Cognitive dissonance, bureaucracy style

[BigV]

If you're a Wiccan, you can be in the armed forces. You can worship freely. But when you die you can't get a symbol of your religious tradition engraved on your headstone.

Hindus and Sufis and Buddhists got the OK. So did Mormons, Muslims and Christians. Even atheist veterans have their symbol engraved free on military headstones.

Why, wonders Scott Stearns, can't he?

Scott Stearns, a Navy veteran, shows his pentacle tattoo while visiting Tahoma National Cemetery in Covington. He says the Defense Department doesn't allow the Wiccan pentacle on headstones.

"I would hope when I pass away that both my status as a vet and my religious belief would be on my marker," said Stearns, who medically retired from the Navy after a diagnosis of leukemia in 1996.

The quiet father of two, who lives in Kent and works at the Seattle office of the Department of Veterans Affairs, is Wiccan, a pagan form of worship that celebrates nature and the elements.

It was officially recognized by the Defense Department as a religion in 1996, and has growing groups of followers in all military branches.

But the National Cemetery Administration of the Veterans Affairs Department has yet to approve use of its symbol -- the stars-and-circle pentacle -- despite years of requests from Wiccan veterans.

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