Subject: Likelihood of U.S. Constitutional Civil Rights Violations Under Your Command
Date: June 15, 2023 at 10:09:29 AM MDT
To: Major General Gregory K. Anderson, Commanding General, 10th Mountain Division (LI) and Fort Drum, New York
Cc: Commanding General of the United States Army Forces Command Gen. Andrew P. Poppas, Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. James C. McConville, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks
RE: Likelihood of U.S. Constitutional Civil Rights Violations Under Your Command
To: Major General Gregory K. Anderson, Commanding General
10th Mountain Division (LI) and Fort Drum, New York
Dear Major General Anderson,
So here’s the thing, sir.
You have a potentially VERY serious matter of repulsive unconstitutionality about to hit and screw up your command.
Thirty-nine of your active duty U.S. Army soldiers and staff, under your direct command at the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York, have specifically reached out to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), pleading for help in eradicating the high likelihood of their basic Constitutional civil rights being deliberately and viciously violated just 5 days from now on June 20, 2023, the day before “Mountainfest.”
For the record, 23 of them are practicing Christians, and the remaining MRFF complainant/clients are Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, as well as Atheist and Agnostic.
On June 21, next Wednesday, as you well know, Fort Drum will pretty much close down normal duty operations for the day to celebrate “Mountainfest,” which is billed as a massive family day of fun and togetherness for all of the military personnel at your installation.
All of that is fine.
What is NOT fine, General, is the extremely troublesome featured speaker you and your staff have SO carefully handpicked to speak at the kickoff on the day before, Tuesday, June 20, for this enormous and heralded celebratory event, which is billed as the "Family spiritual readiness breakfast & annual remembrance ceremony.”
Thanks to you and your staff, former Army officer and chaplain Jeff Strueccker will keynote this kickoff event. I’ll not belabor the specifics as to why our 39 Army clients under your command at Fort Drum are furious and shocked about Mr. Struecker’s plum speaking gig. Indeed, General, you can clearly discern their justified concerns by reading the BREAKING news story just NOW out from MRFF’s Senior Research Director, Ms. Chris Rodda, below at the link.
During his active duty Army chaplain days, Mr. Struecker’s well-advertised plan (see the nightmarish video link in Ms. Rodda’s story and below please) to proselytize Army soldiers burdened with extreme hunger, cold and sleep deprivation during extraordinarily difficult Ranger training with his raging fundamentalist Christian version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ made this man quite infamous.
Why was he so infamous, sir? Well, because he gleefully BRAGGED about how Army soldiers so terribly burdened with combat training privations would be FAR more open and susceptible to accepting his extremist fundamentalist Christian dogmatic views than if they were otherwise unencumbered.
And SO repugnantly brazen was he that he EVEN did it all on video as you can plainly see in Ms. Rodda’s article at the link above!
Oh, but there is SO much more, General Anderson.
Look, MRFF is not going to demand that you cancel Struecker’s speech opportunity before he even gets to spew it at the DoD “pulpit” you are so generously providing for him, which, by the way, he’s getting paid for with our U.S. taxpayer dollars.
However, MRFF IS going to demand that you ENSURE that whatever this guy says at this major Army event comports completely with the church-state separation mandates of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, all DoD and Dept. of the Army Directives, Instructions and Regulations as well as the UCMJ and the much vaunted U.S. Army's 7 Core values.
Obviously, General, if 39 of your OWN subordinates (the majority of whom are Christians themselves!) are coming to an NGO like MRFF for help here, something is VERY wrong with your command climate! They justly fear reprisal, retribution, retaliation and revenge if they brought their valid concerns up through their Fort Drum chains of command or filed an IG or EEO complaint.
You see, General, even DoD Secretary Lloyd Austin made it clear when he initially assumed his job that he wanted to be a “lodestar" for racial and religious diversity in the U.S. armed forces. In DIRECT opposition to Secretary Austin’s decree for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Mr. Struecker’s despicable past of attempting to promote his own seethingly sectarian version of Christian extremism on subordinate soldiers is not merely alarming but a clear TRAVESTY of the most egregious degree!
Indeed, these Army soldiers were weakened, debilitated and diminished from the incredible personal challenges of U.S. Army Ranger combat training. This marks Struecker as an unctuous, conniving, craven, opportunistic, and illicitly horrendous example, if not pathetic Poster Boy, for unconstitutional Christian proselytizing resulting in the ripping asunder of good order, morale, discipline and unit cohesion in military units!
