or the second time in two years, NBC Evening News Anchor Tom Brokaw has employed the misleading and unfair claim, "There are no atheists in foxholes."

   On the Tuesday segment of the popular news program, Brokaw introduced a segment about the pending war with Iraq telling viewers:

"One of the most familiar axioms of war is that there are no atheists in foxholes. So at a time when Pope John Paul and Jimmy Carter among others are making strong arguments against the war on religious and moral grounds, on the front lines, it is a more personal matter."

   Brokaw had referred to "no atheists in foxholes" in another broadcast aired on October 8, 2001.

   "Isn't it time that a prominent news reporter like Tom Brokaw stopped using this questionable canard, or at least tried to verify whether it could be false and unfair to millions of people who do not believe in a God?" asked Ellen Johnson, President of American Atheists. In a news statement being issued this evening to media, Johnson added that during the Godless Americans March on Washington held last November in the nation's capital, "hundreds of Atheists, Freethinkers and other nonbelievers who serve or have served in the military took the stage and were widely applauded for their patriotism."

   Brokaw's unsubstantiated claim is also being scrutinized by Kathleen Johnson, founder of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. MAAF represents men and women in the armed services who have no religious beliefs, and support the separation of church and state within the military.

   The claim "There are no atheists in foxholes" first appeared in the writings of World War II journalist Ernie Pyle. A roving reporter in both theaters of operation, Pyle was killed by a sniper's machinegun bullet when he stepped ashore on le Shima, a small island near Okinawa on April 18, 1945.

   To millions of Americans including service men and women in the field, Pyle's regular columns offered an intimate and empathetic view of life in the midst of combat. His writings appeared in 400 daily and 300 weekly newspapers. He penned compelling descriptions of what he saw, describing "the unnatural sight of cold dead men scattered over the hillsides and in the ditches along the high rows of hedge throughout the world ... Dead men, in such familiar promiscuity that they become monotonous..."

   Pyle was also considered a friend of the American infantry grunt, proposing that combat soldiers be given "fight pay." Congress agreed, granting soldiers a hefty 50% bonus for combat. The legislation was nicknamed "the Ernie Pyle bill."

   But it was his statement "There are no atheists in foxholes" for which he is probably best remembered. Those six words were repeatedly constantly by Readers Digest Magazine, and even found their way into the 1942 World War II movie "Wake Island" which starred Robert Preston, William Bendix and Macdonald Carey. The film depicted a handful of U.S. Marines struggling to hold a remote outpost on Wake Island during the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

   The statement has become a cliche in the narrative about war and combat, though rarely is any proof of this "axiom" offered. It is repeated constantly by politicians, clergy and pundits. The head of the Mormon (LDS) Church, Gordon Hinckley, once told an assembly of the faithful, "As you once knew so well, there are no atheists in foxholes. In times of extremity, we plead for and put our trust in a power mightier than ourselves."

   As Atheist writer Austin Cline notes in an about.com entry on the myth of "no atheists in foxholes," there is even the possibility that faith can be undermined by the violence of war.

   "Quite a few soldiers have entered battle devout believers but ended up coming away without any faith all," he wrote.

   Larry Darby, the Alabama State Director for American Atheists also questions Brokaw's tendency to rely uncritically on this myth.

   "Has Mr. Brokaw forgotten that he should check his facts before presenting a story?" Darby asks. "Is Mr. Brokaw ignorant of the fact that approximately 30 million Americans are godless and live without the primitive superstititions of Theism? I personally know scores of military personnel and veterans who were and are Atheists, right here in Alabama, the heartland of Theistic bigotry."

   Brokaw, is the author of the best selling book "The Greatest generation" which chronicles individual accounts of life on the American home front during World War II. But despite the range and sensitivity displayed in that work, Brokaw is falling short of his responsibilities as a journalist says Chris Allen, a Board member of American Atheists and himself a U.S. Navy vet.

   "It's his responsibility to look into any claim like this, and give a fair hearing to those fighting men and women who are not religious believers," said Mr. Allen after viewing the Tuesday NBC report. "This type of journalism is not giving the American people a balanced and fair perspective."

   Those wishing to do so may contact NBC via e-mail at Nightly@nbc.com, or through NBC News, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112. American Atheists is tentatively a demonstration this Saturday, March 15, 2003 outside the NBC offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza from 12 noon to 2 PM. Visit http://www.atheists.org/action for updates beginning tomorrow.

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