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12-18-06, 03:49 PM
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Front Lines of Faith
December 03,2006
Paul Asay
FREEDOM NEWS SERVICE
Chaplains fight daily battles while ministering to troops
Chaplain Terry McBride would jump out of a plane for his guys. And he does. Frequently. For McBride, a major with Fort Carson’s 10th Special Forces Group, parachuting is just part of his job. He meets soldiers where they are — even if that means a patchwork of earth is rushing toward them from thousands of feet below.
“That’s ministry for us,” McBride said.
There are 2,900 active-duty chaplains in the U.S. military, serving the emotional and spiritual needs of 1.4 million troops. They don’t carry weapons, but go wherever their units go: to the streets of Baghdad, the mountains of Afghanistan or a plane four miles high. They’re part counselor, part spiritual adviser, part guardian angel, performing one of the military’s most complex jobs.
“For some ..., (soldiers) feel that if we are there, then God is there,” said Chaplain Clint Black, a captain in the 10th Special Forces based in Colorado.
All three chaplains in that group, including Capt. Darren Chester, are parachuting veterans, but no one more so than McBride, a Baptist pastor with a booming voice and an X-games attitude. He comes across like a full-bore adrenaline junkie, greeting soldiers with a hearty “Hey, man!” and a thick slap on the shoulder. He stopped counting his jumps last year after he passed 130.
McBride says he’s never had a soldier turn down a prayer before a jump. There’s nothing like a little danger to set someone’s faith in motion.
“Questions about life and death often — quite often — lead people to think about their eternal soul,” said Chaplain Jim Hartz, a major with the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team now in Iraq. “Some (soldiers) worry about death more than others. Many soldiers have accepted the fact that death may come to them or someone they care about.
“It doesn’t make it easier to deal with when it happens, but it does free up their mind and other senses to effectively soldier.”
Stress is a fact of life for the military, particularly in wartime. Troops in Iraq or Afghanistan deal with life-and-death issues daily. Even if the troops themselves come to no harm, hurt is all around them. Hartz has given spiritual aid to Iraqi children injured in bomb blasts or, in one case, to a child shot during a soccer game.
“I will never forget the feelings I had — anger and grief at the unfairness and the apparent senselessness of it all.”
He says the soldiers he works with feel that same anger and grief.
Hartz said the stress of being away can be a soldiers’ hardest burden — and that stress accumulates with every birthday or anniversary missed.
“Many of the soldiers in this brigade are on their second or third deployment,” Hartz said.
A chaplain steps into that emotional turmoil. Many try to keep soldiers mentally and emotionally healthy by offering programs and spiritual guidance.
Often, military personnel just want to talk. Discussions with chaplains are confidential, which allows troops to talk freely about everything from a hard-to-please commander to the quality of the food.
“The chaplain is seen as the vent for a lot of frustrations, fears and stresses of military life,” said the Rev. David Knight, interim pastor for All Souls Unitarian-Universalist Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and a part-time chaplain at Buckley Air Force Base near Denver.
A chaplain’s ministry takes a number of forms. But nothing is more important, chaplains say, than getting to know the troops they’re helping.
Take McBride and his small special ops team. Chaplains are required to be physically fit, but jumping out of planes is as much about respect and credibility as anything else. Green Berets won’t spill their guts to just anybody with a cross on their collar.
Green Berets don’t always knock on the chaplain’s door when something’s bothering them, either. So McBride, Black and Chester go to them. Small-talk can lead to deeper conversations, the chaplains say. If nothing else, the soldiers know there’s someone in their corner: God, perhaps. The chaplain, certainly.
That go-to-the-soldiers strategy, which Chaplain Jeffrey Zust of Fort Carson’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team called a “ministry of presence,” is standard operating procedure in most military units.
Availability is an effective ministry, the chaplains said. “We’re there to help soldiers talk through things, in those really quiet moments,” Zust said.
McBride and Chester have been to Iraq twice (Black’s a recent addition to the unit), and chances are they’ll return.
For now, the unit’s stateside, which presents its own issues. Troops separated from their families for months must re-integrate with their spouses and kids. Young children sometimes don’t recognize their returning parents. Divorce in the aftermath of deployment is common, chaplains say.
The 10th Group holds occasional Breckenridge, Colo., retreat for soldiers and their families, a program McBride hopes will save some marriages.
“I tell them that your family is much more important than the Army,” McBride said.
Such programs are important, according to Hartz. “We have already begun the process at both ends of the ocean with reunion briefings and various other risk assessments in order to prepare the soldiers, families, chaplains and command for success,” he said.
“The bad news — and what is hard for chaplains — is that time, distance and decisions that have been made will have set some marriages and families in too deep a hole for us to truly make a difference.”
The hardest part of being a chaplain, say many, is keeping up their own spiritual strength. “It’s hard to fill someone else’s bucket if you are empty,” said Hartz.
The key to avoiding burnout, they say, is three-fold. One, many set strong personal boundaries to keep from becoming obsessed with the work. Two, they stay current with their own faith as best they can, through prayer and study. And third, they find people who can buoy them spiritually.
Even when all these factors are in place, the job is daunting. The Army, chaplains say, has too few chaplains for too many soldiers. Some leave, McBride believes, because the stresses are too great. Chaplains, he said, need to be called to this kind of duty. The job’s just too tough otherwise.
“There are some chaplains that don’t have that call, and they get out,” McBride said. “It has to be a passion.”
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
Jesus Christ and the American G. I.
