Faith on the front lines
Chaplains are the soul and conscience of our nation’s military.
By Carol Pipes


 
Faith in the Sand – American soldiers in Iraq are not just safeguarding freedom for others. They are also finding it for themselves. See how God is using Southern Baptist chaplains to change lives in one of the most difficult environments on earth.   Download

They carry no guns, yet U.S. military chaplains are considered combat force multipliers. Chaplains guide service personnel through the moral and spiritual conflicts of combat, helping make sense of the horrors of war.

The military recognizes its troops as spiritual beings, and chaplains provide care for them particularly in places where the spirit gets weary from the fight. Today in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military depends on chaplains to provide spiritual care for the troops. But spiritual care goes beyond religion. No matter a soldier’s faith background, the chaplain is chaplain to all.

From counseling the young soldier whose wife just filed for divorce to being a leveling moral presence among troops trained to fight and kill, chaplains play a significant role in the success of combat operations. They are always at the front line of soldiers’ lives.

In Iraq, U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, coast guardsmen and marines are working to keep the peace, supporting them is a corps of 253 chaplains. This is their story.


A thick cloud of dust blocks the sun as a small convoy of SUVs bumps along the road to Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq. It’s a big day for Army Chaplain (Maj.) Mark Frederick and Navy Lt. Comdr. Nicole Battaglia. Their mission: to baptize Lt. Comdr. Battaglia. It’s a February morning, and the temperature is only in the mid-60s. The water in the baptistry is bound to be cold. But that’s not stopping these two. Battaglia knows it’s time to follow up her commitment to Christ by being baptized. Her only regret: “I wish my mom were here to see me do this. She was so excited when I told her.”

For chaplains like Frederick, this is what chaplaincy is all about—bringing God to the soldiers and soldiers to God.

“There’s a lot of planting and sowing going on,” Frederick says. “It can be a pretty long process some times, but that’s my ultimate objective, to bring people to Christ.”

A chaplain’s job is to go where the soldiers go to make sure their spiritual needs are met. Being present with the troops where they work and where they live is essential to serving them and meeting their needs. It’s a chaplain’s duty to strengthen soldiers for another day in the combat zone, to pray for them and bring comfort and hope when faced with the casualties of war.

“We help them stay focused on the mission at hand,” says Frederick. “If their minds are not in the game, they can get themselves or someone else killed.”
The key to being effective, chaplains say, is building relationships. As clergy in a secular institution, chaplains are not allowed to impose their religious views on others. So, chaplains continue to walk a church-state tightrope, leaving their preaching to the chapel services and allowing the cross on their uniform to speak volumes. There’s power in that tiny stitched cross. It opens doors to conversations with soldiers who need a listening ear. Much of a chaplain’s ministry occurs one-on-one in the chow hall, down at the motor pool, in the gym or standing in line at the PX.

“Deployment is a great time of ministry,” says Army Chaplain (Col.) Pat Hash, Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) command chaplain, XVIII Airborne Corps. “We get to minister in every aspect of a soldier’s life—at work, chapel, even meal times. Not many pastors get that opportunity.”

For many of the younger soldiers, this is the first time they’ve been faced with their own mortality. They look to chaplains like Hash to untangle the complexities of life at war.

“During a deployment, soldiers are more in tune with spiritual things, because they realize the frailty of life,” says Frederick. “On the battlefield, soldiers begin to ask life and death questions—‘where am I going when I die?’ When those questions come up, I get to tell them about the One who gives eternal life.”

A present help
Major John D. Tucker, 10th military police battalion CID, says spending time with the chaplains and going to chapel helps him get through the tough days.
“Just because we’re in a combat zone doesn’t mean we forget about our faith; we don’t forget what we believe in,” he says. “Chaplains are here to bring that faith in the Lord to us no matter where we are.”

Military chaplains take the ministry to the troops, whether that’s running PT or jumping out of planes. Convenience takes precedence over comfort when it comes to holding church services. They may take place on the hood of a humvee, in the back of a truck, under a tent or in a hole in the desert.

Army Brig. Gen. Dan Allyn, chief of staff for MNC-I sees chaplains as an integral component of how the Army cares for its soldiers and their families.
“They help us meet the needs of a force that is increasingly stretched as this war on terror continues,” Allyn says. “They have a constant feel for the pulse of not only what's going on with individual soldiers, but also with some of the tensions that exist in our units. They can be an extraordinary contributor for a commander to insure he knows exactly what the challenges are and the opportunities for our leaders to engage and address issues before they become a crisis.”

Chaplains do more than just help service personnel survive their deployments, they help them thrive through the deployment.

Real life warriors
The men and women who make up our forces are real warriors facing real battles, both on and off the battlefield.

