Negatory

The first amendment only guarantees you won't go to jail or face legal repercussions for saying things. It doesn't mean you won't be judged, sometimes harshly, by the rest of the world and potentially face retribution from them. You can still call black people the "n-word" without going for jail. Hell, you can even grab 10 of your closest buddies and their kids and go to a funeral of an army private who died in Iraq. Then, you can picket outside of said funeral with signs saying he deserved to die, is a "######," and god hates him, and your speech will be protected 8-1 by the Supreme Court. You just can't do it without having almost everyone around you think you are a piece of shit. Sometimes, cops screw up and arrest people without legal basis. The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that desecrating flags was legal in Texas vs Johnson, and I assure you they would rule it again.

Numerous PDF scripts for non-official POW/MIA ceremonies reference the bible, but it seems it was thrown in more as an afterthought than an actual part of the ceremony. The only official doc I found had no mention of a bible. https://www.62aw.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120524-091.pdf The most annoying thing about the Fox News article, though, was that they incorrectly argue that the first amendment's freedom of speech allows those that are pro-religion to force official military events to continue with religious nuances or have religious undertones. I don't know about you, but I always feel a little bit weird when at a commander's call or an awards ceremony or any other random event, the commander or chaplain starts praying, sometimes even prefacing it with something like, "If you like, join us." I can always look up and see that, while there are plenty of guys going along with it, plenty of truly Christian people in the Air Force, there are also a good 1/4 to 1/3 of the people there wondering "WTF is going on?" Forcing religion directly into the mainstream military culture is not something that the AF should be doing or caring about whatsoever. The point of religion is to help bolster someones personal spiritual life.