wiccan symbol allowed on soldier’s memorial
It’s not clear whether Veteran’s Affairs will allow it on his headstone — but it has no jurisdiction over a state memorial in Nevada, where the fellow was from:
Sgt. Patrick Stewart, 34, was killed in Afghanistan last September when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his helicopter. Four others also died. Stewart was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
He was a follower of the Wiccan religion, which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs does not recognize and therefore prohibits on veterans’ headstones in national cemeteries.
But state officials said they had received a legal opinion from the Nevada attorney general’s office that concluded federal officials have no authority over state veterans’ cemeteries. They now plan to have a contractor construct a plaque with the Wiccan pentacle — a circle around a five-pointed star — to be added to the Veterans’ Memorial Wall in Fernley.
If it is his family’s wish, then his headstone should be allowed to have whatever religious symbol his family thinks he would have wanted. Sgt. Stewart’s country owes him that much.
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