The Patriot Post® · Military Oath Alteration Update

Barack Obama’s administrators are constantly endeavoring to drive wedges between Liberty and its inherent foundational endowment. Most notably, he has done this in those spheres where he can exercise autocratic regulatory power without legislative and judicial interference – such as in the Department of Defense.

As commander in chief, Obama has certainly succeeded in suppressing religious expression by uniformed Patriots in our military service branches. However, his subversion of their freedom to express faith is not going without objection.

Last year, The Patriot Post uncovered what appeared to be a legal setup by Obama’s DoD civilian administrators and their surrogates – a setup that has the potential to force the removal of “so help me God” from all military oaths. That strategic ploy starts with the 2011 removal of those words from the officer, enlisted and cadet oaths in the Air Force Academy’s official handbook. Three weeks ago, we published a detailed followup of that strategy after one of Obama’s surrogates issued a formal challenge to remove “so help me God” from the Cadet Honor Oath. This week, in response to that column, 28 members of Congress issued an official letter of inquiry to the Superintendent of the Air Force Academy asking for “a detailed explanation as to why [they omitted] ‘so help me God’ from these oaths, despite the fact that the phrase is used in the very statutory language of the United States Code, and was part of the military oath drafted by the Founders themselves.”

A Fox News report notes the AFA’s Public Affairs Office claims that the alterations were “an editorial oversight.” That is possible, but given the Obama administration’s aggressive faith suppression agenda in our military ranks, an “oversight” is questionable – especially since the omission was perpetuated in the 2012 and 2013 AFA handbooks. Moreover, when Mark Alexander first inquired about the oath alterations in 2012, the Air Force Public Affairs Office refused to comment and said any further information about this issue would require a Freedom of Information Act request. Now that the congressional inquiry is underway, an FOIA request is being filed today in an effort to determine if anyone outside the AFA had a hand in the oath alterations.