For Gawd so loved the world that he gave us a starlite scope and a .223 caliber rifle.

[Hubert Flottz]

Who is paying to erase the Bible verses? What will it cost the taxpayers to have the Bible references removed from the sight mounts already issued to the troops? Will Trijicon send people to every military base where those things are in use, to remove those inscriptions? Will the arms specialists in all the arms rooms everywhere have to stop doing their regular work and fix all those weapons at the taxpayer's and the troop's expense? Will we pay for the man hours it takes to fix the weapons and will the troops in the field suffer because the military weapons specialists have to take time out from their regular weapons maintenance work in order to do the inscription removal work?

I think Trijicon needs to man up and support the troops and the taxpayers and pay all the expense...their stupidity caused the problem.

The more I hear about this the more it pisses me off. Why should you and me pay a penny of what it costs to undo this bullshit?

[dkf]

1. Nukes too

[Retired AF Dem]

6. I cant help it

nukes were a Democrat invention. :) Sorry for posting levity on a Saturday.

[Imajika]

2. Who cares?

Why is this such a big deal?

Who really noticed the references to bible verses on these scopes?

Tell the contractor to stop doing that and move on.

Why are we wasting even a minute of time on this?

Do you think the public shares the outrage of some here at DU over this? I think not. Hell, most probably think it is cute.

We really have to pick our fights. This one is a total waste of time.

[msongs]

3. perfect combination of gun nuts hysteria and murderers in the name of jesus nt

[madokie]

4. scary ain't it

[Fumesucker]

5. It gives the impression to Muslims that this is a Christian crusade on them.

An impression our government has spent a lot of time, money and energy trying to counter..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7553296

Nothing in my first 2 deployments prepared me for what happened with the Trijicon ACOG gun sights during my 3rd deployment to Afghanistan. I will never forget the day it occurred. It was morning and there was a mandatory formation of several companies. A very senior NCO was yelling at us which is not that unusual. He asked a private what it was that he (the private) was holding in his hand and the private said it was his "weapon" several times to which the senior NCO replied "and what ELSE is it"? FInally, the senior NCO said that the private's rifle was also something else; that because of the biblical quote on the ACOG gunsight it had been "spiritually transformed into the Fire Arm of Jesus Christ" and that we would be expected to kill every "haji" we could find with it. He said that if we were to run out of ammo, then the rifle would become the "spiritually transformed club of Jesus Christ" and that we should "bust open the head of every haji we find with it." He said that Uncle Sam had seen fit not to give us a "pussy `Jewzzi' (combination of the word `Jew' and Israeli made weapon `Uzi') but the "fire arm of Jesus Christ" and made specific mention of the biblical quotes on our gun sights. He said that the enemy no doubt had quotes from the Koran on their guns but that "our Lord is bigger than theirs because theirs is a fraud and an idol". As a Muslim and an American soldier I was fit to be tied but I kept it in. There were many Afghans, both civilian and military, on base within earshot of what was being yelled at us and I can only wonder in shock what they must have thought. This senior NCO was apparently also the head person of a conservative, crazy Christian group called the "Christian Military Fellowship" and made a big deal about the importance of joining to everyone. He told us all that we MUST read a book called "Under Orders" in order to make it through this combat deployment and said he had many copies for everyone. Some of my friends went and got their copies. I refused. Finally, this senior NCO ended his yelling by warning us that if we did not "get right with Jesus" then our rifles would not provide spiritual strength despite the bible quotes on our ACOG gunsights and that we would be considered "spiritual cripples" to our fellow units and soldiers. He didn't say it in so many words, but the message was clear; if anything bad happened in a combat situation, it would be the fault of anyone who had not accepted Jesus Chris in the "right way". I have never felt so ashamed and scared in my life. I have never hated myself so much for not speaking out. So I thought of my wife and children and endured. Every time I looked at my rifle with that Trijicon ACOG gunsight/scope with the biblical quote from the book of John (8:12), it would make me sick. If I had tried to protest, it would have made me dead. And if I'm dead I'm of no use to my wife and children.

[Hubert Flottz]

7. I care, because I'm tired of paying for silly bullshit when the f**kin'...

bridge right down the road is ready to fall in the f**kin' river and you can't do the speed limit without the f**kin' potholes junking your front end.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

12. The government saved money by buying the civilian version of the ACOG.

They should have done it's due diligence before signing the contract.

