An Army cadet who left West Point just months shy of his graduation to make a high-profile protest of religious proselytizing at the school now faces Pentagon demands that he repay the cost of his education — either through active-duty service or by paying as much as $250,000.

The notification this week that he would be hit up for the fees blindsided Blake Page, 24, who says that top leadership at West Point assured him that "recoupment" of costs for his taxpayer-funded education would be waived when he left the school in December.

The Army’s move to deny the waiver — rejecting recommendations of the three-star general who runs West Point — was within its authority, but unusual enough to raise eyebrows.

"As a general matter, the secretary of the Army usually follows recommendations that come up through the chain of command," Philip Cave, a retired Navy judge advocate who practices military law in Alexandria, Va.

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Page’s supporters see demand for recoupment as punishment for a scathing commentary he wrote calling attention to what he considers illegal Christian proselytizing at West Point and discrimination against non-religious cadets. The commentary was published in The Huffington Post as he was leaving.

"Countless officers here and throughout the military are guilty of blatantly violating the oaths they swore to defend the Constitution," Page wrote in a Dec. 3 commentary entitled "Why I don’t want to be a West Point Graduate."

Original report by NBC News: West Point cadet quits, cites 'criminal behavior' of officers

He said the academy’s leaders were guilty of "unconstitutional proselytism, discrimination against the non-religious and establishing formal policies to reward, encourage and even at times require sectarian religious participation."

The way recoupment works is that if a student attends at least two years at the taxpayers’ expense, and then does not finish for reasons they could control — especially misconduct or poor performance — they are required to repay the government, said Cave. If things out of their control cause their departure, including many medical conditions, recoupment can be waived.

Page had been diagnosed with clinical depression during his time there and was told that he was not qualified to be a commissioned officer, according to military documents. Nonetheless, he said, he was in good academic standing and on track to graduate in May.

But the senior classman, a self-described atheist, decided to forego his diploma.

"I could have stayed and graduated," said Page, who established a Secular Students Association at West Point. "By resigning I was able to make a very loud and bold statement. I believe it had some positive impact on the non-religious cadets."

Page's supporters believe he’s being punished — apparently not by West Point, but the Pentagon — for his unflattering portrayal of academy.

"This may be the clearest example I’ve ever seen of reprisal and retribution," said Mikey Weinstein, the president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit watchdog group that battles evangelism infused in military business. "It sends an extremely dangerous message to anyone who wants to stand for their constitutional rights."

Weinstein, who recently brought Page on as his assistant at the nonprofit, says that in December he and Page separately received assurances from West Point leadership that the former cadet would not be called into active duty or handed a huge bill for his early departure.

In a memorandum dated Dec. 12, the superintendent of West Point, Lt. Gen. David Huntoon, did recommend to Army headquarters that Page be honorably discharged and that recoupment — in the form of money or service as an enlisted soldier — be waived.

The response, signed by Thomas R. Lamont, assistant Army secretary, approves Page for an honorable discharge, but disapproves the waivers. In the Jan. 28 memorandum, he orders the West Point superintendent "to conduct a recoupment investigation."

"They have to provide a line by line breakdown of the costs that were incurred from (Page) being there," said Maj. Scott R. Johnson, who is a liaison with West Point at the Department of the Army.

The amount varies from one case to another. But the estimated cost of attending four years at West Point is estimated at $200,000-$250,000. The military could also order Page back to active duty.

Asked why Huntoon’s recommendations on Page’s behalf were rejected, Johnson said:

"We are an impartial third party. We review each individual packet … There’s merit to an organization such as the academy and a three-star general making a recommendation. But if it were always in their favor, there would be no reason for us to review the packets."

Once the Pentagon demands recoupment, there’s not much recourse for the soldier, according to Cave, the Virginia attorney. 

"To the extent that there might be remedy, there’s not effective remedy," he said.

Weinstein is threatening legal action.

"My message for the Army is they better be ready to face a whistleblower lawsuit," he said. "If they are not going to fairly state why they are doing this, they can tell it to the 12 members of a federal jury."

