West Point cadet quits, cites 'criminal' behavior of officers

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/04/15676692-west-point-cadet-quits-cites-criminal-behavior-of-officers

By Kari Huus, NBC News
Updated Dec. 5, 2012

Cadet Blake Page has learned from his superiors at West Point that he will be given an honorable discharge and not be required to pay "recoupment" costs for three and a half years at the military academy. He told NBC News that when out-processing is finished, he will move to Minnesota and "continue the work I've started in whatever way I can."

Original Post: A West Point cadet publicly announced his decision to quit the prestigious military academy just months before graduating to protest what he sees as the illegal infusion of military procedures and events with fundamentalist Christian proselytizing.

To call attention to his move, senior Blake Page wrote a scathing commentary on West Point, published Monday in the Huffington Post.

"Countless officers here and throughout the military are guilty of blatantly violating the oaths they swore to defend the Constitution," wrote Page, who was slated to graduate in May. "These men and women are criminals, complicit in light of day defiance of the Uniform Code of Military Justice through unconstitutional proselytism, discrimination against the non-religious and establishing formal policies to reward, encourage and even at times require sectarian religious participation."

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"It's a very unusual move," said Elizabeth Hillman, professor of law at University of California Hastings College who specializes in military law. She said that while many cadets struggle with issues of conscience, few leave as a result.

"Cadets will tell you it’s very hard to leave," she said. "It’s much harder to leave than to stay."

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But Page says that even sympathetic military superiors are reluctant to take action on religious issue because of the sensitivity, and says that applications to leave campus on routine "rest and relaxation" outings were systematically denied him and his fellow secularists.

"It’s very clear that there is a considerable level of distaste for atheists here," he said.

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"My motivation for resigning was first because I didn’t want to be part of it, but also to motivate other people to stand up and be counted. Without something bold that gets attention, I don’t see a way to inspire anybody to stand up and say 'I’m tired of this'," Page told NBC News. "And talking isn’t working, it hasn’t been working. I wanted to do something more."

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