We Hunt People for Jesus

So says Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, in a sermon given at Bagram Air Base and filmed by documentarian Brian Hughes. He's addressing soldiers and exhorting them to "hunt 'em down, get the hound of heaven after them". Exactly whom he expects those soldiers to hunt is not made clear during the clip I saw, but since the base is located 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) southeast of Charikar in Parwan, a province of Afghanistan, I imagine we can assume it is the Afghan people. Hensley indicates that the reason for this hunting of humans is to "get them in the kingdom". One wonders, what kingdom would that be?
General Order Number One details a list of activities prohibited to the United States Armed Forces. This order is "applicable to all United States military personnel, and to civilians servicing with, employed by, or accompanying the Armed Forces of the United States..." and states that "persons subject to the uniform Code of Military Justice may face administrative, nonjudicial, or judicial action" for violating the order. Section 5p prohibits "proselytizing any religion, faith, or practice." It would seem to me that the General Order has got Hensley in line for some kind of disciplinary action both coming and going. That man is either working up those soldiers to go out there and kill in the name of Jesus - holy war, anyone? - or convert others to the worship of Jesus. Either way, he needs to be bitch-slapped 16 ways to Sunday.
While Hensley's taking his 40 lashes, the exec's from Trijicon should be treated to their own date with the cat-o'-nine-tails, all of course in the name of the Jesus to whom they dedicate their scopes. These sweethearts from a company in Michigan make the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG); the 'christian scopes' on U.S. military weapons being used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trijicon inscribes coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ on its high-powered rifle sights, in the same type font and size as the model numbers, and places them at the end of the serial number. JN8:12 (John, Chapter 8, Verse 12) and 2COR4:6 (Second Corinthians Chapter 4, Verse 6) are among some of the passages coded onto the scopes. I am quite sure that the gentle Jesus who advised turning the other cheek would find Trijicon and their bible codes to be offensive.
Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, confirmed to ABCNews.com that it does indeed add the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military, but says there is nothing wrong with them being there. Michael Weinstein, of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military, says otherwise. "It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," says Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, and the military is not immediately dismissing his concerns. "We are aware of the issue and are concerned with how this may be perceived," Capt. Geraldine Carey, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps, said in a statement to ABC News. "We will meet with the vendor to discuss future sight procurements."
Weinstein feels these so-called christian scopes are 'emboldening the enemy', and playing into claims made by such groups as al-qaeda that the U.S. is actually conducting a crusade against Islam rather than a war on terror.
Times beyond counting, soldiers have been sent into armed conflict being told god was on their side. Times beyond counting, the admonition to remember that god wants them to win is given to the soldiers of both sides, just before they head out to feed their bodies into the maw of the war machine. When will humankind stop their killing in the name of some god? It doesn't matter what name that god is known by, if s/he really needs people to die for her/him, then what Mark Twain said is true. Such a god would be nothing more than "a malign thug" and no-one should go out to die or to kill in that god's name.