> The changes were iterated in a May 20, 2026, memorandum issued by the Under Secretary of War and signed by Anthony Tata, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness of the United States, and obtained by Military.com.
FFS there is no such thing as "of war". It's still "of defense" until Congress actually passes a bill.
As for the rest of that topic... yeah. Fits the expectations one has these days when thinking about "how can the US Administration screw up the lives of anyone not fitting into the world view the average Fox News audience can squish in their brains".
As long as the flying spaghetti monster is still on the list, I'm fine. First they came for the Buddhists, then they came for the Abrahamics, then the Zoroastrians, but it will be a while yet before they get to me.
It's notable that the original list with the extra 180 religions was from Trump's first term, so this is another example of the doubling down on white Christian identity politics that has come to define Trump's second term.
Also one small potentially controversial decision here that I find amusing in a narcissism of small differences kind of way, Mormons aren't considered Christian according to this list.
Various laws, regulations, and processes come with religious exceptions. In order to qualify for religious exceptions, you need to follow a qualified religion.
They go on your dog tags to make sure that, if you're killed, your body is handled in a manner appropriate for your religious beliefs.
As I expected given who this is coming from, the choices are "Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, and Leftovers".
There are lots of problems with this, but taking off UU is sort of ironic and shortsighted in particular, given that the UU community is probably a good source of chaplains given the nature of the religion. You can see this in the comments.
My son reports a burst of 'Jewish' soldiers when deployed. Because the rabbi had a rather long service period and he let the soldiers sleep on the benches.
He still has his camo yarmulke.
> "The new list will provide chaplains with clear, readily available information that will better enable them to anticipate the religious support needs [...]"
Emphasis mine. In other words, "our master's degree level educated chaplains are confused by too long of a list".
We know what you are really doing and would appreciate more effort in these BS memos.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 26.1 ms ] threadFFS there is no such thing as "of war". It's still "of defense" until Congress actually passes a bill.
As for the rest of that topic... yeah. Fits the expectations one has these days when thinking about "how can the US Administration screw up the lives of anyone not fitting into the world view the average Fox News audience can squish in their brains".
Also one small potentially controversial decision here that I find amusing in a narcissism of small differences kind of way, Mormons aren't considered Christian according to this list.
As I expected given who this is coming from, the choices are "Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, and Leftovers".
Emphasis mine. In other words, "our master's degree level educated chaplains are confused by too long of a list".
We know what you are really doing and would appreciate more effort in these BS memos.