I’m just thinking of President Reagan — he engaged fully with the Soviet Union to great effect while at the same time describing them as an evil empire, saying they would end up on the ash heap of history. That’s not a bad model.

A chaplain holds services for soldiers in an operating base in Ramadi, Iraq. (army.mil)

So there are atheists in foxholes after all.

Last week, on the eve of Veterans Day, the Secular Coalition for America and the Military Assn. of Atheists and Freethinkers held a news conference in Washington to present an open letter to President-elect Barack Obama. Citing a report that found 21 percent of those in the armed forces identifying themselves as atheists or having “no religion,” the groups called on the new administration to pursue a military policy more open to nonbelievers.

The action follows on the heels of a much-publicized legal case involving atheism and the military. Jeremy Hall, 23, a U.S. Army specialist, grew up a Bible-reading Baptist in rural North Carolina. But his faith in God did not survive the battlefields of Iraq. Since disclosing his atheism, Hall claims he has become a target of insult and scorn — labeled “immoral,” “devil worshiper” and, curiously enough, gay — by fellow GIs and superior officers. But the pith of his complaint runs deeper than personal insult.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

In his lawsuit, filed in Kansas last year, Hall and his co-plaintiff, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, accuse the military establishment not only of prejudice against nonbelievers but of blatant favoritism toward Christianity. As the suit challenging the place of religion in the armed forces lumbers toward a constitutional showdown, Hall and the Secular Coalition for America have sparked a national conversation about one of the military’s least discussed shibboleths.

The battle lines are already drawn. Critics depict Hall’s complaint as a campaign to destroy the spiritual foundation that the nation’s military has depended on for centuries. (“His right to spew his lying hot air cannot be allowed to decrease the morale of soldiers in combat,” writes one Christian blogger.) Meanwhile, the latest crop of best-selling atheists grant Hall some form of secular sainthood.

U.S. martial leaders have long prayed before and after battle: George Washington at the close of the Revolutionary War; George Dewey after his victory against the Spanish fleet at Manila; and Dwight D. Eisenhower on the eve of D-Day. Chaplains have also been key components of U.S. fighting forces, from the ragtag colonial militias to the highly professional units of today.

So when Americans learn that soldiers are being evangelized on military bases, that religious materials are often circulated among troops and that depictions of Washington kneeling in prayer are ubiquitous in military circles, they might likely see all this as an organic part of a venerable tradition.

But these incidents are anything but organic — and not nearly as deeply rooted as one might imagine. In fact, they are largely the residue of a forgotten footnote to U.S. military history during the late 1940s and 1950s — a time when civilian and military leaders attempted to imbue the armed forces with religious zeal and purpose.

At issue today, however, is not the place of religion in the military. Rather, it is the official sanction that government gives it. While this matter is given special weight by those who see America in the midst of a modern holy war against terrorism, it has precedent in the nation’s last great quasi-religious crusade — the battle against atheistic communism.

More than 60 years ago, when the Cold War was menacing but still unnamed, U.S. leaders faced the luckless dilemma of picking their own poison. If they demobilized the military after World War II, as their predecessors had done after previous wars, the Soviet threat might become unmanageable. But maintaining a large standing military would betray a national principle. It was considered profoundly un-American to maintain a powerful armed force in a time of peace. According to a long line of patriots, from Samuel Adams on down, standing armies threatened liberty and smothered virtue.

Added to this dilemma was a spiritual wild card. While Americans today would probably define communism as a political or economic philosophy, decision-makers in the 1940s and 1950s viewed it as a quasi-religion. It had prophets and prophecy, missionaries and martyrs, and a belief in the ultimate perfectibility of mankind through inevitable historical process.

National-security analysts fretted over the almost “messianic” devotion of Soviet citizens. Military leaders worried that physical force alone might be insufficient in the emerging Cold War. “Over and over again, gigantic concentrations of physical power have gone down in defeat before a lesser strength propelled by conviction,” warned one brigadier general in 1949. “The Goliaths have perished at the hands of the Davids.”