Meantime Page, who now lives in Minnesota, is finishing up a certification program to work as a personal trainer. He's also written a book about his experiences, which he hopes will generate some revenue.

Asked what will he do if the military sends him a bill for $200,000, he responds: "File for bankruptcy, I guess."

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Updated Dec. 5, 2:25 p.m. ET: Cadet Blake Page has learned from his superiors at West Point that he will be given an honorable discharge and not be required to pay "recoupment" costs for three and a half years at the military academy. He told NBC News that when out-processing is finished, he will move to Minnesota and "continue the work I've started in whatever way I can."

Original Post: A West Point cadet publicly announced his decision to quit the prestigious military academy just months before graduating to protest what he sees as the illegal infusion of military procedures and events with fundamentalist Christian proselytizing.

To call attention to his move, senior Blake Page wrote a scathing commentary on West Point, published Monday in the Huffington Post.

"Countless officers here and throughout the military are guilty of blatantly violating the oaths they swore to defend the Constitution," wrote Page, who was slated to graduate in May. "These men and women are criminals, complicit in light of day defiance of the Uniform Code of Military Justice through unconstitutional proselytism, discrimination against the non-religious and establishing formal policies to reward, encourage and even at times require sectarian religious participation."

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A public affairs officer at West Point told NBC News he was seeking a response to Page's commentary and his resignation, but had not arranged an interview or responded to the cadet's assertions by the time of publication.

Page's move was an unusual one, and it could come with a big price tag for the 25-year-old who served in the Army prior to enrolling. He could be required to pay the Army some $200,000-$300,000 in "recoupment" costs for his time at West Point.

"It's a very unusual move," said Elizabeth Hillman, professor of law at University of California Hastings College who specializes in military law. She said that while many cadets struggle with issues of conscience, few leave as a result.

"Cadets will tell you it’s very hard to leave," she said. "It’s much harder to leave than to stay."

"This kid just torched his career in the Army, and his degree at West Point," said Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which advocates for total separation of church and state. He likens Page’s move to those of Rosa Parks in the civil rights movement and monks who light themselves on fire to protest Chinese policies in Tibet. "People should recognize courage when they see it."

While at West Point, Page established a chapter of the Secular Students Alliance to support non-religious cadets at the institution. He has argued against prayer being included in mandatory events. He says he has faced persistent discrimination as a known atheist and has been told by his superiors that he will never be a good leader until he "fills the hole in his heart."

His complaints have won some concessions, with the backing of the non-profit Military Religious Freedom Foundation — which provides legal aid and a channel to the media — and the support of Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers.

But Page says that even sympathetic military superiors are reluctant to take action on religious issue because of the sensitivity, and says that applications to leave campus on routine "rest and relaxation" outings were systematically denied him and his fellow secularists. 

"It’s very clear that there is a considerable level of distaste for atheists here," he said.

When he informed superiors of his plan to leave West Point, about a month ago, Page says generals appealed to him to work through official channels to bring change at the academy. 

"My motivation for resigning was first because I didn’t want to be part of it, but also to motivate other people to stand up and be counted. Without something bold that gets attention, I don’t see a way to inspire anybody to stand up and say 'I’m tired of this'," Page told NBC News. "And talking isn’t working, it hasn’t been working. I wanted to do something more."

Long-held traditions are changing at West Point, as elsewhere in the military. Last week West Point held the first same-sex wedding in its chapel.

Page has received a ream of comments congratulating and thanking him for the message he sent with his departure.

But he also got plenty of blow-back from other soldiers.

One comment posted to his Facebook page by a fellow soldier lambasted him for "(doing his best) to drag (West Point) through the mud." 

"I wish you could just pack your bags, slink away, and fade into oblivion, but I guess that's not dramatic enough," the post said. 

Page said he is planning to write a book about his experiences.

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Cadet Chapel, the landmark Gothic church that is a center for spiritual life at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, was hosting its first same-sex wedding Saturday. 

