12/9/11: Navy Drops Order Prohibiting Bibles from Wounded Sailors

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Under heavy pressure from Congressional and religious leaders, the Navy has rescinded a policy that forbade visitors from giving Bibles or religious articles to wounded troops at the nation’s leading military hospital.

In a memo regarding visits to patients at Walter Reed hospital, chief of staff C.W. Callahan wrote: “No religious items are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.” The memo, as written, would have made it impossible for relatives or chaplains to give wounded troops Bibles or other religious items.

An angry Congressman Steve King of Iowa said: “The President of the United States should address this and should excoriate the people who brought about this policy and the individual who brought it about should be dismissed from the United States military.”