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From: Michael L Weinstein <mikeyw4444@icloud.com>
Subject: Egregious Constitutional Civil Rights Violations Under Your Leadership
Date: July 24, 2024 at 2:03:45 PM MDT
To: Michael Swartz
Cc: Tanya J. Bradsher, Philippe Jaoude, Samantha Gugenberge, Royce Calhoun, Danielle Bergman, fFrancesca Lee
Michael J. Swartz
Healthcare System Director
VA Western New York Health Care
716-862-8529
RE: Healthcare System Director Swartz, on behalf of its 11 military veteran client patients at your Buffalo, New York VAMC facility, MRFF demands that you immediately remove the illicit, unconstitutional Christian Bible from the referenced POW/MIA “Missing Man Table” in the Medical Center’s cafeteria as well as the sign showing a Bible with a Christian cross in the facility’s cafeteria, which is under your personal control and direction.
(See explicit photographs at bottom of this demand letter; All right, title and interest in those photographs belong to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation)
Dear Healthcare System Director Michael J. Swartz,
My name is Mikey Weinstein, and I am the head of a large civil rights organization called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF, https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org). MRFF currently represents just over 89,000 active duty, reserve, National Guard, and military veteran clients as well as many clients among the 18 national security agencies and DHS (Coast Guard) and DOT (U.S. Maritime Service). MRFF’s specific mission is to protect the constitutionally-mandated wall separating church and state in the above-referenced governmental venues.
MRFF has been retained by 11 honorable military veterans who are also patients under your direct leadership as Healthcare System Director, VA Western New York Health Care.
Of these 11 honorable American military veteran patients/MRFF clients, 2 are practicing Christians (1 Protestant and 1 Roman Catholic), 2 practice the Jewish faith, 2 practice the Islamic faith, 1 practices the Hindu faith, 1 is a Buddhist, and 3 follow non-faith traditions.
Healthcare System Director Swartz, I won’t belabor the point here. The POW/MIA “Missing Man Table” in your Buffalo, New York, VA Medical Center has a very large sectarian Christian Bible prominently displayed on it to the utter exclusion of any other religious faith or non-faith traditions. In addition to this extremely large, open Christian Bible, which takes up nearly half of the table and dominates the display, an impossible-to-miss sign next to the table explaining the table’s items also prominently shows a Bible with a large Christian cross on it.
**Please see the e-mail below my signature in this demand letter from one of our 11 MRFF client complainants on this sordid matter, which provides excellent detail (including explicit photographs) as to the scurrilous, unconstitutional violations occurring under your specific direction, sir.
Healthcare System Director Swartz, your allowing this sectarian display to promote and proselytize Christianity and ONLY Christianity is an atrocious and singularly ignominious act of illicit, unconstitutional Christian supremacy, exclusivity, triumphalism, and exceptionalism. It flagrantly violates not only the No Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and its construing caselaw but your own VA regulations as well.
The display of Christian proselytizing material as the sole religious item in a VA medical center display is in clear violation of the VA’s own regulations and policies regarding religious displays, which state that a display “should not elevate one belief system over others,” such as VA Directive 0022, “Religious Symbols in VA Facilities,” January 31, 2020, (emphasis added):
2. POLICY. Religious symbols may be included in a passive display, including a holiday display, in public areas of VA facilities (see subsection a. below), if the display is of the type that follows in the longstanding tradition of monuments, symbols and practices that simply recognize the important role that religion plays in the lives of many Americans. Such displays should respect and tolerate differing views and should not elevate one belief system over others. …
b. VA is committed to inclusivity and nondiscrimination and evaluates all displays in public areas on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the policy stated above. VA particularly encourages the placement of diverse religious symbols together in passive displays in public areas.