Penelope Gnesin and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, were exchanging vows in the regal church in an afternoon ceremony attended by around 250 guests and conducted by a senior Army chaplain. 

The two have been together for 17 years. They had a civil commitment ceremony that didn't carry any legal force in 1999 but had longed hoped to formally tie the knot. The way was cleared last year, when New York legalized same-sex marriage and President Barack Obama lifted the "Don't ask, don't tell," policy prohibiting openly gay people from serving in the military. 

---

The brides both live in New Jersey and would have preferred to have the wedding there, but the state doesn't allow gay marriage. 

"We just couldn't wait any longer," Fulton told The Associated Press in a phone interview Saturday. They wanted to get married quickly also because Gnesim, 52, is a breast cancer survivor with multiple sclerosis, USA Today reported.

Cadet Chapel, Fulton said, was a more-than-adequate second choice. 

"It has a tremendous history, and it is beautiful. That's where I first heard and said the cadet prayer," Fulton said, referring to the invocation that says, "Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won." 

The ceremony will be the second same-sex wedding at West Point. Last weekend, two of Fulton's friends, a young lieutenant and her partner, got married in another campus landmark, the small Old Cadet Chapel in West Point's cemetery. 

Fulton has campaigned against the ban on gays in the military as a board member of two groups representing gay and lesbian servicemen and servicewomen. She graduated in 1980 in the first West Point class to include women.

“I was just a small town kid awed by West point and I loved the Army. I was so proud that we created a legacy that opened doors for so many young women leaders to serve and make our army stronger,” Fulton said in a statement posted to YouTube. “Gay and lesbian soldiers no longer have to hide their lives and their families – makes them stronger, makes our army stronger, makes our military stronger.”

Fulton said the only hassle involved in arranging her ceremony came when she was initially told that none of West Point's chaplains were authorized by their denominations to perform same-sex weddings. 

Luckily, she said, they were able to call on a friend, Army Chaplain Col. J. Wesley Smith. He is the senior Army chaplain at Dover Air Force Base, where he presides over the solemn ceremonies held when the bodies of soldiers killed in action oversees return to U.S. soil. 

The couple planned on adding other military trappings to their wedding, including a tradition called the saber arch, where officers or cadets hold their swords aloft over the newlyweds as they emerge from the church.

NBC's Isolde Raftery contributed to this report.

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Whether fighting Taliban in the remote mountain valleys of Afghanistan or snowboarding down a double-black-diamond run in the Cascade range, you want your brothers with you. And the same goes for starting a small business selling flip-flops inspired by military service and the Afghan people.

That’s why West Point graduate-turned beachwear entrepreneur Matthew Griffin, his brother in-arms Donald Lee and brother-in-law, Andrew Sewrey, joined together to deliver a new twist on beach footwear -- Combat Flip Flops.

---

Griffin and Lee served two tours as special ops Army Rangers in Afghanistan together from 2003 to 2006. Lee also was involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The idea for Combat Flip Flops, which sells high end togs with names like the AK-17 for men and Bombshell Light for women, is headquartered in a one-car garage a stone’s throw from a salmon stream in the foothills outside Seattle. It started like many things in that part of the country do, with a cup of coffee.

Soldier who lost 4 limbs in Afghanistan returns home to hero's welcome

In 2010, Griffin had returned to Kabul as a medical training and equipment supplier to the Afghan military when he met an American who managed a shoe factory at a business conference. The factory was set up by Afghan families who’d been running shoe factories for years and were able to obtain U.S. government contracts to make footwear for the U.S. military.

Best coffee in Kabul?
“He asked if I wanted to try the best cup of coffee in Kabul,” Griffin said. “Being from Seattle we said all right we’ll give that one a day in court.”

Afterward, during a tour of the factory floor, which he found clean, organized with well-trained workers in uniform, the engineering management grad said he began thinking about ways to help the Afghan people over the long term.  “What is going to happen when we pull out. If you have a factory, that is going to let people feed their family. Each worker supports about eight or nine other members of their family.”

