYC flyover

I take issue with Robert F. Dorr’s column regarding the unannounced flyover of the presidential plane [“Reaction overblown to New York flyover,” Opening Shots, May 18].

• If getting a photo was the only purpose, it could have flown somewhere else. The sky is a pretty big place after all.

• If getting a photo was the only purpose, it could have been taken while on the ground. I got a fabulous shot of myself that way.

• If “others” besides the Air Force were responsible for communicating this plan, why didn’t Dorr name them? Just who might “they” be?

• I’m almost positive Dorr must have heard of post-traumatic stress disorder, which anyone who survived that day, that time and that place, most surely acquired.

• As author of a history of planes, I can understand Dorr’s tunnel vision regarding this issue. What I wish is that he didn’t possess the power of the pen which, in this case, was expressing insensitivity, not only to those who experienced the slaughter firsthand, but also to those of us — thousands of miles away — whose hearts were forever hardened by that visual now etched in our brains.

I’m surrounded by no fewer than seven noisy, smelly, destructive, polluting airports, and when a plane flies just a little too low and sounds just a little too loud, even I get nervous — here in California.

Janet S. Kessler

Fremont, Calif.

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I have followed Robert F. Dorr’s opinion columns for many years and have agreed with his comments most of the time, but this time he was way off base.

When members of the public see a large aircraft such as the 747 flying where large aircraft do not normally fly, then they have legitimate concerns based on history, especially in New York City.

There should have been more coordination between the people responsible for the flight and the city leaders.

Chief Master Sgt. David Cushing (ret.)

Phillipsburg, N.J.

Pagan chaplain shortage

A news brief in the May 11 issue [“Chaplain scholarships,” Frontlines] claimed that Catholics are the faith group with the severest chaplain shortage, but I must disagree. The severest shortage is, in fact, the drought of pagan chaplains.

Although somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 pagans serve in the armed forces, not a single chaplain represents this diverse group of faiths. In contrast, Judaism has approximately 20 chaplains for 4,000 adherents and Islam has about a dozen chaplains for approximately 3,500 Muslim service members.

The Sacred Well Congregation, which is a pagan nonprofit organization based in Texas, first expressed interest in becoming an endorsing organization for pagan chaplains in 1996. In the 13 years since then, the Armed Forces Chaplains Board has yet to grant endorser status to Sacred Well.

In September 2005, Army Sgt. Patrick Stewart, a practicing Wiccan, died in combat while deployed to Afghanistan. Stewart’s family fought the Veterans Affairs Department for more than a year, eventually threatening to sue VA, before it finally approved the Wiccan pentagram as an emblem of belief and added it to Stewart’s plot in Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery.

In July 2006, Army Chaplain (Capt.) Don Larsen applied to become the armed forces’ first pagan chaplain. Despite his sound qualifications and outstanding record of service, the Army denied his request, recalled him from his deployment to Balad, Iraq, and removed him from the chaplain corps.

Pagans have faced, and continue to face, systemic discrimination in their quest for religious representation. I urge the Armed Forces Chaplains Board to accept the Sacred Well Congregation as a religious endorsing body so that the chaplain corps can better serve the needs of everyone in uniform.

Staff Sgt. Donald Branum

Colorado Springs, Colo.