Soldier details chilling messages from his superiors about God’s plan in Iran: it surprised many of us

For some U.S. military commanders, the emerging war in Iran is part of a biblical plan to bring about the end of the world as we know it, according to complaints filed by more than 100 service members.

Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of MRFF, a 21-year-old nonprofit group that focuses on ensuring constitutional protections for service members, spoke with News themezone by phone Tuesday morning and clarified some details of the complaints, which come from more than three dozen military units located at at least 30 different military installations.

“We started getting calls in the early hours of Saturday morning from people saying their commanders were jubilant about this and trying to tell people, ‘Don’t worry, it’s all part of God’s plan,’” Weinstein said.

Weinstein said the “promised meter” in the Bible’s Book of Revelation is horrifying and should worry everyone.

“They are promised a river 200 miles long and four and a half feet deep filled with nothing but the blood that their weaponized version of Jesus will shed at the Battle of Armageddon,” Weinstein said. “That’s a lot of blood.”

Part of what makes the accounts so disturbing, Weinstein said, is that service members can’t resist when they receive orders that blur the line regarding the separation of church and state.

“This is all a matter of time, place and manner,” he said. “If your superior proselytizes you, you cannot say, ‘Get out of my sight.’ Under the penal code of military justice, insubordination is considered a serious crime.”

One of the complaints MRFF received over the weekend came from a noncommissioned officer currently stationed outside of Iran but awaiting deployment at any time. That officer filed the complaint on behalf of himself and 15 other soldiers, all of different religious backgrounds. (For your protection, MRFF is keeping the identity of these service members anonymous.)

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The noncommissioned officer, who is Christian, reported to MRFF that a commander told them to tell their comrades that the war in Iran was “part of God’s divine plan.” The commander allegedly cited the Book of Revelation and the section that specifically refers to Armageddon and the “imminent” return of Jesus Christ.

The noncommissioned officer said that the messages from superiors are not only “destroy[ing] morale and unit cohesion” among the troops, but they also believe that commanders are flagrantly violating their oaths to uphold the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion.

According to the complaint first reported by Larsenthe commander said that President Donald Trump “has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to bring about Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”

The commander “had a big smile on his face when he said all this, which made his message seem even crazier,” the complaint says.

“My fellow troops and I know that it is completely wrong to have to suffer what our commander said today. It is not just the separation of Church and State… It is the fact that our commander feels fully supported and justified by the entire chain of command (combat unit name withheld) to inflict his Armageddon views on our attack on Iran on those of us below him in the chain of command,” the officer wrote in his complaint to the MRFF.

Weinstein said some service members called him on Sunday to inform him that they were being invited to Bible studies at their commanders’ personal homes to “discuss how this was all part of the plan and how it is lived out of the Book of Revelation and Christian eschatology.”

Commanders were in a “rush” to get their subordinates on board, according to complaints received by the MRFF.

Once a service member files a complaint with the MRFF, finding a solution can be difficult. Service members have a few different options, Weinstein said: If troops are told they lack courage, intelligence or bravery because of their religious tradition or lack thereof, they can file a complaint against the inspector general or an ethics complaint within the military.

“But then you completely tune out,” Weinstein said. “And when you do that in the military, you become what we call a ‘tarantula on a wedding cake.’ How long do you think that cake will last at that wedding?

Troops can file complaints with military judges, lawyers or chaplains, but the latter can be especially complicated. He most US Army chaplains They are Christians and many are evangelicals.

“On its own, that’s fine,” Weinstein said. “But if you’re a Christian nationalist, you don’t pay attention to time, place or manner… with any kind of religious extremism, we end up not with little streams, streams or creeks, but with oceans and oceans of blood.”

Weinstein said none of this should necessarily be shocking. The evangelical leanings of the Trump administration – and in particular the Department of Defense – have been no secret. in a prayer breakfast Last month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated that the United States was a “Christian nation” and prayer meetings are held each month at the Pentagon.

But putting religion into politics is inflicting “generational damage” on the United States and its military, Weinstein said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Harrison Mann, a 13-year U.S. Army veteran who served under President Barack Obama, during Trump’s first term and under President Joe Biden, told News themezone that for soldiers, “there’s not much difference” within the military, at least “culturally speaking,” even when presidents are “doing really crazy things” in public, he said.

Because of that, he maintains that it may be too early to say whether Hegseth can really inflict permanent damage on the military. Mann, however, is deeply concerned about what will happen in the meantime to public perception of the troops.

“There is a danger that commanders will tell soldiers that they only vouch for Christians, white people or MAGA supporters. When the public starts to see the military that way too, you get to a much more dangerous place where they no longer trust them,” he said.

Today, Mann is associate campaign director for Winning Without War, a progressive grassroots foreign policy advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. that formed in 2003 in response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Mann left his position as assistant to the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Middle East Center, or DIA, in 2024, for moral reasons.

After the attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, Mann said his mission as a soldier was primarily to support Israel and share information with Israeli military officials. But once he saw what the war in Gaza was becoming – “a genocide,” he said – he resigned.

Mann knows from personal experience how terrifying it can be for a soldier to speak out. The Trump administration’s politicization of the military, as the MRFF complaints clearly show, makes this more difficult. Mann worries that a situation is quickly creating in which subordinate leaders may believe that messages from above give them “tacit approval to begin imposing their own religious beliefs on others.”

“I can tell you that I am very concerned,” he said. “I think most people who join the military want to do something they consider noble and they want to do the right thing. But the potential consequences of refusing an illegal order or standing up for what you believe is right are very high… So we come back to the question: What can everyone else do to help them?”

For starters, Mann said the public can convey support for service members who speak out or disobey illegal orders or unconstitutional directives. That validation is scarce within the military, so it must come from outside, he said.

“It’s very scary to imagine that you would be alone if you tried to defy an illegal order,” Mann said. “We need to see greater efforts by members of Congress to remove Secretary Hegseth and everyone can pressure their legislators to support that effort.

“You can support many organizations like About Face and Win Without War that are trying to create a welcoming and safe space for service members who are experiencing this type of unfair treatment,” he said.

Mann said he’s not despairing about the future, although there’s a lot to despair about right now.

“It’s too early to give up. There are so many things we haven’t tried… there are so many pressure tactics that haven’t come to fruition yet. There’s so much people power that hasn’t been mobilized yet. As scary as what’s happening is, there is a critical opportunity for growth and backlash against Trump’s agenda,” he said.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated with the correct title by Harrison Mann.