Guest post by MRFF Advisory Board Member Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, US Army (Retired)
There are so many extremely dangerous aspects of the “war of choice” on Iran that Israel and America are waging across the Middle East — and increasingly elsewhere — that Americans are largely missing a particularly serious one with regard to their military. It’s the result of what historians will likely label at some future date another “Great Awakening”.
Depending on your historian, there have been several such all-pervading religious moments in our history, perhaps the most notable to modern minds the one that produced in 1919 the 18th amendment to our Constitution and created “Prohibition”. Americans, realizing what had been done to them by the various religious groups and others in that particular Great Awakening, the ones who generated the public sentiment behind the 18th amendment, repealed it in 1933 in the 21st Amendment. But not before, in the intervening years and in many respects, the massive crime wave created by Prohibition had generated the phenomenon we know well today, organized crime. In short, that Great Awakening produced a national, even global, disaster now responsible for a seven to eight trillion dollar global “black” economy in people trafficking (especially women and children), illicit drug sales, organ trafficking, auto theft, and other organized criminal activities.
Today, a similarly negative result of the present Great Awakening has at least two very dangerous components: (1) the marriage of certain evangelical Christian religionists with ultra-Zionist Jews and (2) the insinuation and spread of Christianity itself in the U.S. military establishment and a movement toward formalizing Christianity as the national religion with that formidable bastion of state power as its protector. With regard to the first we are witnessing one of its disastrous outcomes right now — the illegal and unprecedentedly brutal war against Iran. The second more insidious result, now proceeding hand-in-hand with the first, is the indoctrination of a sizable portion of the US military in the religion of Christianity, a very warlike, venomous, and all-encompassing version of that religion, one that in an extremely illogical doctrinal development, joins ultra Zionist Jews with affected Christians in painting the war with Iran as a “scheduled event” and the scheduler is God. Witness this very recent report from an active duty non-commissioned officer (NCO) in the military’s ranks:
“This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be ‘afraid’ as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.’”
This communication came in confidence, among many like it, to an organization of which I am an advisory board member, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). More than a decade ago, I became an advisory board member to replace Glen Doherty, a former US Navy SEAL, who was killed in the attacks around Benghazi in September 2012. Since that time I have grown increasingly concerned about such matters — concern that increased exponentially when the current Secretary of War [Defense], Pete Hegseth, tattooed all over his body with the symbology/mythology of this movement, took the reins of power at the Pentagon.
MRFF represents the only trusted forum to which concerned members of the US military can turn in absolute confidence — a confidence many times corroborated over the last two decades. The ACLU, the DOD Inspector General (IG), the various Service IGs, all are subject ultimately to their “chains of command” and, in the military version, every GI knows he or she cannot trust that chain in the highly-charged, MAGA environment in which they now serve. Military “bosses” in many ways hold the very life of subordinate members in their hands. No civilian exists thusly. None.
Pointedly, MRFF represents the last resort for tens of thousands of GIs, never more so than today. Men and women who are terrified to go anywhere else, knowing if they do their careers will likely be in serious jeopardy.
Some doubters have raised questions about the MRFF, most often due to the asker’s scant knowledge of the military environment. Such questions include:
– Why do MRFF’s complaint emails look so similar when describing in-service religious pressure and coercion?
The answer is more or less a procedural one, but key to MRFF’s success in maintaining utmost confidentiality. GIs and others addressing MRFF rely on previous complaints posted to MRFF's website, or they actually request assistance in putting their experience in appropriate language. The vast majority of them have never had to write such letters or emails seeking assistance in responding to what they know is a violation of their civil right to be free of religious coercion and the adverse effects created within their unit and the military overall.
– Why don't these service members simply approach the U.S. mainstream media directly? (This one really gets to me as no American with any common sense trusts today’s mainstream media at all).
The answer is because military men and women are seriously concerned for their careers both in the military and after. They know from word of mouth now after 20 years that MRFF will protect their identities while working within the military command structure to rectify their complaints of religious coercion. And, as is the case now in this MAGA-dominated military leadership, if relief cannot be found immediately at least their lives are secure until it can be accomplished with new leadership.
MRFF is not a panacea; organizations like it rarely if ever are. What America needs most of all is an end to scandalous people like Pete Hegseth. But the MRFF was very busy before Trump and Hegseth. So America needs an end to this new Great Awakening as well. We need to put in the dustbin of history where they belong pastors like Franklin Graham and John Hagee, two of the very worst. Let them prattle to their mesmerized flocks, but not to the “captured” military. Simply “Google” Graham’s remarks on December 17, 2025 in the central courtyard of the Pentagon, or Hagee’s remarks a week ago on Operation EPIC FURY and about God’s will being done by our soldiers bombing Iran. Any sane American will know what I mean immediately. This is not just a travesty; it is a present and growing danger to the very fabric of our republic.
We will need the MRFF until such positive and rectifying developments occur — just as Americans did with the 21st Amendment to our Constitution. Through it, we woke up and tossed the religiously-inspired short but crime-filled era of Prohibition on the burn pile.
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel, US Army (Retired)
Former chief of staff to the U.S. Secretary of State
