Pagan's in the Military

Reporter: Lisa Venbrux

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Script

HOST: The holidays are here, and many Americans are visiting Santa Claus at the mall, or stocking their New Year's champagne. But for some, the New Year celebrations are over. Pagans, or Neo-Pagans, celebrated New Year's around Halloween. On this holiday, called Samhain, there are no midnight cheers or popping corks, and no eyes of newt.

There are more than half a million Pagans in the U-S, part of an earth-based spiritual movement spanning thousands of years. To some, witchcraft may still mean magic spells and black cats, but Pagan religions are growing, and so is tolerance for their followers. This Samhain I joined members of a Pagan circle to discuss their religion in the most unexpected of places.

LISA VENBRUX: You think you know what it's like to be a pagan? Think again.

JUSTIN FISHER: I spent 3 ½ years in combat arms and served in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Kuwait. I've been shot at, and I've shot, and I've served my country.

LV: Justin Fisher spent five years in the U.S. Army. He describes himself as an eclectic druid. That's one of many kinds of paganism in the us military, including Wicca, Asatru, Druidism, and Goddess Worship. "Eclectic" pagans combine beliefs from various traditions. Irene Grastorf is the lead singer of the Pagan band Revel Moon, and a former marine.

IRENE GRASTOFF (BACKGROUND, SINGING): 'Flag draped coffins in the ground/ and soldiers, sailors ducking rounds/ east and west at last can tell/ who will be first to enter hell.'

LV: Grastorf describes how many people react to religions they don't understand.

IG: Radical and inappropriate and so different and oh my gosh, I think they practice human sacrifices, and gasp.

LV: When Irene Grastorf served in Okinawa four years ago, she experienced some stereotypes first hand. IG: We had a room inspection and I had a big sign out that said DO NOT TOUCH. So I get back, and there's a note on my door. 'Grastorf, come see me.' Y'know, and it was the gunnie who's in charge of the barracks, and I go downstairs to his office, knock on the door, 'what's up, gunnie?' He's like, 'I touched that red candle, is anything going to happen to me?' This belief that somehow witches do bad things, really is prevalent, especially in the marines. It was very funny. Poor man.

LV: Pagan service members have experienced everything from teasing to violence, and many remain in the broom closet... so to speak. Nobody knows how many pagans there are in the military, but an advocacy group called the Military Pagan Network lists pagan groups on seventeen US military bases.

Richard Hum heads the Armed Forces Chaplain's Board at the Pentagon. That office deals directly with religious matters in the military. He says all faiths have a place in the armed forces:

RICHARD HUM: We do not discriminate against people's religious faiths, even though their faith may be different than the traditional type of faiths that we have in our country today. And we want to treat everyone equally on that. It's part of our constitution and we stand by that.

LV: Most pagan service members who spoke with Intern Edition said they had not experienced discrimination. Joe Pietros is an eclectic Wiccan and a technical sergeant at Fort Meade Air Force base, in Maryland.

JOE PIETROS: I've had really good reception about being a pagan in the military. The post chapel sponsors our circle, and they're on the marquee saying when the services are and stuff like that.

BACKGROUND MUSIC: Circle Song

LV: On the Samhain holiday, Pietros hangs up his uniform and dons a long robe. He is the high priest of the Ft. Meade Circle, and stands by an altar in a small backyard.

AMBIENT VOICE: "The bread is associated with the god or male energies, and then the water is female, or for the goddess."

LV: Candles, placed in a ring, flicker in the chilly October wind. Tonight, about two dozen soldiers and civilians are remembering loved ones who have died, and celebrating the coming year. Photos of lost relatives smile from picture frames.

AMBIENT SONG: "and these are my cats ashes."

LV: A ribbon spirals around the twisted root of a tree. Incense swirls into the air. Carved on a chalice is the most common pagan symbol. It is the pentacle, a five pointed star in a circle.

Charles Arnold is a Vietnam Veteran and the National Coordinator of the Pagan Veteran Headstone Campaign. He says that military Pagans still have a long way to go.

CHARLES ARNOLD: You have a lot of people with fundamentalist religious views, especially Christian fundamentalist religious views. They see their involvement as part of the military in light of their religion, in other words god and country being one.

LV: Arnold is also disappointed that there are no Pagan Chaplains, who act as clergy on military bases and naval vessels. And he's furious pagans don't get religious symbols on veteran headstones.

CA: It's a human rights issue.

LV: The Veteran's Administration offers 36 different religious emblems for headstones, so the beliefs of the deceased can be known. Those include a small Shinto sect, and a Mormon group with just 2,000 members. Arnold says overlooking pagan veterans is a disgrace.

CA: We served with equal valor, put our butts on the line, we come home, and all of a sudden we are almost but not quite equal to everybody else.

BACKGROUND MUSIC: "We all come from the goddess, and to her we shall return..."

LV: Back at the Fort Meade Circle, the assembled dance to a song of life, how that which falls will be reborn. Some worshippers consider themselves sacred warriors, defenders of just principles, and of a community worth saving.

For Intern Edition, I'm Lisa Venbrux.

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