Commentary

November 20th, 2008

The Chaplain’s Big Time Blunder

This was an invocation that should never have been given. This past Veteran’s Day was a beautiful one. Not a cloud in the sky, temperature just right, a lot of dignitaries from the city of San Marcos, a lot of veterans who had served their nation, all gathered to pay homage to veterans, both those who have gone before us and those still with us.

It was at the San Marcos All Veteran's Memorial, located in Helen Bougher Park, San Marcos. A lot of people worked very hard to make this a beautiful day.
And then Steve Pantoja gets up to give the invocation.

It was a prayer that Hitler would have been proud to claim; or the Ku Klux Klan. I have never heard a prayer so filled with hate, with venom, with terribly hurtful invective . . . language that doesn’t belong in any prayer I care to listen to.

Mr Pantoja (I shall not refer to him as “Chaplain.” I have known and worked with too many great chaplains to tarnish the title by conferring it upon Mr. Pantoja) proceeded to pray to his God about how important it was to kill, kill, kill the enemy and on this day we should be celebrating the killing of as many enemies as we could. (I’m paraphrasing here. I did not take notes as I had no inkling of the nature of the “prayer.”)

I am certainly no prude, and I don’t offend easily. I was very offended by this “prayer.” I understand from Virgil Griffin, Commander of VFW, Post 3795, that he had received a number of phone calls also complaining of “the prayer.”

No wonder.

I am the first to defend the First Amendment. It deals with Freedom of Speech. Mr. Pantoja is free to say most anything he wants. It’s his American right. It is also my right to not attend nor speak at any meeting where he is giving an invocation. I have no room for hate in my heart.

I was honored to have been invited to speak at this solemn ceremony, honoring our veterans. Congratulations to the people who worked so hard to both complete the San Marcos All Veterans Memorial at Helen Bougher Park, and for those who worked so hard to make a lovely Veterans Day Service.

Too bad Mr. Pantoja tarnished an otherwise lovely day. He should be ashamed of himself.
It was that bad.