Combat Bibles??

I saw this over at Balloon Juice:A combat bible??

I asked The Google about combat bibles. The paid link was this. Am I alone in being fascinatedly worried about the fact that there are 13+ bibles with camouflage and American Flag covers on them? Remember yesterday's post about the unfortunate confluence of biblical and constitutional literalism...well, here it is in cammies, ready to fight.

I also came across this link. It goes into a bit of detail about the "problems" this company had with "spearation of church and state" issues and being able to put military logos on bibles. But they are proud to distribute them to service-members for free. Another fun part:

Each Holman Christian Standard military Bible features:

--Special Presentation, Dedication and Records sections for Military Personnel
--Words of Christ in Red
--An Introduction to the Holman Christian Standard Bible
--Explanatory Notes
--The Plan of Salvation
--The Pledge of Allegiance
--The Star Spangled Banner
--The Oath of Allegiance for Enlisted Personnel
--U.S. Armed Forces Code of Conduct
--Battle Hymn of the Republic
--America the Beautiful
--Onward Christian Soldiers
--Where to Turn (Scripture Readings for all Occasions)
--So Great a Faith (The story of Jesus and the Centurion)
--The Apostle's Creed
--The Nicene Creed
--Testimonials and Encouragement from Officer's Christian Fellowship
--History of the Armed Forces
--Symbols & Logos
--Quotations, Prayers and Inspiration from:
D.L. Moody
George Washington
President George W. Bush
General George S. Patton
Captain Eddie Rickenbacker
Jimmy Stewart
and others
--Plus Additional Material Specific to Each Branch of the Armed Forces

Wait a minute. Did I read that right? Among what I would expect (Jesus' quotes in red, the Nicene Creed, etc.) there are also clearly American- and service-oriented pieces in there. In and of itself it's no big deal. But in the bigger picture of our discussions in the last few posts here and on Streak's blog, this is clearly a part of a pattern.

I am not banging on religion, especially in the service ("...no such thing as a foxhole atheist..."). When I was deployed, we didn't get bibles and nobody gave them to us. The Chaplain was someone you saw when you had a personal problem. Services were Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Jewish, not Catholic and 79 different protestant services.

Something has changed, culturally, within the military. Prayer used to be personal. A couple guys had bibles; one was about to enter a seminary. We didn't have daily prayer circles. Our officers, when they hung with us enlisted guys, had plenty of other stuff to talk about. But when did the military become the enforcement arm of the evangelical wing?