A T-shirt featuring the Statue of Liberty clad in a black burqa, torch raised in front of a crescent moon, with the words “Don’t let this happen America” was pulled from the shelves of a kiosk located in the mall area of the Fort Carson, Colorado, post exchange Monday after a complaint was lodged with exchange officials.
The shirt, which went on sale Sunday, violated exchange rules regarding the sale of “religious or political material,” Army and Air Force Exchange Service spokesman Chris Ward said. A customer notified an exchange manager Monday, and the item was removed hours later.
The customer was a client of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that claims 43,000 clients who are or were service members, including 224 at Fort Carson, according to group founder and president Mikey Weinstein. Weinstein has demanded an apology from all involved as well as an Army Inspector General investigation into the matter.
“This is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen,” said Weinstein, an Air Force Academy graduate who founded the group in 2005. “This makes us [the military] look like crusaders. ... This is not a small matter, this is a horrendous matter.”
No plans for an investigation or for punishment of the vendor, Merica Apparel, are in the works, Ward said, only to “remove [the shirt] and let them know we’re not going to let that happen again. ... Maybe it’s more of an educational opportunity for the vendor.”
The vendor apologized for its role in the incident via a Wednesday afternoon statement provided by Ward to Army Times.
“As soon as it was brought to our attention that a member of the Fort Carson Military Community had an issue with the shirt, it was pulled from our shelves,” according to the statement. “We did not mean to offend anybody with our T-shirt’s [sic]. We would like to apologize to anyone that may have been offended, along with AAFES for bringing discredit [to] their organization as well. We realize that being a Military Community, there are people from all over the world with different cultural backgrounds living and working on Fort Carson.”
The incident was first reported Tuesday by the Colorado Springs Independent.
Vendors in such locations are required to share details of their inventory with exchange officials before items go on sale, Ward said. Merica Apparel, a new vendor, was “apparently unaware of this requirement,” he said.
Weinstein said several of his group’s clients were aware of the item and praised the customer who “had the guts” to come forward. He did not release the individual’s name.
The customer’s affiliation with MRFF had no effect on the exchange’s actions following the complaint, Ward said, although officials were aware of the individual’s association with the organization.
This is far from the first time MRFF has been involved in issues concerning religious messages on base. In January, the group exposed a recruitment poster with the words “On a mission for both God and country” that had been placed outside a Phoenix recruiting center; it was quickly removed.
More recently, Weinstein has expressed outrage over a sign with the message “God bless the military, their families and the civilians who work with them” located at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. The sign has not been removed, and Weinstein has requested permission from the base commander to erect a half-dozen other signs in the same location — some requesting blessings from Allah, Odin and other deities, and one supporting an atheist belief system.