Source: The Pagan Alliance
[thepaganalliance.org/?PageID=138]
The Pagan Alliance (www.thepaganalliance.org), together with the Order of the Pentacle (www.circlesanctuary.org), will hold a ritual of remembrance at the Lafayette War Memorial Monday, May 25, at 11:30 a.m.
The Order of the Pentacle is an organization of Pagan veterans. It's a group that worked with Americans United, Circle Sanctuary, and the American Civil Liberties Union to move the Veteran's Administration (VA) to include the pentacle among the accepted emblems of belief for veterans' tombstones supplied by the VA.
The mission of the Pagan Alliance is to educate our communities and the general public, to promote acceptance of our faiths and traditions, to work for justice, to connect our communities, celebrate our spiritual diversity.
Two years ago the Pagan Alliance held a ritual at the memorial and placed pentacles—five-pointed stars that are a sacred symbol for Pagans—to honor the three known Pagans Pagan service members who have died in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This year one more pentacle will be added, to honor Sgt. Jason A. Schumann of Hawley, Minnesota, who lost his life to an improvised explosive device in Iraq. He had enlisted in the U.S. Army when he was 17, two days before 9/11. He died at the age of 23, leaving a wife and small child. He lived his Pagan beliefs and his tombstone in the military cemetery in Ft. Snelling, Minnesota, is engraved with a pentacle symbol.