Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

A Michigan company contracted to build rifle sights for use by our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan freely admits it stamps Bible verse reference codes onto them.

The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian." The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.

Two observations.

One, this has been going on since 2003.  You damn well better believe somebody in the Pentagon noticed, knew about it, approved of it and made it continue into the Obama administration.  The fact that it's only being brought up now, six or seven years later, says volumes about our military command structure.  Somebody very, very high up thought shooting Muslims with rifles with Bible scripture codes on them was a really, really good idea when the largest problem we've had is convincing the Muslim world we're not conducting a religiously motivated Crusade against them.

Two, clearly somebody's a Warhammer 40K fan and has been reading the Imperial Munitorum Manual.  The machine spirits of any weapon must be properly placated in order to maintain it in good working order, praise the Emperor, and this includes the application and strict adherence to the proper Litanies of Faith to and on said weapon.  (For those of you who are non-gamers and have no idea what in the name of the Warp I'm talking about, this is a bad thing in general to have such similarities between our current military and a fictional military in the year 40,000 run on unending and eternal war.  Trust me on this.  You do not want our Marines to be Space Marines if you're not the one commanding said Space Marines.  Hell, you don't even want them to be Imperial Guardsmen.)

Scary, scary stuff.  (Even if it does give you combat bonuses.)