Constantine's Sword

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The cross located me,

it told me who I was.

My connection to Jesus,

the cross a sign of mercy.

I saw crosses everywhere

when I was a kid.

I saw telephone poles as crosses.

I looked up in the sky and

I saw airplanes as crosses.

The cross was...

central..

to the way I saw the world.

It was like a sighting device

even through which I looked.

And then it changed.

I began to see that this cross...

throws a shadow.

I used to be a Roman

Catholic priest.

That was a long time ago.

Now I am married and

father of two grown kids.

And I make my living

as a writer and journalist.

I cover a lot of stories...

but there is one that haunts me.

Probably because

it hits so close to home.

It's the things people are

doing in the name of God.

I went to Colorado Springs

now a scene of controversy over one

of the biggest religious revivals...

in our country.

It is also the home of the United

States Air Force academy.

A destination I'd once envision

for myself as a young man

Being here makes me remember of how

very much I wanted to be in this world.

This world of the air force.

There were always two

parts of me as a kid.

I mean I was a religious boy...

and I was tapped for the priesthood

as a kid.

There was a way in which that was

powerful but the other thing

the whole other half of me

was the love of the air force.

I once wanted to be in

that dormitory as a kid.

My first ambition for myself.

And I would have become

an air force officer...

and my story with my dad would

have been very different.

Dad started out in the slaughterhouses

in the Chicago stockyards.

He met my mother...

a telephone operator who had quit

school after 8th grade...

to support her family.

He made his way down

to night school in the loop...

and after seven years

he went into the FBI.

As a young FBI agent in Chicago, he

captured a notorious gangland criminal...

named Roger "The Terrible" Touhy.

It was such a triumph

for the bureau...

that my dad was brought

into J. Edgar Hoover's inner circle.

In 1947, when the air force

was established...

Dad was picked to set up

its first counter intelligence agency.

A guy who had done

his traveling by train.

I'm not sure if he had ever been

on an airplane at that point.

Now he is an Air Force general.

I am here now...

because I heard that members

of the faculty and administration

along with some of the Evangelicals

Churches in the area...

are on a mission to convert cadets.

In my dad's air force,

that would have been a non-starter.

Things are different now.

It's a quick ride down the

road from the academy...

to pastor Ted Haggard's

New Life Mega church.

I went to see him

there a year ago.

We started a little over 20 years ago

in the basement of our home.

We started with twenty people...

in a concrete basement...

with buckets stacked up

I'd put my bible on them.

Everybody had to bring

their own folding chairs.

So it was a kind of a cute scene.

Now we have 14,000 people that

call New Life their home church...

and on an average Sunday we have

right around 10.000 people...

that come and worship with us.

# Wonderful?

# Beautiful?

# Glorious?

Evangelicalism is growing

and developing.

There is a new mega church...

a mega church being 2000 people

in attendance or more.

There is a new mega-church

in America every two days...

and they are all Evangelical.

# We bow before you in

all of your wonders?

We believe that the bible is the

word of God, Jesus is the son of God...

and that you must be born again.

The National Association

of Evangelicals...

is a group that was formed

to be the counterbalance

to liberalism.

So it's 30 million people the largest

evangelical group in America

We are politically active...

and the predominant way the Bush

administration communicates with us...

is a Monday conference call...

with evangelical leaders

and I'm one of those.

Haggard says that it is his mission

to convert non-believers...

at the academy or anywhere else.

Now I think the US Air Force

has done a great job...

handling religious

issues over its history.

That seem absurd to me...

that they can talk about any issue

other than God.

These are not idiots.

These are not the kind of naive

students who can't think...

and need someone from the

outside to come in and say..

"Oh, listen.

You can discuss military strategy.

You can discuss political ideology.

You can discuss history...

but you can't handle

a discussion of religion...

because that may make

you a feel intimidated.

Are you kidding me?

These are students we are getting ready

to give multi-million dollar bombers to.

Do you know that as a boy...

I harboured an ambition

to come here as a cadet?

- Really?

- I did

I entered in '73

and I graduated in '77.

My father is a '53 Naval academy

graduate.

My eldest son and his wife

actually graduated last year...

and my youngest son

is now a second class junior.

- What has happened there?

- On 29th July of 2004...

I was invited back to the first annual GLC,

Graduates Leadership Conference.

My son Curtis came over to me

and said...

"Dad, I know that we

are at this party

but I need to talk with you

about something. Can we go off base?"

And he never does that.

In my mind I thought that maybe he'd...

God forbid has there been

something with alcohol or drugs...

or an honour code violation?

Has he gotten somebody pregnant?

I mean what's going on?

He said look, "Dad, I'm probably going

to be getting into some serious trouble."

I said, "What have you done, Curtis?"

He said, 'No, it's not what I've done.

It's what I'm going to do."

And I said, "Ok, enough of this.

What is going on? "

He said, "The next person

who calls me a f***ing Jew...

or accuses me or our people

of executing Jesus Christ,

I'm going to beat the sh*t out of."

I was surprised because I do have

three kids there at the time.

I called Casey and said,

"What the hell is going on?"

He said, "Dad, this is just the way

it is here".

Mickey's three kids are his sons,

Casey and Curtis...

and Casey's wife Amanda...

They met at the academy.

She was raised as a Christian.

I've never heard it in high school.

If people knew I was Jewish,

it never was a point.

It never made any kind of mention.

But once I got to the academy

it became so, I was so aware of it...

that I was kind of different.

I went to lunch that day,

I had a flyer for a movie on my plate.

It was for the "The Passion of the Christ."

It had all kinds of quotes.

Every single place in Mitchel Hall had.

- Every place sitting.

- That's four thousand place sittings.

Each single one had an advertisement

for "The Passion of the Christ."

So over a three day period,

every time that I would go

to sit down there...

there is a flyer staring back at me.

"Why is this OK to do with this movie?

Why is it that nobody is making

a fuss about this?"

So we started talking

to Chaplin Morton.

But I have this feeling the whole

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