James Yee (aka Yousef Yee), a West Point graduate, converted to Islam, served as a Muslim chaplain at Fort Lewis and then was assigned at the Guantanamo Bay prison. 

It all started, as reported in the Washington Post, October 10, 2003, when Yee "protested what he believed were lives of unrelieved tension and boredom experienced by his fellow Muslims in captivity." It was this sympathy that made him suspect, and started a witch-hunt. He was apprehended on September 10, 2003, and kept in isolation until October 10, while military authorities scrambled for charges. Eventually, the charges were downgraded to "mishandling classified information after authorities found maps of the prison and information about detainees in his possession" - nothing unusual for a chaplain.

Nevertheless, the Daily News, October 24 reported "despite only minor charges, the Muslim chaplain is held at a Navy brig in South Carolina in maximum security, and incommunicado." And he is "not allowed to read news accounts of his case and has only the Koran to read. He has only brief phone contact with his family in Springfield, N.J., and meets his attorney wearing iron legs." Thus detained for 76 days, only after vehement protestations of his attorney, he was transferred to a minimum prison facility.

At a hearing in December, his accusers could not even show that the documents charged with were actually classified, and he was released on November 25, 2003.

Meanwhile, a furor developed that it is the training that Muslim chaplains receive that generates extremism. There are two US institutions that train Muslim chaplains: One, affiliated with the reputed International Institute of Islamic Thought, is the graduate school of Islamic Social Sciences situated in Leesburg, VA; the other is the Islamic American University in Southfield, Michigan. These schools were raided (the first for the second time) alleging that they breed Wahabism (allegedly associated with a specific, narrow and exclusionary agenda). Senator Schumer of New York in the forefront of these accusations. 

There is nothing in the curricula or the training of these institutions that could be remotely thus associated. The students and faculty of the Leesburg school, interviewed by the national Public Radio dwelled on its open and thought-stimulating approach to scholarship; and that it very much encourages, rather than stifle (opposite of radicalism) personal exploration.

Also, Yee married a Syrian and studied there from a reputed scholar, Sheikh Kuftaro of the Nakshbandi "Sufi" order - a testament to his morals.

In dismissing the charges, Major General Geoffrey Miller, Commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, cited "national security concerns that would arise from the release of evidence" if the case proceeded. 

An editorial of the New York Times, March 24, 2004 under the caption "Military Injustice" commented, "What they really are trying to hide from view, it seems clear, is not national security secrets, but the incompetence and mean-spiritedness of their prosecution." This while "lawyers on both sides had security clearance, and sensitive evidence, if any existed, could have been left confidential." Yee even opted for debriefing to clarify.

Yet the army left with no other recourse, charged him with administrative sanctions for adultery and downloading pornography on his computer. On Wednesday, April 14 Yee won his bid to remove the reprimand from his record.