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(Emphasis Added by MRFF)
From: (Active Duty Enlisted Member/MRFF Client’s Email Address Withheld)
Subject: MRFF got my commander and his wife to stop
Date: January 29, 2024 at 3:38:30 PM MST
To: Mikey Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>
Dear Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF Staff and Reps at (military installation name withheld),
I am a (junior enlisted rank withheld) in the U.S. (military branch withheld) stationed at (military installation name withheld).
I am married with 2 kids. My wife and I were raised as Christians but do not generally go to church on a regular basis.
I wanted to thank Mikey Weinstein and our base MRFF Reps very much for helping me to be able to make my commander and his wife stop providing “Christian Bible counseling” to me and my wife.
We are fairly new to this military base and within the first week of our arrival our commander’s wife called my wife out of the blue to invite her over to their house for what was advertised as an informal “meet and greet” but was not. My wife was surrounded by other spouses of members of our unit and it was a full-fledged Christian bible study and “Christian counseling session” as the commander’s wife put it. My wife was shocked and hurt and made up an excuse about having to go to a dental appointment to get out of there early. She was asked to “witness” about her “current relationship” with Christ the moment she set foot in the commander’s house.
At work my commander has “invited’ me to attend the early morning bible studies he leads before normal work hours on Tuesday and Thursdays. I agreed to go to one in the hopes of getting him to leave me alone after that but he continued to confront me about no longer attending his “Christian bible counseling” sessions as he calls them. He repeatedly reminded me that “spiritual fitness” is a graded area on my annual performance evals. And also his wife kept texting my wife to come to their bible studies for military spouses at their residence.
I spoke to our First Shirt about this but she just shrugged and said there wasn’t anything she could do. My wife and I didn’t know what to do next to stop this intimidation?
Fortunately another enlisted supervisor in my chain did get me together with our base MRFF Rep (name and rank withheld) who got me on the phone within 20 minutes with Mikey Weinstein after work one evening.
Mikey asked for the contact information of my upper chain of command well above my commander. I gave him the permission to call them. My wife and I were nervous but felt like we had no other choice but to let Mikey and the MRFF intervene for us as no-one else could do it.
Mikey spoke with 2 individuals in that chain and got back to me the very next day and confirmed that he was advised by command after making the formal complaint against my commander and his wife that the harassment would stop right away.
And all I know afterwards is that the early morning "Christian Bible counseling” sessions led by our commander immediately stopped as did the invitations to my spouse to attend the commander’s wife’s bible studies at their on base house!
It’s been almost a month now and there has been no blowback to me or my wife and family as of yet at all. I know it might still happen but so far so good. I do sometimes get the “side eye” from our First Shirt but that doesn’t bother me so far.
If any sort of reprisal happens at all we will contact MRFF right away but we also want to thank everyone at the MRFF for taking this painful stress and burden off of our backs. We cannot thank the MRFF enough!
V/R
(Active Duty Enlisted Member/MRFF Client’sName, rank, MOS/AFSC, title, installation and military branch all withheld)
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