When I was in the Navy I was asked what religion I wanted stamped on my dog tags. I replied "none", and was told in no uncertain terms that that was unacceptable. Not realizing how much trouble I could get into, I replied "Protestor", and the dumb NCO operating the machine dutifully typed "PROT." into my tags and paperwork. I guess in those days there were only three possible answers to that question: "Prot.", "Cath." and "Jew.". It's still on my DD214. On board ship, I soon learned that I could get off work on Sundays by attending "Divine Services", but that if I didn't I would get assigned some really unpleasant. and very dirty, physical duty.

I want to make clear this was not official harassment, in fact, I found the ship's chaplain to be a very kind and helpful man who was completely non-denominational and fair to all of us. But the non-coms and other senior enlisted men were what we would today call very "traditional" Americans. As far as the rest of my shipmates, mostly college-age Reservists, I would guess about 10% were atheist/agnostic, about 30% believed in some kind of diety but had no doctrinal opinions about it, and the rest were Prots, Caths, and Jews.