[Tommy]

I suppose Gen. Boykin does find it ironic that the Army forced him to retire for expressing his fundamentalist Christian views in public speeches, while allowing an extremist Muslim to continue on in the service. His superiors did the right thing while Hassan's superiors didn't.

I have no doubt that Hassan's religion played some part in the bad decisions made by his superiors. But there are other factors at play here too. As a retired Air Force aviator I've studied aircraft accident reports for years. One of the most interesting involved a hotshot B-52 pilot who crashed his plane killing himself and several senior officers on board while practicing a low altitude flyby for an air show. The post accident investigation revealed the pilot, who was highly regarded for his flying skills, had a long history of ignoring instructions from supervisors and violating flying safety rules (e.g., flying too low). It had gotten so bad that another senior officer on base would not allow his people to fly as crew with him. The problem had been known and documented for several years, but none of the pilot's superiors had done anything more than talk with him. None of them wanted to take on the difficult job of formally charging him and removing him from flying status. After he flew the B-52 into the ground, his last two superiors were charged with and convicted of failure to do their duty.