# Military lodges



## david918 (Jun 27, 2010)

A couple of interesting posts from a couple of our member's blogs

http://fromdarknesstolight-somoteitbe.blogspot.com/2010/06/grand-lodge-of-texas-prince-hall-and.html

http://freemasonsfordummies.blogspot.com/2010/06/where-are-our-military-lodges.html


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## Huw (Jun 29, 2010)

Nice one, David, those posters raise an excellent point.

Like most of the US GLs, UGLE gave up on the idea of travelling military Lodges many years ago, and so did the GL of Scotland.  The GL of Ireland still has two old military Lodges with travelling warrants, both of which are in the British (not Irish) Army, but they haven't issued any new travelling warrants for many years.

PHA does have numerous military Lodges, but bear in mind that many of those are not travelling warrants - they're attached to a particular base, not to a particular unit, and therefore the Lodge doesn't automatically move when the Brethren are sent elsewhere.  For example, there are a few PHA Lodges here in England, under US jurisdiction on USAF bases.  (UGLE has agreed not to treat these as an invasion of territory, provided that these Lodges stay on the US bases and recruit only US personnel.)

In addition, however, it does appear that some of the PHGLs also warrant some Lodges to go to combat zones with their members.  For the Brethren on active service, I'm sure that's a great idea, same as it was when we (Brits) had loads of travelling military Lodges in the days when our servicemen were all over the world.  For GL administrators, I expect it's a nightmare, especially when operational secrecy requires redaction of information which Lodges are normally supposed to report to their GLs.  Nevertheless, I'm sure the administrative difficulties can be resolved with a little imagination (and some amendments to rules), as some of the PHA have evidently managed to figure out ways to make it work, so I reckon it's time the various other GLs (including both yours and mine) looked again at the idea of bringing back the travelling military warrants for the benefit of our Brethren who are out there fighting and dying for us.

T & F,

Huw


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