Charlotte Observer | 04/03/2003 | Baptism pool lures grimy soldiers: In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army 5th Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water. It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage -- which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks -- as an opportunity. "It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized," he said. And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and come up clean for the first time in weeks. "They do appear physically and spiritually cleansed," Llano said. First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano's hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting from the Bible. [...] Earlier this week, word went out that portable showers might be installed here soon, but Llano was undaunted. "There is no fruit out here, and I have a stash of raisins, juice boxes and fruit rolls to pull out," he said optimistically.
Leaving aside how unspeakably vile this man is .. one wonders if he realizes just how damaging this could be to the cause he professes. After all, how attracted will decent people be to a religion that attracts converts using this type of petty extortion?
To be sure, a bath under these circumstances is not an absolute necessity. And I should imagine that the military does make certain that its soldiers aren't suffering from scurvy, so the fruits won't be any sort of necessity either. Nonetheless, the army cannot possibly be well-pleased with this chaplain; not only is he practicing a sort of religious blackmail on their soldiers ... but he's also giving them an impressive set of bad publicity. On top of everything else, he's the army chaplain. It would be one thing if he were some sort of camp follower, taking advantage of an opportunity (not that CENTCOM would let him, in that case, but that's beside the point), but he's supposed to minister to spiritual needs only if asked. He's not supposed to force it on people in exchange for baths. I'm rather surprised that Command hasn't ordered him to behave. Apparently, religious blackmail doesn't bother them much.
Posted by iain at April 10, 2003 11:34 AMComments
If this story is true, I'm as appalled as the next person. But, honestly, doesn't it set your B.S. detector off, at least a little? Does it really seem plausible that, in the midst of a water shortage, the chaplin would have access to a 500-gallon pool? How did he get it, and how does he maintain it in pristine condition? I can't seem to come up with a plausible hypothesis that would account for this.
It therefore didn't surprise me in the least to find that an investigation has thus far failed to find any evidence of this happening. It seems most likely to me that the chaplin fed the original reporter an outlandish tale (and, given the date on the article, it may well have been April Fool's Day at the time of the interview), and that she actually swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker.
If this did happen as written, I'm disgusted. But I'll be surprised if that turns out to be the case.
Posted by Shmuel at April 11, 2003 03:16 AMAt age 14, I spent ONE weekend overnight Sat/Sun with a Christian group in a 'retreat' in California. We read from The Bible, asked each other meaningful (to us) questions about what we were reading, and played on the last of the winter snow, now just patches of ice on the hillside.
We had dinner, prayers, went to our cabins, and lay awake discussing the beauty and power of Holy Scripture until around 0400 AM... and were awakened at 0530 for breakfast...
Except that I was singled out by "Royal Blue", a 'charismatic' preacher, before breakfast, to endure his pointed, 'caring' and 'respectful' concerns as he made it clear, over the next hour and a half, that I could have breakfast IF and ONLY IF I said the words HE wanted to hear, "I take Jeezuz for my personal savior..."
I was only 14. I held him off as long as I could, then, in disgust and shame at my own craven inability to tell him to leave me alone, I said the words... and he let me go, patting me on the back and congratulating me, and asking me if I felt better now... NO, I felt SICK inside at having been mind-raped, broken, abused...
And the food, as I sat alone in the now-empty cafeteria pushing it around around on my plate, was greasy and cold.
Uhm, it may have been an April Fool's joke, but it was eminently believable. Yes, this stuff IS DONE in Jesus' name, and in the name of 're-uniting' (re-ligio)
Posted by Eye Opener at April 17, 2003 04:48 AM
