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Soldier4Christ
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« on: May 09, 2007, 02:34:34 PM » |
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Muslim calls to prayer heard at Fort Riley, Kansas
The wife of a soldier stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, says she doesn't think her children and other people on base should have to hear Muslim prayers being broadcast five times a day.
The Army claims it is being done to prepare troops heading to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sarah Holler's husband has been stationed at Fort Riley for about five years. However, she says two months ago she felt as though she had somehow been transported to the Middle East as she heard Muslim prayers blaring out over loudspeakers on post five times a day.
"My kids are subjected to it, I'm subjected to it, and spouses and soldiers that aren't getting deployed are being subjected to it," Holler points out. "And one of my concerns is actually that soldiers who have already been deployed to Iraq are coming home and hearing it in their own country," she says.
Holler thinks having to listen to the Muslim prayers throughout the day adds to the stress of military life. "They're under a lot of stress as it is," she says, "and to have that stress brought back to them by having these prayers prayed five times a day, it's created a lot of stress. But the military just comes back saying, 'Well, it's part of training.'"
Deb Skidmore, who is with the Public Affairs Office at the Army post near Manhattan, Kansas, says in June 2006 Fort Riley was tasked with training transition teams going to Iraq and Afghanistan, and those soldiers must be immersed in the Islamic culture.
"Signs are in Arabic," Skidmore notes. "They also have them in English so that [soldiers] can learn what place they need to go, but it's in Arabic," she says. Meanwhile, she notes, "role players are all over that area of the post who are acting as if they are Afghanis or Iraqis. They give them different situations to react to."
And while Muslim prayers might bother people on and near Fort Riley, the public affairs official says it is no different than having tanks out on the range "that are making all kinds of noises, and we have the communities hearing them rattle window panes. It's just part of living next to a military post."
The Muslim call to prayer five times a day "is just part of the training," Skidmore insists. "It may not be something that everyone likes, but we have to prepare our soldiers," she says.
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