Then, he said, he saw a worker, putting a flip flop thong through a combat boot sole. It was meant as a joke for coworkers, but it instantly caught Griffin’s attention.

The idea for Combat Flip Flops was formed: He’d help the Afghan people he had grown to admire for their selfless hospitality and independent spirit and do his part for economic stability in the country by creating sustainable jobs. He registered the Internet domain name when he got back to his hotel room.

NBC's Lester Holt answers your questions about Afghanistan

Griffin returned to his home in Washington state, and learned that his wife Michele’s sister, Kristy, was getting married. Her groom was Andy Sewrey, a Montana-bred construction manager and bass player in a metal rock band (Sunder) who the first time they met showed up to a family barbecue with a six-foot potato cannon. The two learned that they both snowboarded, but each worried that the other wasn’t quite at the same level of expertise  (They each feared the other would be a “dork” on the slopes).

Finally, after Sewrey was married, the two agreed to join each other for some early spring skiing on the steep side of Snoqualmie Pass, about a half hour drive from their homes in Issaquah.

Sewrey said the two shredded the mountain like never before that day, “pushing every possible open gap.”

“That just kind of changed things,” Sewrey said. “It was like OK, you’re cool. This is my brother. “

Griffin shared his idea of Combat Flip Flops with Sewrey. And Sewrey, who had studied art and design in college, began making sketches. Griffin introduced his new brother in-law to his brother-in arms, Lee, who grew up and still lives in Los Angeles and also studied art and design. Lee had worked in Internet marketing in the shoe industry before joining the Army after Sept. 11, 2001.

'Cuckoo's nest'
As Lee describes his work in the elite special ops force, “Griff was in the cuckoo’s nest and I was the cuckoo.” Griffin planned, organized and prepared his team to coordinate air strikes from B1 bombers and attack helicopters, and Lee was on the ground calling in the coordinates.

Lee and Griffin became friends on their first tour of duty with the 75^th Ranger Regiment, in an operation called “Winter Strike.” It was a snowy assault on Al-Qaida and the Taliban in remote mountain villages. The idea, Griffin said, was that enemy couldn’t hide at high elevations anymore because American forces would send people to go get them.

“There’s no support. Helicopters have a hard time reaching there so it’s men with boots on the ground and packs and cold weather gear going up into the mountains and doing their job,” Griffin said.

The mountain Afghans let the Rangers live in their homes and stay in their schools. They helped them start fires to stay warm, and even brought in stoves. The Rangers drank tea with the elders.

“They literally fed us their food that they had to survive for the rest of the winter,” Griffin said. “There is a basic level of humanity to that. I don’t care whether you’re Christian, Muslim or Jewish, there is a compassion there for other human beings. I felt that from Afghans.”

It was this feeling for the Afghan people, to keep them working when the bulk of the American forces depart in 2014, that ultimately became the idea behind Combat Flip Flop. Right now, the company consists of Griffin as CEO, Sewrey as president, and Lee as Web design, sales and marketing guru and about 30 Afghan workers.

Some people think the name is too militant, but Griffin says those people are missing the point. It tongue-in cheek, more of a fun marketable brand for flip flops that anyone can wear.

In a trip last month to Kabul to inspect the factories, Sewrey said he also witnessed the pride and dignity of Afghans.

Sweeping dirt
“There you see guys, maybe he has a little shop selling naan, out in the morning on the side of the road. The dude is out there sweeping the dirt. It’s dirt. Nothing, but more dirt. There’s dirt on dirt on dirt. And there’s a guy that’s like this is my business I’m going to sweep my dirt. You’d see that all over town. They really care about what they’re doing.”

Combat Flip Flops is a small startup that sells their rugged and colorful footwear starting at $65. The company has lined up retailers in Europe and North America, but 90 percent of its sales are online. Flip flops made in Afghanistan are expected to begin shipping in mid-December. The first run of 2,000 men’s models have already sold out, but orders are still being taken for later shipments and women’s sandals. 

