The army was happy to have Chaplain Don Larsen when he was a Pentecostal minister winning souls for Christ- but when his path led him to Wicca, all Hell broke loose.

Larsen worked at Camp Anaconda in Iraq, a "support base" for soldiers in Iraq. Larsen describes his experiences there as the catalyst for his conversion- he was weary of seeing religions attack one another, and was searching for a faith with a more 'universal' outlook- and Wicca was that religion. Ironically, it was an faith he learned about from the military itself when he trained for the chaplaincy.

Militrary chaplains are required to have sponsorship from an outside church. Larsen couldn't continue as a Pentecostal chaplain, so he found a Wiccan church and applied to become the military's first Wiccan chaplain. If you haven't been living in a cave these past twenty years, you know exactly what happened next. The Army wasn't having it. His chosen church, Sacred Well, had completed all of the requirements to be an endorser, but needed a 'viable' chaplaincy candidate.

Of course, with everything squared away so perfectly, the Army found a way to sabotage him all the same. His then-current endorser, who didn't know about the switch, received a call from Army Chief of Chaplains office, just in time to drop their endorsement of Larsen- after which, the Army removed him post-haste from the rolls and withdrew him from Iraq.

The military of course denied that any of this has aqnything to do with distaste for Wicca- but the founder of the Chaplaincy that previously supported Larsen details why they broke with tradition and rescinded his endorsement. As the Washington Post relates:

"But if it's not a valid thing, all bets are off," Ammerman says, adding that Wiccans "run around naked in the woods" and "draw blood with a dagger" in their ceremonies. "You can't do that in the military. It's against good order and discipline."

More Wicca in the news:

Court upholds Wiccan-Boscov's ruling (Thanks, Lowell)

Priestess who put public face on paganism leaves limelight

Burn, Baby, Burn [aka, What do you get when you cross Ted Nugent with a Dianic Wiccan?]