Army Spc. Jeremy Hall was raised Baptist.
Army Spc. Jeremy Hall, who was raised Baptist but is now an atheist, says the military violated his religious freedom.
Like many Christians, he said grace before dinner and read the Bible before bed. Four years ago when he was deployed to Iraq, he packed his Bible so he would feel closer to God.
He served two tours of duty in Iraq and has a near perfect record. But somewhere between the tours, something changed. Hall, now 23, said he no longer believes in God, fate, luck or anything supernatural.
Hall said he met some atheists who suggested he read the Bible again. After doing so, he said he had so many unanswered questions that he decided to become an atheist.
His sudden lack of faith, he said, cost him his military career and put his life at risk. Hall said his life was threatened by other troops and the military assigned a full-time bodyguard to protect him out of fear for his safety.
In March, Hall filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, among others. In the suit, Hall claims his rights to religious freedom under the First Amendment were violated and suggests that the United States military has become a Christian organization.
"I think it's utterly and totally wrong. Unconstitutional," Hall said.
Hall said there is a pattern of discrimination against non-Christians in the military.
Vermont State Police said Sunday the uncle of a missing 12-year-old girl -- one of the last people to see her before she vanished -- has been arrested on unrelated sex charges.
Brooke Bennett of Vermont has been missing since Thursday.
Jacques, who is married to Bennett's mother's sister, is listed on Vermont's sex offender registry. He was convicted of sexual assault and kidnapping in 1993.
The arrest came as the result of information uncovered by investigators assigned to the disappearance.
Jacques was being held at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, pending an arraignment Monday. If convicted, he could get 10 years to life in prison.
Police said Jacques and a cousin of Brooke's dropped the girl at Cumberland Farms in Randolph about 9 a.m. Wednesday. On the video, which was released Friday, Jacques and Brooke are seen in the store, where Jacques makes a purchase with Brooke at his side. They walk out together, then part ways. She was seen about 45 minutes later inside a coin laundry, police said.
Her grandmother reported Bennett missing 12 hours later, and on Thursday an Amber Alert -- the first in Vermont history -- was issued for Brooke.
Police have said they believe Brooke may have been headed to meet someone with whom she had been communicating online. On Friday, Vermont State Police director Col. James Baker said the investigation centered on contacts Brooke made on the MySpace.com social networking site.
A Pakistani man accused of killing his daughter because she wanted out of an arranged marriage told a judge Tuesday that he had done nothing wrong.
Chaudhry Rashid is accused of killing his daughter because she wanted to end an arranged marriage.
Chaudhry Rashid, 54, later said he was "very disturbed" and "not in a state of mind" to talk because of the death of his daughter, Sandeela Kanwal.
A somber and tearful Rashid made his first court appearance Tuesday. He was advised through an Urdu interpreter of the murder charge and his legal rights.
A judge also admonished Rashid, of Jonesboro, Georgia, to not make any statements without clearing them with his attorney.
"My client is going through a difficult time. As you can imagine, he is distraught," attorney Tammi Long said after the hearing.
She requested that Rashid's family be given privacy, but said Rashid is holding up as well as can be expected.
Court records indicate that a preliminary hearing in the case has been scheduled for July 24.
Officers found Kanwal dead in an upstairs bedroom of the family's suburban Atlanta home early Sunday, according to a Clayton County police report.
Police discovered possible ligature marks on her body and made note of an iron and a necklace as potential causes of the bruising.
Authorities arrived at the home around 2 a.m., shortly after Rashid's wife called police.
She reported that she had been awakened by screaming but couldn't understand the language, the report said. She said she was afraid and left the house to call police.
Rashid's wife told authorities that Kanwal recently had wed in Pakistan in an arranged marriage. The young woman's husband was living in Chicago, Illinois, police said, but Kanwal remained at her father's home and worked at a metro Atlanta Wal-Mart for a brief time.
"The victim was not interested in marrying, nor remaining married to her husband," the police report said, citing information authorities received from Rashid's wife. "This was causing a great deal of friction between the victim and her father," so much so that the two had not spoken in two months, the report said. 
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Police found a "distraught and possibly mournful" Rashid sitting behind a vehicle in the driveway.
"My daughter is dead," he told police.
When asked how she died, police said Rashid did not answer.
"He just dropped his head," the report states.
"Apparently she and the father had argued over the marriage and the fact that it was arranged, and at some point during the altercation he did end up killing his daughter," said Clayton County Police spokesman Tim Owens.
Neighbor Veronda Luckett said the family had always been "relatively quiet."
"They seemed to be decent, lovely people," she said.
"Honor killings" -- the slaying by family members of a woman or girl thought to be bringing them shame -- are usually kept quiet, making it difficult to determine how frequently they occur.
The United Nations Population Fund estimated in September 2000 that as many as 5,000 women and girls fall victim to such killings each year.
Ajay Nair, associate dean of multicultural affairs at Columbia University, said many immigrant families struggle over cultural and generational gaps, but that most South Asian communities enjoy "wonderful" relationships within their families.
"My immediate reaction was that this is an anomaly in the South Asian community," Nair said Tuesday. "This isn't a rampant problem within South Asian communities. What is a problem, I think, is domestic violence, and that cuts across all communities."
