Fort Gordon soldiers say they were forced to attend a Christian spiritual fitness event

Having done my training at Fort Gordon, this situation sounds fishy to me. At least when I was there, the CoC put out the word about the spiritual fitness event, however, went out of their way to make sure we knew it was voluntary. Some NCO's could be quite pushy about it, however, they never went so far as to order anyone to attend. Either things have changed, or there's more to this than meets the eye.

Absolutely uncalled for if true; downright illegal as well.

Regardless if you are a Christian, Muslim, Atheist or Hindu, no American citizen can be forced to partake in religious activities. The term "Christian nation" gets thrown around a lot in a "majority rules" type of fashion, but, quite simply, it's not. If we took the time to get to know the soldiers in our formations, we'd discover that a large chunk of them aren't Christian, and the second largest religious affiliation is "N/A." Non-believers are the second largest, and we can't force them, or anyone else for that matter (including other Christians), to go to these services.

This is so far from true atleast for Alpha Co. 551st Sig BN as I currently am an AIT soldier at Fort Gordon and our company was told in a mass formation before school one day that we were all invited to the spiritual fitness barbecue as well the event was not held the way this article plays it out no preacher was jamming any sermon down there throat and I can’t tell if anyone was “forced” to go or stay but I know myself as well as my 20 other battle buddy’s that attended were all there volunterally IMO it was a great event to get together and have good food especially for those in AIT who are phase 4 which have formation every 2 hours usually made to do all the duties required by the company as well as only permitted to eat at the DFAC so they should’ve enjoyed it regardless of the reason of being there but I guess we’re all entitled to our own opinion I just hate to see my current assigned station be put on blast like this as well as the 2 amazing chaplains we have!