Post Combat Stress Disorder affects up to 20 percent of returning combat veterans, according to U.S. Army statistics. And 70 percent of soldiers will experience Combat Operational Stress and Combat Operational Stress Reactions.

Combat stress comes in different forms. For those whose job it is to go on daily or nightly missions into the red zone, it comes in the form of facing life and death situations. For others it’s conflict with co-workers and the long work hours. And for all, it’s the stress of being separated from loved ones six, 12 and even 15 months.

Long deployments and multiple tours place a heavy strain on military families. Spouses at home must manage families and households without their partner. Problems at home and combat stress “down range” make for a dangerous combination.

  Chaplains are taking a leading role in helping soldiers deal with the stress of war as well as problems at home. Many are leading marriage seminars, suicide prevention events and reunion briefs, which help soldiers get reintegrated into life back home. Some chaplains report 40-50 counseling sessions a week. Marriage counseling has become a major focus of chaplains. During deployment, a chaplain becomes pastor, counselor and friend to the men and women he serves.

 “The chaplains help refill your tank spiritually,” says Army Cpt. Terry Adams of Fort Drum, New York. “Over here you need that frequently.
“These guys are so much more than a pastor,” Adams says. “The education and experience they have in marriage counseling and crisis management is a great resource.”

With the continued Global War on Terror, Keith Travis, leader for NAMB’s chaplaincy team, sees military chaplaincy as an extremely important ministry in today’s world. “U.S. service personnel are looking to chaplains for a word of hope. Our SBC-endorsed chaplains are on the front of the battle ready to offer hope, words of encouragement and strength, and also point the way to the cross.”

The force of presence
Army Chaplain (Cpt.) Kent Coffey blinks back tears as he recalls his first deployment to Iraq in 2006. He listened over a radio as one of his units was ambushed by the enemy, hearing their cries of distress. He lost seven men within 24 hours. The wound is still fresh as he recalls the counseling sessions and memorial services in the days and weeks that followed.

Then and now, Coffey leaned on the support of the One who provides hope and everlasting life.

“I always ask myself the question, ‘What would I want said to me if I were in this situation?’ If the answer is nothing, then I just shut my mouth and am just there,” Coffey says. “The essence of a good chaplain is being where the need is the greatest, assessing where you can best be used, and then moving out of the way and allowing God to use you as He sees fit.”

Carol Pipes, editor of On Mission, spent 10 days embedded with U.S. military chaplains stationed at Camp Victory, Baghdad, Iraq.

Praying for our chaplains
The need is great for prayer warriors to take up the mantle of praying for our military chaplains. Here are some specific ways you can pray.
• Pray that God would use chaplains to start a spiritual revival that would spread throughout the military.
• Many chaplains serve with their units on the front lines of battle. Pray for protection as they put themselves in harms way.
• Pray that God would provide wisdom to chaplains as they counsel men and women who are dealing with the stress of combat as well as being separated from loved ones.
• Chaplains are called upon to provide grief counseling to the unit of a fallen soldier. Pray that God would give them words of peace and hope. 
• Pray that God would open doors for chaplains to share the gospel with service members and their families.
• Pray for chaplains’ families that they might know the comfort, strength and peace of God.
• Christian service members are some of our greatest missionaries. Wherever they are deployed, they take the gospel with them. They have access to countries that are sometimes closed to traditional missionaries. While proselytizing Muslims in Iraq is strictly prohibited, Christians in the military are demonstrating the love of God in their actions. The fruit of the Spirit that exudes from our chaplains and Christian troops is not lost on the Iraqis. Pray that God will use chaplains and U.S. troops to spread the gospel throughout the world.

Church care plan for chaplains
The North American Mission Board recently unveiled the SBC’s first ministry care plan for churches whose pastors are called to active duty. According to Keith Travis, leader of NAMB’s chaplaincy team, several thousand reserve chaplains have been among the 600,000 National Guardsman deployed since 9/11. The plan, now posted at www.namb.net/chaplain, features extensive suggestions about steps churches can take before, during and after a pastor or staff member departs for duty. Jay Padgett, author of the care plan and minister of music at Graefenburg Baptist Church in Waddy, Ky., experienced some of the positive aspects of church support when he served in Iraq in 2003-04, having received numerous cards, letters, expressions of prayer support and care packages while overseas. However, he watched other congregations fall short. One chaplain's church expected him to continue counseling members and tend to other church business while in the field, creating undue stress on the chaplain. Others returned from active duty to learn their pastor's position had been filled. The care plan is intended to help pastors, staff members and congregations prepare for the deployment as well as face the many adjustments once the reservist returns from the field.