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http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/5018088.htm


Friday, Jan 24, 2003


Local

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Posted on Fri, Jan. 24, 2003

Honor guard fired for blessings may file suit to get his job back
By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

Patrick Cubbage, fired as an honor guardsman at a New Jersey veterans' cemetery for saying "God bless you" at grave-site flag presentations, said yesterday he was considering a legal challenge to get his job back.

Cubbage said he would meet with the Rutherford Institute of Charlottesville, Va., a legal organization that specializes in religious-rights issues.

The Rutherford Institute was one of three such organizations that contacted Cubbage after his dismissal was reported in Wednesday's Inquirer.

Ron Rissler, legal coordinator for the Rutherford Institute, said yesterday that based on the published account of his firing, Cubbage appeared to have a "strong claim" to get his job back.

"He's got... constitutional protection of free speech because he was speaking in a government forum. So he's got a cushion," Rissler said in a telephone interview.

A former Vietnam combat veteran and retired Philadelphia police officer, Cubbage, 54, of Northeast Philadelphia, was hired part time in October 2001 to serve in the honor guard at the Brig. Gen. William C. Doyle Veterans' Memorial Cemetery in Burlington County.

During grave-site flag presentations to next of kin, Cubbage regularly said, "God bless you and this family, and God bless the United States of America," after the the standard lines of the presentation.

An evangelical Christian, Cubbage said that he gave the blessing only if the family had had a chapel service or a clergy person at the grave and that he knew of no family that had complained.

But in mid-October, a supervisor told him the blessing was to be used only when formally requested by the deceased's family.

Cubbage said he was fired Oct. 31 after he offered the blessing at a funeral. The son of a veteran about to be buried told him the family would welcome the blessing.

The public affairs office of the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests for comment yesterday.

Previously, Lt. Colonel Roberta Niedt, a spokeswoman for the department, said she could not comment on Cubbage's dismissal because it might become a matter of litigation.

Cubbage said yesterday he had received no communication from the department since the article appeared but had received nearly 100 telephone calls from friends and well-wishers from across the country.

"It's unbelievable," he said. "Guys I was in the service with. Guys on the [police] force. People from my church."

He also spoke by phone on about a dozen radio call-in shows in Seattle, Birmingham, Ala., New York, Utah and Texas.

He said he is scheduled to appear on CNN Monday at 7:30 p.m.

The Inquirer has received about 60 phone calls and nearly 500 e-mail messages in response to the article, which has appeared on several Web sites, including the Drudge Report.


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Contact staff writer David O'Reilly at 215-854-5723 or doreilly@phillynews.com.



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