Interesting story. Thanks for sharing.
Oh man, this brought back to me one old funny memory, not related to military but.. Sometimes in the 80s Turkey and former Yugolavia played aa friendly footbal match... and ygoslav commedntator in his opening commentgary goes with usual: her ewe are on stadion xy, with so so thousends at the attendence, and onli ones who dont have a moustaches are security dogs
)
I disagree on religious simbols. It has no real corealtions to secularism of the system or the country. Many countries are secular, from USA to Russia. But their soldiers whear crosses, and otheer religous simbols. Hell they even name weapons systems after biblical names, they use em on some unit patches.
Not to mentions sheer number of secular govrements whose flag is one big *** cross.
I think that turkish solduiers just like all the citizens should wear their faith symbols, be it muslim, christian..
Symbolism and faith is a powerful thing, if you ever been in the tick of the battle you knew: as those al saying goes there are no atheist in foxholes.