thedrifter
01-02-09, 07:06 AM
Navy chaplain serving aboard aircraft carrier in Indian Ocean
Denise Wallingford graduated from Lafayette High School
by Marshall White
Friday, January 2, 2009
The new year finds a Lafayette High School graduate and former substitute teacher at St. Joseph Christian School halfway around the world in the Indian Ocean.
Denise Wallingford expected to spend New Year’s Day counseling sailors on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), where she is a Navy lieutenant and one of four chaplains working on board the 97,000-ton, nuclear- powered aircraft carrier.
“It will be just another working day although there will be a special meal at noon,” Ms. Wallingford said Wednesday as F-18 Hornets returned from a mission. She knows when the planes land or take off because the flight deck is immediately above her office.
It does get a bit noisy at times, she said.
Her days can include counseling sailors, Protestant services, Bible study classes, evening prayers, visiting hospital patients and those who find themselves in the brig, the Navy’s jail onboard a ship.
Ms. Wallingford keeps a big box of tissues in her office.
“Sooner or later, everybody cries,” the lieutenant said.
Counseling provides meaningful interaction with sailors and that’s the reward, she said.
The road from Lafayette has been a traveling one for this 1980 graduate.
After high school, Ms. Wallingford enlisted in the Navy; her father was a Navy chief petty officer before retiring to St. Joseph. She earned a Navy commission in 1985. As a naval officer Ms. Wallingford handled administrative duties on assignments in Hawaii, Japan and other places. She completed six years of active duty and left the Navy to pursue a second career in the ministry.
Ms. Wallingford attended Multnomah University, a Bible college and biblical seminary in Portland, Ore., where she received a master’s degree in pastoral studies with an emphasis on women’s ministries. Her religious career included three years as a missionary in Japan. In 2000, she returned home to attend Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and College in Kansas City, earning a master’s degree in divinity. She spent a year at home working as a substitute teacher at St. Joseph Christian School.
“Then the Navy called asking if I’d be interested in becoming a chaplain,” Ms. Wallingford said.
That meant going to the Navy’s Chaplain School in Newport, R. I., before being assigned to work with the Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C., for three years.
In October, Ms. Wallingford found herself on a seven-month cruise headed for the waters off the coast of southwestern Asia. The crew of the Roosevelt docked briefly in South Africa on the way to their current location.
“We were the first Navy ship in 41 years to dock in Cape Town,” she said.
When the ship returns to Norfolk, Va., in April, the chaplain will be heading for duty at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. “You don’t ask for it, you get assigned,” she said with pride.
Her father and mother, Gorman and Gloria Wallingford, live in St. Joseph. Mr. Wallingford drives an OATS bus in his spare time. Mrs. Wallingford retired from Heartland Health.
Marshall White can be reached at marshall@npgco.com.
Ellie
Denise Wallingford graduated from Lafayette High School
by Marshall White
Friday, January 2, 2009
The new year finds a Lafayette High School graduate and former substitute teacher at St. Joseph Christian School halfway around the world in the Indian Ocean.
Denise Wallingford expected to spend New Year’s Day counseling sailors on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), where she is a Navy lieutenant and one of four chaplains working on board the 97,000-ton, nuclear- powered aircraft carrier.
“It will be just another working day although there will be a special meal at noon,” Ms. Wallingford said Wednesday as F-18 Hornets returned from a mission. She knows when the planes land or take off because the flight deck is immediately above her office.
It does get a bit noisy at times, she said.
Her days can include counseling sailors, Protestant services, Bible study classes, evening prayers, visiting hospital patients and those who find themselves in the brig, the Navy’s jail onboard a ship.
Ms. Wallingford keeps a big box of tissues in her office.
“Sooner or later, everybody cries,” the lieutenant said.
Counseling provides meaningful interaction with sailors and that’s the reward, she said.
The road from Lafayette has been a traveling one for this 1980 graduate.
After high school, Ms. Wallingford enlisted in the Navy; her father was a Navy chief petty officer before retiring to St. Joseph. She earned a Navy commission in 1985. As a naval officer Ms. Wallingford handled administrative duties on assignments in Hawaii, Japan and other places. She completed six years of active duty and left the Navy to pursue a second career in the ministry.
Ms. Wallingford attended Multnomah University, a Bible college and biblical seminary in Portland, Ore., where she received a master’s degree in pastoral studies with an emphasis on women’s ministries. Her religious career included three years as a missionary in Japan. In 2000, she returned home to attend Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and College in Kansas City, earning a master’s degree in divinity. She spent a year at home working as a substitute teacher at St. Joseph Christian School.
“Then the Navy called asking if I’d be interested in becoming a chaplain,” Ms. Wallingford said.
That meant going to the Navy’s Chaplain School in Newport, R. I., before being assigned to work with the Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C., for three years.
In October, Ms. Wallingford found herself on a seven-month cruise headed for the waters off the coast of southwestern Asia. The crew of the Roosevelt docked briefly in South Africa on the way to their current location.
“We were the first Navy ship in 41 years to dock in Cape Town,” she said.
When the ship returns to Norfolk, Va., in April, the chaplain will be heading for duty at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. “You don’t ask for it, you get assigned,” she said with pride.
Her father and mother, Gorman and Gloria Wallingford, live in St. Joseph. Mr. Wallingford drives an OATS bus in his spare time. Mrs. Wallingford retired from Heartland Health.
Marshall White can be reached at marshall@npgco.com.
Ellie