In closing, Major General Anderson, please see the eye-opening E-mail directly below received by MRFF yesterday from just one of our 39 Army client complainants under your direct command.
Also, please preserve all records in ANY form associated directly or indirectly with you and your staff’s selection of Struecker as the designated speaker for this event, as MRFF will shortly be filing a specific Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S. Code Section 552) request to bring to light just HOW, WHY, WHEN and by WHOM the official Fort Drum decision was made to select this notorious, fundamentalist Christian proselytizer for your highly visible speaking engagement.
Thank you in advance for your time and consideration of MRFF’s demand that you GUARANTEE that Struecker will NOT engage in sectarian fundamentalist Christian proselytizing at this "Family spiritual readiness breakfast & annual remembrance ceremony" at Mountainfest this coming Tuesday the 20th.
MRFF and our 39 Fort Drum clients under your command are standing by to receive your timely assurance of our demand for Constitutional compliance vis-à-vis this keynote address by Jeff Struecker, Major General Anderson.
Sincerely,
Michael L. “ Mikey” Weinstein, Esq.
Founder and President
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
505-250-7727
(See E-mail below from 1 of MRFF’s 39 Fort Drum clients)
From: (MRFF Client at Fort Drum, New York E-mail Address Withheld)
Subject: Thank You (for all that you do)
Date: June 14, 2023 at 3:14:25 PM MDT
Mr. Weinstein & the MRFF,
I am one of the personnel here at Fort Drum, NY who contacted you requesting help and assistance from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
I would like to again thank you for contacting me so quickly after I emailed you. As a retiree, I can recall many times in my career, especially as a new Soldier, where senior leadership often abused their rank and position to forcefully proselytize to junior Soldiers. I remember my first week in the Army hearing a Staff Sergeant say that it "was his religious duty" to convert as many of us as he could in the Platoon. I did not agree with any of these things I saw all those years ago, but felt powerless to do anything about it. In fact, I had seen the effects of retaliation toward those who did try to speak up. I saw other Soldiers purposefully alienated, and their careers not-so-subtly threatened when they complained about being forced to listen to Dave Ramsey seminars as part of Sergeant's Time Training. I saw these incidents and knew that speaking out meant reprisal, and without even realizing it had become a victim myself.
I first became aware of the MRFF sometime in 2007 when the "Left Behind" video game distribution through care packages story broke. I remember being so surprised at the time that someone was able to not only speak up that they had a problem with this stuff being distributed, but that they were taken seriously, and action was taken as a result. I felt like something had changed, that the days of your Platoon Sergeant bullying you into joining their church (or ostracizing you if you didn't) were numbered. I kept note of the other successes the MRFF has had since then, knowing that I would have somewhere to turn the next time I saw someone abuse their power to further a religious agenda.
One day, I came home to my spouse, conflicted about a situation that I knew I could not ignore. Senior leadership had invited someone to speak at an event, which is not unusual. What was unusual was that the speaker, Mr. Jeff Struecker appeared to me to be chosen specifically as a result of his extreme fundamental religious beliefs. I and others here at Fort Drum have been asked to help facilitate this major Army event where, for all I know, this bible literalist who might likely have my LGBTQ child put to death, if he was able to, would be a headline speaker. There was no question in my mind that I needed to contact the MRFF. Mr. Struecker not only uses these events to proselytize to a captive audience, the belief system of the very church he founded is in direct conflict with Army values. He makes it clear that the LGBTQ community is not welcome, women are not to hold leadership positions, and his "biblical view" of PTSD support is vile and a contradiction to widely accepted evidence based practices.
Not knowing what to expect, I drafted an email and sent it. I hoped that I might get a response back in 24 hours. What I got was a phone call 5 minutes later from a concerned Mr. Weinstein who immediately provided me with reassurance that the MRFF could help prevent Mr. Struecker from using his presence at an official government function to proselytize his dangerous ideology. If I had one thing I could say to every young servicemember, it would be; don't sit in silence like I did all those years ago. Mr. Weinstein & the MRFF mean business. They have the will and means to help you, reach out to them!
Thank You,
(MRFF Client’s name, unit and title at Fort Drum, New York all withheld)