President Harry S. Truman decided to run the risk of America maintaining a sizable standing military. But to many, his cure looked worse than the disease. In 1938, only one in five servicemen was younger than 21. Ten years later, soldiers under 21 made up more than half the military and accounted for 70 percent of all enlistments. America’s new standing army was regarded as puerile, impressionable and naïve.

Military leaders wondered if they stood on the verge of creating a potential Frankenstein’s monster. Their plan needed a fail-safe. So they decided not to pull the plug on their monster — but to give it a soul instead. To this end, religion became indispensable.

Military leaders vigorously blended the martial with the sacred to foster virtue and create spiritual warriors immune to the siren songs of communism. In the Fort Knox Experiment of 1947, the army toyed with the idea of simultaneously running new recruits through a physical and religious boot camp. Though this proved too blatantly unconstitutional for Army-wide adoption, the “Fort Knox methods” lived on in the Army’s commitment to develop the spiritual side of its troops.

Truman thought so highly of this mission that, one year later, he created the President’s Committee on Religion and Welfare in the Armed Forces, the first presidential commission devoted to religion. Its members designed campaigns to encourage soldiers to attend church; to urge local religious groups to invite servicemen to their congregations; and to revitalize the military chaplaincy.

While the military brass had no stomach for mandatory religious services, it did authorize, beginning in the late 1940s, various “character guidance” programs run by the reorganized chaplaincy. New recruits attended a minimum of six hours of chaplain lectures on such topics as the sacredness of marriage, the relationship between democracy and religion, and the dangerous faith of communism. All other personnel had to attend similar lectures once a month.

Among other things, soldiers learned that in the Cold War, the United States, a “covenant nation” due to its reliance on God, confronted the “demonic nation” of the Soviet Union. In a contest between God and Satan, military leaders bet on the home team.

This was tame compared to the religious programs of the newly independent Air Force. Under Maj. Gen. Charles I. Carpenter, the Air Force project consisted of lay retreats, on-base preaching missions by religious groups and the confiscation of obscene materials.

Carpenter also believed in the power of religion to solve the personal problems of Air Force personnel. Consider one case cited by a U.S. Air Force report. A military surgeon reported treating an airman suffering from a nervous breakdown. The diagnosis: neurosis stemming from religious confusion. The prescription: a session with the base chaplain, who set up a “systematic plan” of religious treatment.

Nor did Carpenter stop there. In late 1948, he struck a deal with the Moody Bible Institute of Science, an evangelical organization devoted to repairing the damage done to religion by Darwinism. Soon, airmen across America and throughout the world were watching films like “God of Creation” and “Duty or Destiny.” The Air Force even provided the representatives of the Moody Institute with a fully crewed B-25. By 1951, nearly 200,000 Air Force personnel were watching Moody films each year.

Nonbelievers like Hall must have existed in the 1950s, or, at the very least, troops uncomfortable with the idea of religious training. But few spoke up. It took a 1962 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to end the 15-year period of officially sanctioned military sacralization.

In the wake of Engel vs. Vitale, the Supreme Court ruling that deemed prayer in public schools unconstitutional, the Washington director of the American Civil Liberties Union brought grievances of “religious indoctrination” directly to Army Sec. Cyrus R. Vance. Vance responded quickly. In March 1963, he ordered Army chaplains to create a new, secular version of character guidance — outside chapels and without sermonizing. The other services did the same.

As long as the United States remains a religious country, there will be religion in the military. And while the outcome of Hall’s lawsuit is uncertain, it has sparked a worthwhile conversation about faith and the uniform.

Understanding why the military was allowed to craft its own religious imprimatur 60 years ago takes no large stretch of the imagination. During an era when the truly religious could not be communists, the truly irreligious could not be Americans. This axiom rang particularly true for those on the front lines of the Cold War.

Those lamenting Hall’s lawsuit today should consider this slice of military history. From Puritan dreams to evangelical rallies, religion has remained a constant force in our national journey — the military’s in particular.

But the official sanctions afforded it have been anything but constant. Few today realize just how much of the military’s current positions toward religion, far from being longtime American attitudes, are merely vestiges from the Cold War era.

