A large Catholic Bible now sits enclosed in an even larger plexiglass display case on a POW/MIA remembrance table at a Veterans Affairs medical facility in Manchester, NH. This Bible had been removed from the table back in January after the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), acting on behalf of fourteen veterans who use the facility, complained about its presence in what is supposed to be a display to honor all POWs and MIAs, not just the Christian ones. But it wasn’t long before it was returned to the table, this time in a plexiglass display case, effectively making it the focal point of the display.
This morning, acting on behalf of New Hampshire veteran James Chamberlain, a patient at the facility and a devout Christian, MRFF filed a lawsuit to get this symbol of the Christian exclusivity removed once and for all.
As I’ve previously written, a Bible was not part of the original POW/MIA table tradition, started in 1967 by a group of Vietnam combat pilots known as the “River Rats.” The untraditional practice of adding a Bible, and turning what was started as a tradition to honor all POW’s and MIAs into a display honoring only Christians, didn’t emerge until over thirty years later, when the VFW Ladies Auxiliary published a script for the setting of the table and included a Bible among the items in a 1999 issue of their magazine.
In addition to filing the lawsuit, MRFF also hired a plane to fly a banner over the medical center this morning appealing to the facility to “Honor all POW/MIA – Remove Bible.”
Read MRFF’s complaint here.