By: Carl Prine | The San Diego-Union Tribune
Date: April 6, 2018
The Navy is investigating allegations that sailors in Okinawa attempted to unlawfully convert Japan citizens to Christianity through a public display inside a military hospital.
On Friday, Rear Adm. Paul D. Pearigen, commander of San Diego-based Navy Medicine West, ordered an investigation into U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa, the Navy's largest overseas hospital.
Pearigen is responding to a seven-page complaint filed with his command Thursday by the nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation on behalf of 26 service members or Department of Defense civilian employees and their families in Okinawa.
They allege that military leaders on March 26 placed a Christian Bible on a Prisoner of War/ Missing in Action display inside the hospital's public gallery.
A placard on the "Missing Man" display told visitors in English and Japanese that the religious book "represents the strength gained through faith to sustain those lost from our country, founded one nation under God."
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"We reached out initially to the hospital at the beginning of the week but they didn't take care of this," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, a former Air Force officer and the foundation's founder, during a telephone interview on Friday. "This should've been simple. We've engaged many times on this issue everywhere, and it's taken care of quickly. Here, they translated a phrase into Japanese in order to proselytize the Japanese. This might've violated our treaty with Japan."
Weinstein said that 16 of the 26 petitioners identify as Christians — including Roman Catholics and several Protestants — with the rest a mix of Jews, Native American, Shintoists, Buddhists, atheists and agnostics.
According to the written complaint, Weinstein was told by a Navy officer in Okinawa that the hospital could not resolve the issue for at least another month because the commander was temporarily away on other duties.
He called on the Navy to remove the Bible from the display, discard the language about "one nation under God" and launch an independent investigation into the matter and assign appropriate disciplinary measures to those responsible.
Weinstein said that since Easter his organization had taken on 117 new clients, including the troops in Okinawa, who are disgruntled about a wide range of alleged religious violations by military units.
Naval Hospital Okinawa is located inside Camp Foster, which falls under Marine Corps command.
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