Those cheering Hall’s case should appreciate the extent to which the military has grown more secular over the past few decades. Where once the U.S. Air Force supplied airplanes to evangelists, it now officially insists that commanders “not take it upon themselves to change or coercively influence the religious views of subordinates.”

During the struggle against atheistic communism, comments like those of the Army’s Lt. Gen. William Boykin — who in 2004 called the war on terror a battle against “Satan” — were not only common but celebrated. Today, they are decried by the command structure, including President George W. Bush.

Throughout history, the Davids have sometimes slain the Goliaths. But more often, the stronger, better-equipped force prevailed — with or without the blessings of the Almighty.

Maybe this is what Hall means when he says that while he doesn’t believe in God, he does “believe in Plexiglas.” Whether he wanted to or not, Hall may have stumbled on the ultimate form of “coming out” in the military, and this may require the consideration of military leaders, an appreciation for the military’s religiously sanctioned past and perhaps even a decision from the next commander-in-chief.

If nothing else, it would give a new meaning to the policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Jonathan Patrick Herzog is an acting assistant professor of history at Stanford University and a national fellow in the Hoover Institution there. He is working on a book, “The Hammer and the Cross,” exploring how U.S. leaders used religion as a weapon in the early Cold War.

Sen. John McCain's defeat opens the door to new GOP leaders. (wdcpix)

In the aftermath of defeat, with the arc lamps having dimmed on the presidential candidacy of Sen. John McCain, one thing is clear: the Republican Party as we have known it — strong, disciplined and precise in its execution since Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980 — will cease to exist beginning today.

During the course of this long campaign, even some of the most fervent GOP boosters found themselves running for cover, bracing for losses of a kind that haven’t been seen in a generation. With big gains in the House and Senate, Democrats have something approaching effective control on Capitol Hill. After most of the final tallies late Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has a stronger majority, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has 56 of the 60 votes needed to assure passage of Democratic bills.

What the Republicans now face is something akin to an all-out blame-brawl, with finger-pointing, nail-gouging and yelling in closed rooms and in the most public of squares. All in the pursuit of answers to two basic questions: How on Earth did Sen. Barack Obama achieve the greatest Democratic victory since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964? And, more important, what do we do next?

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

“I don’t hold McCain responsible,” said Republican strategist Tony Marsh, when we spoke on the phone late last week. “I think McCain ran a reasonably good campaign, given the environment. It’s a perfect storm.”

Marsh, usually optimistic about his party, says the Republican collapse has been several years in the making. The party’s brand, forged in the late 1970s and early 1980s with a coalition of social conservatives, small-government devotees and national-security hawks, was tied to a single goal: the destruction of communism. With the fall of the red menace, the foundation of the coalition began to weaken, ultimately buckling in the 2006 congressional elections.

“What we should have done then is to invest a great deal of money, to talk to these groups about the new challenges in the new era, this post-Cold War era, and what’s the agenda Republicans should stand for,” Marsh said. “Instead we became a party obsessed with winning elections and maintaining power. We became a party concerned more about tactics. And in the process, we got fat, dumb and lazy.

“Rather than articulate a positive vision for the future,” Marsh continued, “we started defining ourselves by what we’re not. What we’re not is big-spending, big-taxing Democrats who want to grow the federal government. That might work for a while. But at some point, you have to give some reason for people to love you — other than the fact that you’re not the other guys.”

But despite the fall of its enemy, the GOP did hold together. It controlled the House and Senate for 12 years more years, even took the White House. But what one saw in the waning years of the Bush administration was poor leadership, from the top down.

With an economy in smoldering ashes, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have no clear end, the federal government expanding its powers in ways not seen since the Great Depression, Republicans across the country have been left searching for the soul of its own machine.

Now, the Republicans will have to become the opposition party, led by people whose names we’ve yet to learn, as it searches to redefine itself for Americans.

“It’s not like there are 10 guys at a dinner table — smoking cigars, drinking brandy, deciding what to do,” said Ed Rollins, the Republican strategist who served as political director in the Reagan White House and national campaign director for Reagan’s 1984 reelection run.