The trio has also received permission from the family of the leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Massoud, a political leader and Afghan fighter who was named a National Hero by the Afghan government, to sell T-shirts with his likeness. Massoud, nicknamed the “Lion of Panjshir,” is acclaimed for helping driving the Russians out of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is suspected to have ordered Massoud’s assassination on Sept. 9, 2001. Griffin and Sewrey traveled to Massoud’s hometown in the Panjshir  Valley last month and met with his brother and son. The stylistic shirts will be revealed soon, with a percentage of the profits going to the Massoud Foundation.

They also have plans for new Afghan inspired flip-flop designs using sheep and goat leather.

 “We really think that through jobs and economic stability we can do something for the Afghans,” Griffin said. “Do we think that flip flops are going to solve Afghanistan’s problems? No. But we’re trying to show people that it’s possible for a foreign business to work with the people there, and have fun doing it.”

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Ask the man dubbed “the father of digital camouflage” about fatal flaws in the U.S. military's uniform-concealment choices and he’ll give you a punch line. Then he’ll mention the bottom line.

“Never decide Pattern A just looks cooler than Pattern B. The Marine Corps call that a ‘CDI factor’ – chicks dig it,” said Timothy O’Neill, a former professor of engineering psychology at West Point who has spent 37 years concocting and analyzing the latest in military camouflage.

More critical: Never let cost dictate how you hide your combat troops, added O’Neill referring to the Universal Camouflage Pattern, or UCP, the Army’s primary uniform pick in 2004. American soldiers in Afghanistan openly bashed the green-gray, pixilated fatigues for making them stand out, not blend in. The Army now is busy gauging an array of new camo looks to likely replace UCP, an effort that will continue into this autumn. 

"Everybody got in trouble with the very problematic idea that you can come up with one pattern that can work equally well everywhere," said O'Neill, a retired Army officer who had no part in the Army's decision. "These patterns (UCP) generally don't work well anywhere - and for reasons that have nothing to do with the skill of the designers. It was just a dumb requirement.

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“I don’t think I’ll be shot for saying that because I’ve said it a number of times. And in any case what can they do? Send me to Vietnam? Everybody understands now that the Universal Pattern was a bad idea. It was really a strange case of designing down to cost.”

Four companies are competing to become the Army’s new combat-camo designer. Guy Cramer, a consultant to one of those firms, ADS, Inc., said the intense scientific scrutiny of the four proposed patterns shows “the Army is bending over backward – probably more than they even need to – so no one can point a finger at the Army and say: ‘You didn’t do this right.’

“They don’t want another problem like they had with UCP,” Cramer added. “ADS may not win. And so be it. Whatever works best is what we want for the soldiers. At least, (the new camo) will give the soldiers more survivability than what they have right now.”

Military camouflage testing is typically top secret and lengthy, using a blend of computer simulations and – out in the field – cloaked men ducking in thick brush or dusty deserts to measure precisely how many milliseconds trained observers need to spot and identify the “targets.” The evaluation process blends the intricacies of brain and vision science with the evolving art of textile deception – a battlefield gambit first used in World War I.

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But it all begins indoors, usually at the United States Military Academy at West Point. There, O’Neill helped design a 120-degree, curved screen onto which three ceiling-mounted, high-definition projectors beam, he said, “calibrated digital images” containing – somewhere – a small picture of a rifle-toting soldier wearing the latest camo pattern under exploration. The spotters include cadets, faculty members or active-military troops who supply their 20/20 (or better) vision plus a wide range of combat experience, from zero to many years.

“The observer sits in the sweet spot. A picture comes on of a tree line, or something like that, and the person searches the tree line to find a target,” said O’Neill, who in the mid-1970s created the first “digital” camouflage pattern and then successfully tested it at West Point. O’Neill is not part of the current camo assessment.

