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April 23,
2007
VOL.
45, NO. 8Oakland,
CA
Chaplains learn to bring God to battlefield
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| Father Mario Rosario does
the “commando crawl” during training at the U.S. Army
Chaplain Center and School at Fort Jackson, S.C. CNS PHOTO/PAUL HARING |
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| Father Fausto Kaverenge,
center, joins other soldiers studying to be U.S. Army chaplains during
a training exercise at Fort Jackson, S.C. They are plotting a map
of Baghdad, Iraq. CNS PHOTO/PAUL HARING |
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| U.S. Army female basic trainees struggle to stay
awake during a homily given by Father Maciej Napieralski at Sunday
morning Mass at Fort Jackson, S.C., March 25. For recruits, Sunday
morning is one of the few respites from the rigors of basic training. CNS PHOTO/PAUL HARING |
FORT JACKSON,
S.C. (CNS) -- As dusk fell on a crisp night in late March, soldiers gathered
in a pine clearing at Fort Jackson near Columbia. They stood around a
“sand table,” a map of combat zones drawn out in the dirt,
and received briefings on a fictional anti-insurgent mission in Iraq.
Some of the details had a distinctly biblical tone. The mission’s
name? “Operation Preacher.” Terrorist command bases were “Jezebel”
and “Beelzebub.” A main supply line was “Hezekiah.”
Welcome to combat training at the U.S. Army Chaplain School and Center,
where men and women who want to bring the comfort of God to soldiers around
the world learn how to be chaplains. The chaplain school has been at Fort
Jackson since 1995, when it moved from Fort Monmouth, N.J.
At any given time, the chaplain school serves more than 100 students studying
to become chaplains or completing more extensive officer training. The
school also trains chaplain assistants, non-ordained soldiers who serve
with chaplains on Unit Ministry Teams in combat and in peacetime.
The Chaplain Basic Officer Leadership Course is the five-week program
students must complete to become a chaplain. Out of 83 soldiers in the
most recent class, which graduated April 5, more than 30 headed straight
to active duty, according to the Rev. Bill Sheffield, a Baptist minister,
Army captain and course manager at the school.
The U.S. Army Chaplain Corps includes Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox,
Jewish and Muslim chaplains, all of whom must be able to minister to soldiers
from a wide variety of religious backgrounds.
“When they come to chaplain school, many of the students have never
seen a Jewish service, or a Muslim service,” Rev. Sheffield said.
“We train them so they know a little bit about all of the different
denominations they might encounter and how to accommodate different soldiers’
religious needs.”
The students’ faith backgrounds are as diverse as those of the soldiers
they will serve.
In late March, the basic class included a rabbi originally from San Diego,
a Korean-American Presbyterian, and a former Southern Baptist from Bristol,
Tenn., who is now a Greek Orthodox priest.
Students and instructors at the chaplain school agree that the amiable
relations among people from such diverse religious backgrounds come from
the unique realities of the military environment. Many of these men and
women might never socialize or even sit down to a meal together in the
civilian world, they say. But the harsh realities of combat strip away
differences in doctrine.
“Their lives are in each other’s hands out there,” Rev.
Sheffield said. “We’ve got Mormons serving next to Orthodox
Christians and it doesn’t matter, because they have to trust each
other with their lives.”
Prospective chaplains learn how to combine the spiritual with the military
on every level. A regular day’s training in the basic course, for
instance, ranges from sessions on how to plan a memorial service to classes
on how to correctly put on a gas mask and use night-vision goggles.
A key skill candidates learn is how to plan a “field service,”
a worship service for members of a military unit that could end up taking
place anywhere, from a tent to the middle of the woods. The services must
be shorter than 30 minutes and include Scripture, sermons and music that
address specific combat scenarios.
They also learn how to provide pastoral counseling to soldiers and to
provide what many students describe as a “ministry of presence,”
simply being available to fulfill
whatever spiritual needs arise.
“I’m here because I feel I’m responding to real need
in the Army today,” said the Rev. Rob King, a nondenominational
Protestant chaplain candidate from St. Petersburg, Fla. “I feel
the importance of really being present at all levels for the soldiers,
of being an advocate for soldiers and supporting the troops spiritually.”
Some come to chaplain work after serving in the military in other capacities.
Father Paul Passamonti, an Army captain from Massachusetts enrolled in
the school’s advanced officer training for chaplains, served in
the Army prior to being ordained in June 1995. He worked in intelligence
and served stints in Central America and at Fort Bragg, N.C.
He said he decided to re-enlist in the Army as a chaplain after a lot
of prayer, and initially it was a shock to serve in the military as a
noncombatant. Chaplains do not carry weapons; however, the chaplain assistants
they work with are armed.
“Our mission as chaplains is to put down the rifle and pick up a
cross,” said Father Passamonti.