[onager]

8. I care because it can get our people killed.

I've spent 6 years living and working in 2 Muslim countries - Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I came back from Egypt less than a year ago, after living there for nearly 4 years, in Alexandria - generally considered the most liberal and cosmopolitan city in Egypt.

Well, all that liberalism and cosmo didn't matter whenever an item like this got into the news. On Friday in the storefront mosques, the imams whipped up the faithful and they took to the streets.

I spent quite a few Fridays sitting in my apartment when I wanted to be out walking around the city, because I had seen the Riot Police armored cars and bus-sized paddy wagons heading downtown. e.g., in January 2009 when Israel started pummeling the Gaza Strip. The usual rumors circulated that the Americans and British were helping the Israelis by bombing Gaza. It was a stupid rumor, but that never mattered.

In October 2005, stories about an anti-Muslim DVD kicked off a riot that killed several people in Alexandria. The same thing happened near my neighborhood in April 2006, when the Muslims and Coptic Xians went at it after several attacks on Xians. That was truly ugly - burning cars, tear gas, and people I had seen living peacefully suddenly trying to kill each other. People tried to break into their neighbors' homes with AXES. I saw that with my own eyes.

And every time Limbaugh or Coulter shot off their mouths about killing Muslims, I got an earful from my Egyptian co-workers. Remember, we live in a well-connected global village nowadays, and I frequently got reminded of that. It was painful trying to explain that crap.

But you don't have to believe me, since I'm just a grumpy atheist. Try this news item from another DU thread:

FInally, the senior NCO said that the private's rifle was also something else; that because of the biblical quote on the ACOG gunsight it had been "spiritually transformed into the Fire Arm of Jesus Christ" and that we would be expected to kill every "haji" we could find with it. He said that if we were to run out of ammo, then the rifle would become the "spiritually transformed club of Jesus Christ" and that we should "bust open the head of every haji we find with it."

Original article - http://www.talk2action.org/story/2010/1/21/174831/159

DU thread - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7553296

[Hubert Flottz]

9. Thanks for the link and the account of how it is abroad.

IMHO, fundies are fundies wherever they are! Too much of anything, can hurt more than it helps...

[ConcernedCanuk]

10. Interesting you should mention that particular weapon

.
.
.

I just read "Sniper: inside the hunt for the killers who terrorized the nation By Sari Horwitz, Michael E. Ruane"

That is the weapon they used, not sure about the scope tho . .


"Sniper is the definitive account of those alleged gunmen, John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, and the massive manhunt that ended with their capture by a heavily armed SWAT team in an early-morning raid at an interstate highway rest stop."

more at http://books.google.ca/books?id=y5naAAAAMAAJ&q=sniper&dq=sniper&cd=9

Muhammad was executed by lethal injection on November 10, 2009,

Lee Boyd Malvo is serving a sentence of life without parole for his role in the shootings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Muhammad

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

11. The government should have done it's due diligence.

Regardless it's being fixed.

[DemoTex]

13. I just wish HST had lived to comment on this.

Strange tales from strange times, indeed.

[aikoaiko]

14. The military bought them with the biblical notation on it. Its not the company's fault IMHO

However, I believe Trijicon is sending kits to eliminate the offending letters and numbers.

[butterfly77]

15. I think I recall a story during the bush years..

when they saw the same thing on some type of missiles...

[jmowreader]

16. I don't think anyone will "pay" to do the work to erase the Bible verses

What'll probably happen: Trijicon will send the military self-adhesive serial number labels, spray paint and jeweler's files--say, one file and can of paint per twenty sights. At the first arms maintenance day after the retrofit kits come in, the armorers will pass out the files and paint: "File the serial number off your scope. Make sure your lens caps are on and spray paint the filed area, then bring the sight to me and I'll put the new serial number on it." Fixing this is a real simple operator-level maintenance function--the scopes have aluminum bodies, and anyone can file aluminum.

[Robb]

17. Dude, this is hardly the company's fault.

They've apparently been labeling them this way for decades, customers apparently thought the biblical references to light were CLEVER for a company that makes optics.

I happen to agree. Not my thing, but I think it's clever.

That said, had the military special-ordered the scopes, they might reasonably have been expected to remove the references before shipping. But since they were ordered as-is, it's really the military that dropped the ball.

And, as has been pointed out upstream, it's a problem that's been fixed. The company's done its part and then some, the military will close the deal.