Observers wear modified, large eyeglasses equipped with two tiny video cameras. That eye-tracking technology allows Army testers to follow the observers’ screen scanning in real time and to record how long it takes them to find the hidden soldier or “bad guy.” They’re then asked to decipher in which direction the on-screen “target” is pointing his rifle.

“Having detected it, (then we want to know) how easy it is to recognize what it is,” O’Neill said. “From our point of view, the question becomes: Is it worth pulling the trigger?

“If we have a variety of different camouflage patterns we’re comparing for effectiveness, we’ll just run the hell out of them in the laboratory and look at how much difference (in detection time) we’re getting,” O’Neill added. “Then, we move to the field.”

Testing the same patterns in open terrain can take place at U.S. military bases or at locations abroad – for example, in Qatar, near the Saudi border where O’Neill said he once ran an assessment of a potential camo formation.

“You’re looking at (natural) extremes and every place in the middle,” O’Neill said. “That means dense jungle versus low desert, Saharan desert, boreal rain forest and western scrub.”

In the field, observers are often soldiers who have volunteered for the duty. Initially, camo samples may be printed onto fabric then placed on man-sized frames and planted in the bush – a sort of ominous-looking scarecrow. In later phases, O’Neill said, “you’re going to make up uniforms and put them on soldiers.”

“They’ll take the soldiers out and place them (wearing the test design) at a certain distance,” added Cramer. In addition to consulting for ADS, Cramer founded the Canadian camouflage company HyperStealth Biotechnology through which he has produced more than 2 million uniforms for the armed forces of several countries, including Jordan and the Afghanistan National Army.

In 2004, Cramer devised a snow-pattern uniform to conceal U.S. Marines and later teamed with O’Neill to test that design, which ultimately was issued to Marines in 2006. (The two men also teamed up to develop OPTIFADE, a hunting-camo product for Newark, Del.-based W. L. Gore & Associates.)

Where O’Neill is known for digital patterns, Cramer was the first to incorporate fractals and mathematical algorithms into his designs. (Fractals are shapes with uneven contours that mimic the irregularities found in nature – like twigs, branches and leaves.)

During field tests on a Cramer military-camo design, “snipers were saying our patterns were giving them over 30 seconds of delay from the start of the test to when they recognized the target,” Cramer recalled. “They told us that most of the camouflage they run into takes eight to 12 seconds to detect, to know what it is. That's when we knew we were onto something (with fractals).”

“And that,” added O’Neill, “is how it goes from a theory to a suit.”

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NEW YORK -- Two women who said they were raped while attending U.S. military academies sued military officials on Friday, accusing them of failing to address widespread problems of sexual assault at the elite schools. 

In the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, the two women said the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and the Army's United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, tolerate sexual assault and discourage victims of attacks from reporting them.

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"Both institutions systematically and repeatedly ignore rampant sexual harassment," the lawsuit filed by Leah Marquet, 20, and Anne Kendzior, 22, stated. "Both institutions have a history of failing to prosecute and punish those students found to have sexually assaulted and raped their fellow students." 

In the lawsuit, Marquet, a former West Point cadet, said she was pressured by upperclassmen to get drunk and raped by a fellow student while she was intoxicated.

Lawsuit claims rape, misconduct at DC Marine Barracks

After she reported an assault, other students taunted her, the lawsuit said, and the school punished her for reporting the incident by forcing her to take out her attacker's trash. She quit West Point after becoming suicidal, the lawsuit said.

Kendzior, who entered the Naval Academy in 2008, said she was raped twice by two different fellow students, both times while she was drunk. Kendzior accused the Naval Academy of forcing her to drop out after she reported the rapes to an academy counselor.

The suit accused former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and four other military officials of failing to implement steps to fight sexual assaults at the schools.

The suit seeks an unspecified amount of monetary damages.

Panetta seeks to curb assaults
U.S. Navy Commander William Marks, a Naval Academy spokesman, declined comment on the lawsuit itself, but said the academy takes every report of alleged sexual assault "extremely seriously" and that its "sexual assault response and advocacy program is among the strongest in the nation." 