This display of a Christian Bible would not even be allowed as a permanent display in a VA facility chapel, let alone a highly visible, public space as it is on this POW-MIA table. VA medical facility chapels are required to be “religiously neutral” at all times when there is not an actual service taking place for a particular faith group, as is clearly stated in VHA Directive 1111, “Spiritual Care,” July 21, 2021 (emphasis added):
9. CHAPELS AND OTHER WORSHIP FACILITIES
a. Chapels. The chapel, or a room set aside exclusively for use as a chapel, must be reserved for patients’ spiritual activities, such as: worship, prayer, meditation and quiet contemplation. Such chapels are appointed and maintained as places for meditation and worship. When VA chaplains are not providing or facilitating a religious service for a particular faith group, the chapel must be maintained as religiously neutral, meaning it cannot be viewed as endorsing one religion over another. Religious literature, content and symbols must be made readily accessible to VA patients and visitors in a chapel or Chaplain Service office at their request. The only exception to the policy on maintaining chapels as religiously neutral are the chapels at VA medical facilities which were built with permanent religious symbols in the walls or windows. In these cases, the VA medical facility Director must also designate an appropriately sized room or construct a religiously neutral chapel, which is maintained in accordance with this VHA directive and VA Space Planning Criteria …
So you can better understand the history of sectarian Christian Bibles placed on these “Missing Man Table” displays, please take a good look at this article by MRFF’s Senior Research Director Ms. Chris Rodda:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/Bibles-dont-belong-on-pow-remembrance-tables
Additionally, here is a useful timeline for your further review as well, clearly showing that a Christian Bible on the “Missing Man Table” was NEVER a part of the original “Missing Man Table” POW/MIA table tradition and was not added until over three decades afterward:
1967 – The POW/MIA table tradition was created by the Red River Fighter Pilots Association, an association of Vietnam combat pilots informally known as the “River Rats.” They began the tradition in May of 1967 at a meeting at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand, held by a group of pilots to discuss ways to prevent so many pilots from being shot down and captured. The original tradition created by the River Rats at this meeting did not include a Bible among the table’s items.
1985 – The American Legion passed a resolution to set a POW/MIA table at its events. In its official chaplains manual, the American Legion listed the items to be placed on the table. In keeping with the original tradition, a Bible was not among the items in the American Legion’s version. This was the version that became the standard, and is still widely used today.
1999 – The VFW Ladies Auxiliary published a script for the setting of the POW/MIA table in a 1999 issue of its magazine, adding a Bible to the table’s items. This is the earliest evidence of a Bible being added to the table.
c. 2000 – The National League of POW/MIA Families put out a script for the setting of the POW/MIA table that was almost identical to the one published in the 1999 issue of the VFW Ladies Auxiliary magazine, including the addition of the Bible. The National League of POW/MIA Families script first appeared on the organization’s website in 2000.
This new National League of POW/MIA Families version, created over three decades after the original, Bible-free tradition was begun by the River Rats, is now wrongly thought by many to be the original tradition, and has led many to think that a Bible has always been included on POW/MIA tables and that it was the National League of POW/MIA Families that originated the tradition.
Thus, Healthcare System Director Swartz, on behalf of its 11 military veteran client patients at your Buffalo, New York, VA Medical Center facility, MRFF demands that you immediately remove the illicit, unconstitutional Christian Bible from the from the referenced POW/MIA “Missing Man Table” display as well as the sign showing a Bible with a Christian cross in the facility’s cafeteria, which is under your personal control and direction.
We await your timely response.
Sincerely,
Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein, Esq.
Founder and President
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
505-250-7727
From: (Retired Senior U.S. Military Officer’s name and e-mail withheld)
Subject: Buffalo VA Medical Center POW/MIA table
Date: July 23, 2024 at 10:30:05 AM MDT
To: mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org
Dear Mikey
I am a retired, senior military officer. On the morning of July 19th, 2024, I had the privilege of receiving care at the Buffalo New York VA Medical Center. As always, the staff was caring and competent. After my appointment, I went to the cafeteria as it was close to noon. In the cafeteria, there as a POW/MIA Missing Man Table. (picture attached). I was hurt and disappointed to see an open, new testament Bible on the table. The presence of this Bible, which does not represent my faith, seemed to negate and ignore the sacrifice and legitimacy of our uniformed services men and women of other faiths, or of no specific religious belief, who sacrificed or devoted their lives for our freedoms.
Next to the POW/MIA table was a poster that explained the contents of the table. As you can see by the attached picture of this poster, there is not only a Bible displayed, but the Bible has a large cross on it. That is when my feelings of disappointment turned to anger. This outrageous poster actively excludes all those of other faiths or viewpoints. I was reminded of the words of Elie Weisel, Nobel laureate and Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps:
“The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it is indifference.
The opposite of faith is nor heresy, it is indifference.
The opposite of life is not death, it is indifference.”
To me, this poster is a display of indifference. It is insulting and hurtful. This should not be allowed in any VA Medical Center.
Kindly delete my name from any reference to this letter, as I receive certain aspects of my care at the Buffalo VA Medical Center and I do not want to cause any relationship problems nor public exposure of my identity.
Respectfully,
(Retired Senior U.S. Military Officer’s name, rank, and service branch withheld)
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