“What we have to do is rethink our whole party,” continued Rollins. “Look at what the other party has done in exploring new technologies and exciting young people. The one thing Reagan did was to build a base of real enthusiasm among young people, so you had a whole age of Reaganites. The one thing you learn is: with a sports team, you can’t maintain success without building a farm team.

“Unlike the Democrats, where you had people like John Dingell and Henry Waxman willing to stay on because they cared so much about the issues and were willing to let their party battle it out,” Rollins added, “there are some more senior [Republicans] who won’t be willing to stay around. The fact is, we don’t control our own destiny. We are now the opposition party and, as such, we can’t just throw rocks against the window. Right now, I don’t see anyone new in the House or the Senate or on the governor level — with perhaps the exception of Sarah Palin — who can lead in this rebuilding.

But Rollins has been through this sort of thing before. “I went through Watergate” he said, “and I thought we’d never win another election — and then came 1980. When Bill Clinton won, I thought we’d be totally locked out. And then [the Democrats] overstepped their bounds, and in 1994 we took control of the House and the Senate.”

But the times alone pose a problem for the reinvention of the GOP. A majority of Americans could see President-elect Obama as a man who, like Franklin D. Roosevelt before him, could lead the country out of a desperate hour. Obama could have the power to affect the domestic landscape like no one since LBJ.

As the opposition party, what can the GOP hope to represent? Does the party risk looking like the stone gargoyles of Gotham City, ready to come to life at the first misstep by Democrats? The party whose driving philosophy is to step in when something goes wrong and say, “I told you so?”

What will be the true Republican self? Will it turn more conservative and look to rebuild the coalition of foot soldiers that spawned the Reagan revolution? Or will it, at long last, reach out to the center and attract new allies and new partners in a spirit of cooperation, to make it the forward-looking party that Republicans have called for since the end of the Cold War?

“I always thought the Democrats were done in by the fact they made modest gains in 1982,” said Lou Cannon, the Reagan biographer, “because it encouraged them to run the way more of the working-class party, to turn more left. In part, the Republicans’ next move is going to be determined by which Republicans survive. If the sweep is so extensive, or deep, it’s harder to argue that you have to go more to the right in order to recover the majority. I think it’s going to take time to play out. And I have a feeling we’re going to be talking about Republican candidates for president whose names we don’t even know yet.”

No one likes to lose. Just ask fans of the Cincinnati Bengals this season. But losing does present opportunities. It represents a chance to start again, to build something out of lessons learned and mistakes made. It provides the opportunity for new people to begin to mold the party in ways that senior leadership had resisted.

And it opens up the opportunity for rebirth. It was the Eisenhower era that gave way to John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier, and the great social programs and advancements that allowed Obama to win the presidency. The failures of the Carter administration allowed the GOP to rise from the shadows that had enveloped it after Watergate and restore “Morning in America.” For Republicans who’ve felt constrained by the hulking outer shell of the past, their time might well be now.

“There’s going to be a tremendous opportunity for new leadership,” said former Bush administration adviser Leslie Sanchez. “There will be new ideas and new leadership. It’s a healthy thing for our party. Believe me, especially for the younger folks, we’re definitely longing for it.”

Being out of power will also allow the Republicans to lick their wounds, to heal after the events of the past eight years. When you’re in power and things don’t go as planned, you get blamed. Being out of power means having the ability to marshal new forces while presenting a real alternative to those in control.

“We’re going to be a party with a real opportunity going into 2010,” said Sarah Taylor, the former Bush White House political director. “You’re not owning every mistake that occurs. I don’t buy the notion that the party lost its way and its core values. I think a series of things — including a tough war and bankrupt leaders — certainly hurt us.

“But not governing has its advantage. Because the state of Louisiana couldn’t handle a hurricane, the president and the party took the brunt of the blame. Now with the other side having total control, they’ll take the brunt. We have the chance to be tighter, more cohesive, and the chance to re-message ourselves.”

In the coming days and months, the neuroses of the GOP will be taxed as its most ardent boosters begin to question how things went so wrong. But in its wake, the struggle for the soul of the party will have begun.

It should not run from the opportunity to turn to new leaders and new coalitions. In a matter of months, we might not recognize the face of the GOP.

Whether the American public will look kindly on that new face remains to be seen.