Markings on the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight, which is standard issue to U.S. Trijicon's rifle sights use tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, to create light and help shooters hit what they're aiming for. The inscriptions are not obvious and appear in raised lettering at the end of the stock number. Kristian Dunne said Trijicon would be instructed to remove the inscriptions from further orders of the gun sights for New Zealand and the letters would be removed from gun sights already in use by troops. New Zealand announced Thursday that they would remove the citations from the sights they have, and Australia, which also uses the sights, is assessing what to do. In a statement issued later by the command, Petraeus said that "cultural and religious sensitivities are important considerations in the conduct of military operations." "This is a serious concern to me and the other commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan," Petraeus told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. David Petraeus, Central Command's top officer, called the practice "disturbing." Central Command initially said the Trijicon sights didn't violate the ban and compared the citations on the sights to the "In God We Trust" inscription printed on U.S. The references to Bible passages raised concerns that the citations break a government rule that bars proselytizing by American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are predominantly Muslim countries.Ī spokesman for U.S. Through multimillion dollar contracts, the Marine Corps and Army have bought more than 300,000 Trijicon sights.
In a statement released Thursday, Trijicon of Wixom, Mich., says it is also providing to the armed forces free of charge modification kits to remove the Scripture citations from the telescoping sights already in use. military, a major buyer of the company's gear. WASHINGTON - A Michigan defense contractor will voluntarily stop stamping references to Bible verses on combat rifle sights made for the U.S.