Officials at West Point said they could not comment on pending litigation, but that the school takes sexual harassment issues "very seriously."

"Every unrestricted report of sexual assault is thoroughly investigated, the results of the investigation are reviewed by legal experts and appropriate action taken," said Lt. Col. Sherri K. Reed, the academy's spokesperson.

Officials at the Pentagon had no immediate comment on the lawsuit.

Last month, eight other women filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington saying they were raped, assaulted or sexually harassed while in the military, and were retaliated against when they complained.

The latest lawsuit was filed less than a week after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced new steps to curb thousands of sexual assaults a year within the military.

The case is Karley Leah Marquet v. Robert Gates et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 12-3117.

 

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Updated at 9 p.m. ET

West Point issued a brief statement late Monday saying that retired Lt. Gen. William Boykin has decided to withdraw from speaking at the Feb. 8 prayer breakfast and another speaker would be lined up in his place.

Earlier

The Army is drawing protests from veterans’ and Islamic groups for inviting a retired general who many have called anti-Muslim to speak at a West Point prayer breakfast.

Lt. Gen William G. Boykin has been criticized for speeches at evangelical Christian churches in which he made disparaging remarks about Islam. Boykin has said that Muslims are trying to implement Shariah Law in the United States and that Islam is the greatest threat America faces.

According to The Associated Press, Boykin has also said that America's enemy was Satan, that God had put President George W. Bush in the White House and that one Muslim Somali warlord was an idol-worshipper.

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Groups such as VoteVets.org, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, as well as Forum on Military Chaplaincy all petitioned the Pentagon to stop Boykin from speaking at the Feb. 8 breakfast, Stars and Stripes reported.

VoteVets.org told Army Gen. Raymond Odierno in a letter that allowing retired Boykin to speak at the Feb. 3 National Prayer Breakfast Service would be contrary to Army values and disrespectful to Muslim cadets.

'Incompatible with Army values'
"These remarks are incompatible with the Army values, and a person who is incompatible with Army values should not address the cadets of the United States Military Academy," VoteVets chairman Jon Soltz said in the letter, according to The Associated Press.

Army public affairs didn't immediately comment, though West Point's Lt. Col. Sherri Reed said cadets are "purposefully exposed to different perspectives and cultures" during their four years at the academy.

"The National Prayer Breakfast Service will be pluralistic with Christians, Jewish, and Muslim cadets participating," Reed said in a prepared statement. "We are comfortable and confident that what retired Lt. Gen. Boykin will share about prayer, soldier care and selfless service, will be in keeping with the broad range of ideas normally considered by our cadets."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is also asking officials to retract the invitation.

“Having a guy like that speak at a respected institution like the U.S. Military Academy gives credibility to his extremist views of hatred toward Muslims,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for Council on American Islamic Relations, told msnbc.com. “We are strong defenders of the First Amendment. What we are saying is that he not be allowed to spread views at West Point. He can go shout his hatred on the streets if he wants to.”

Hooper calls the argument that Boykin represents an alternative viewpoint “ridiculous,” and equates it with inviting a racist white leader to speak at West Point since some of the cadets are African American.

“I doubt that they would invite a KKK speaker and claim that they want to expose the students to a variety of opinions," CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, told the Associated Press, referring to the hate group the Ku Klux Klan.

Just last week, CAIR and People for the American Way had asked officials in Maryland to rescind an invitation for Boykin to speak at a prayer breakfast. Boykin attended and spoke about his faith and did not mention Islam.

Before his retirement in 2002, Boykin was chastised by military commanders for comparing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a holy war. Boykin later issued a written statement apologizing and said he didn't mean to insult Islam.

Pentagon investigation concluded that Boykin violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity when he made nearly two dozen church speeches beginning in January 2002. It also found that Boykin, who made most speeches wearing his uniform, didn't get prior clearance for the remarks.

Boykin couldn't immediately be reached by msnbc.com for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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