On Nov. 11, Circle Times reported that Circle Sanctuary had formed a new Wiccan and Pagan veteran’s organization for those veterans that use the pentacle for their sacred symbol.

The Order of the Pentacle is open to active and reserve service people, veterans, and their spouses who want the
U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to add the pentacle the VA’s emblems of belief list so that it can be an option to be included on veteran’s grave markers provided by the VA.

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On Nov. 13 Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit against the the United States Department of Veterans Affairs over its refusal to include the Wiccan symbol of faith on its official list of emblems for government headstones and markers.

The legal challenge was filed in both the U.S. District Court in Madison, WI and in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, DC. The lawsuit says that the VA has made excuse after excuse for more than nine years for not approving the symbol.

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On Nov. 20 a historic event took place when the State of Nevada mounted the first memorial plaque with a pentacle in their northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery near Fernley. It was mounted on the Wall of Heroes in honor of Sgt. Patrick Dana Stewart, next to the plaque of his fellow National Guard teammate Chief Warrant Officer John Flynn. This is the first time the pentacle has appeared on a government-issued memorial plaque in a government-run cemetery.

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It has never happened before: A Wiccan veteran having a government-provided memorial plaque mounted in a government-run cemetery. So Dec. 2, 2006 required special commemoration by those that hope that someday this will become standard for all of our deceased Wiccan and Pagan vets.

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The peace symbol was introduced by Lord Bertrand Russell on Easter of 1958 during his march for nuclear disarmament. Created by a British commercial artist, it combines the semaphore symbols for the letters N and D within a circle. It has created controversy ever since..     MORE

We started the year off by covering the pentacle quest for the VA headstones and the fight continues with two lawsuits. But one state stepped forward so that one veteran got his wish.

We moved on to the case of the Air Force Academy and religious harassment, watching as guidelines were created, watered down and then abolished. Further coverage exposed religious harassment of Pagans, along with other non-Christian faiths. Another story examined the dumbing down of military medicine from the perspective of a Pagan doctor cares enough to write a book about it.

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