The U.S. Air Force is allowing airman to scrub "so help me God" from their enlistment oath if they choose to do so.
CNN JUST IN: U.S.Air Force ends mandatory "So help me God" part of enlistment oath
— Vaughn Sterling (@vplus) September 17, 2014The Washington Post has the background details on the change:
After an airman was unable to complete his reenlistment because he omitted the part of a required oath that states “so help me God,” the Air Force changed its instructions for the oath.
Following a review of the policy by the Department of Defense General Counsel, the Air Force will now permit airmen to omit the phrase, should they so choose. That change is effective immediately, according to an Air Force statement.
“We take any instance in which Airmen report concerns regarding religious freedom seriously,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said in the statement. “We are making the appropriate adjustments to ensure our Airmen’s rights are protected.
It has been the tradition of the military for centuries to include "so help me God" in the enlistment oath. The change came after an atheist group pressured the Air Force to change the policy and argued an the atheist airman at the center of the controversy shouldn't be speaking about a God he doesn't believe in.
On another note, Fox News radio host and Townhall columnist Todd Starnes has been reporting on the cleansing of God from the military for years.