One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
PASS THIS ON! MANY SEEM TO FORGET BOTH OF THEM!! SEMPER FI
This includes the "Sky Pilots", 1 which honored w/the Medal of Honor:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic.../13/MN46424.DTL
Front Lines of Faith
December 03,2006
Paul Asay
FREEDOM NEWS SERVICE
Chaplains fight daily battles while ministering to troops
Chaplain Terry McBride would jump out of a plane for his guys. And he does. Frequently. For McBride, a major with Fort Carson’s 10th Special Forces Group, parachuting is just part of his job. He meets soldiers where they are — even if that means a patchwork of earth is rushing toward them from thousands of feet below.
“That’s ministry for us,” McBride said.
There are 2,900 active-duty chaplains in the U.S. military, serving the emotional and spiritual needs of 1.4 million troops. They don’t carry weapons, but go wherever their units go: to the streets of Baghdad, the mountains of Afghanistan or a plane four miles high. They’re part counselor, part spiritual adviser, part guardian angel, performing one of the military’s most complex jobs.
“For some ..., (soldiers) feel that if we are there, then God is there,” said Chaplain Clint Black, a captain in the 10th Special Forces based in Colorado.
All three chaplains in that group, including Capt. Darren Chester, are parachuting veterans, but no one more so than McBride, a Baptist pastor with a booming voice and an X-games attitude. He comes across like a full-bore adrenaline junkie, greeting soldiers with a hearty “Hey, man!” and a thick slap on the shoulder. He stopped counting his jumps last year after he passed 130.
McBride says he’s never had a soldier turn down a prayer before a jump. There’s nothing like a little danger to set someone’s faith in motion.
“Questions about life and death often — quite often — lead people to think about their eternal soul,” said Chaplain Jim Hartz, a major with the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team now in Iraq. “Some (soldiers) worry about death more than others. Many soldiers have accepted the fact that death may come to them or someone they care about.
“It doesn’t make it easier to deal with when it happens, but it does free up their mind and other senses to effectively soldier.”
Stress is a fact of life for the military, particularly in wartime. Troops in Iraq or Afghanistan deal with life-and-death issues daily. Even if the troops themselves come to no harm, hurt is all around them. Hartz has given spiritual aid to Iraqi children injured in bomb blasts or, in one case, to a child shot during a soccer game.
“I will never forget the feelings I had — anger and grief at the unfairness and the apparent senselessness of it all.”
He says the soldiers he works with feel that same anger and grief.
Hartz said the stress of being away can be a soldiers’ hardest burden — and that stress accumulates with every birthday or anniversary missed.
“Many of the soldiers in this brigade are on their second or third deployment,” Hartz said.
A chaplain steps into that emotional turmoil. Many try to keep soldiers mentally and emotionally healthy by offering programs and spiritual guidance.
Often, military personnel just want to talk. Discussions with chaplains are confidential, which allows troops to talk freely about everything from a hard-to-please commander to the quality of the food.
“The chaplain is seen as the vent for a lot of frustrations, fears and stresses of military life,” said the Rev. David Knight, interim pastor for All Souls Unitarian-Universalist Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and a part-time chaplain at Buckley Air Force Base near Denver.
A chaplain’s ministry takes a number of forms. But nothing is more important, chaplains say, than getting to know the troops they’re helping.
Take McBride and his small special ops team. Chaplains are required to be physically fit, but jumping out of planes is as much about respect and credibility as anything else. Green Berets won’t spill their guts to just anybody with a cross on their collar.
Green Berets don’t always knock on the chaplain’s door when something’s bothering them, either. So McBride, Black and Chester go to them. Small-talk can lead to deeper conversations, the chaplains say. If nothing else, the soldiers know there’s someone in their corner: God, perhaps. The chaplain, certainly.
That go-to-the-soldiers strategy, which Chaplain Jeffrey Zust of Fort Carson’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team called a “ministry of presence,” is standard operating procedure in most military units.
Availability is an effective ministry, the chaplains said. “We’re there to help soldiers talk through things, in those really quiet moments,” Zust said.
McBride and Chester have been to Iraq twice (Black’s a recent addition to the unit), and chances are they’ll return.
For now, the unit’s stateside, which presents its own issues. Troops separated from their families for months must re-integrate with their spouses and kids. Young children sometimes don’t recognize their returning parents. Divorce in the aftermath of deployment is common, chaplains say.
The 10th Group holds occasional Breckenridge, Colo., retreat for soldiers and their families, a program McBride hopes will save some marriages.
“I tell them that your family is much more important than the Army,” McBride said.
Such programs are important, according to Hartz. “We have already begun the process at both ends of the ocean with reunion briefings and various other risk assessments in order to prepare the soldiers, families, chaplains and command for success,” he said.
“The bad news — and what is hard for chaplains — is that time, distance and decisions that have been made will have set some marriages and families in too deep a hole for us to truly make a difference.”
The hardest part of being a chaplain, say many, is keeping up their own spiritual strength. “It’s hard to fill someone else’s bucket if you are empty,” said Hartz.
The key to avoiding burnout, they say, is three-fold. One, many set strong personal boundaries to keep from becoming obsessed with the work. Two, they stay current with their own faith as best they can, through prayer and study. And third, they find people who can buoy them spiritually.
Even when all these factors are in place, the job is daunting. The Army, chaplains say, has too few chaplains for too many soldiers. Some leave, McBride believes, because the stresses are too great. Chaplains, he said, need to be called to this kind of duty. The job’s just too tough otherwise.
“There are some chaplains that don’t have that call, and they get out,” McBride said. “It has to be a passion.”
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
Jesus Christ and the American G. I.
One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
PASS THIS ON! MANY SEEM TO FORGET BOTH OF THEM!! SEMPER FI
This includes the "Sky Pilots", 1 which honored w/the Medal of Honor:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic.../13/MN46424.DTL