“The doctor knew probably he wasn’t going to make it,” Kim said sadly. “As I happened to be there, they were trying to stop the bleeding for about five hours. The nurse said, ‘Chaplain Kim, I think he’s about to see Jesus.’ “I knew him. It was hard for me, but at that very moment I was experiencing the reality that God was using me to help him…

(Editor’s note: Chaplain Kim discussed in this story is Chaplain (Major) Moon Hyung Kim, US Army, a Teaching Elder in the PCA, member of Southeastern Korean Presbytery, who serves as Deputy Division Chaplain and Chaplain for the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), otherwise known as the Screaming Eagles. He is a 2006 graduate of RTS Jackson. He is married and has two children.)

Lt. Col. Paul Hurley, the Division Chaplain for the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne falls back on a story to explain what a chaplain is all about, and he uses it not only on curious visitors, but on other chaplains as well.

It is written on a plaque displayed prominently in his office. It is the story of “The Four Chaplains” and Chaplain Hurley knows it by heart. As he starts to tell it before a gathering of other chaplains, it sounds like the beginning of every “a minister, a priest and a rabbi” joke ever told, but the image is dispelled quickly as the message sinks in.

On Feb. 3, 1943, at 12:55 a.m. the U.S. Army Transport (U.S.A.T.) Dorchester was torpedoed by a German U-Boat off Newfoundland with 900 soldiers aboard. One torpedo in a spread of three blew a huge hole below the water line, dooming the ship instantly.

In the darkness of the hold of the dying ship, panic and fear took hold like a virus until four U.S. Army Chaplains, lieutenants all, began to organize an orderly evacuation while also helping to lead the wounded to safety. When the lifejacket supply ran out, the four men gave away their own. Then they helped as many men as they could into the lifeboats.

The last memory of them was told by survivors of the sinking, of how they stood at the rail of the ship, arms linked together, saying prayers and singing hymns as the ship slid into the icy waters.

They were Methodist minister the Reverend George L. Fox, Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, Roman Catholic priest the Reverend John P. Washington, and Reformed Church in America the Reverend Clark V. Poling.

“For me,” says Hurley, a former artillery officer and now a Roman Catholic priest, “that really tells the story of what all the chaplains are here for. We’re here to give whatever we need to support soldiers and families.”

Beyond invocations

Hurley makes another point as well, and it speaks to the military nature of the relation of chaplains to soldiers. None of the four chaplains aboard the Dorchester asked anyone about their faith tradition or lack thereof before handing them a lifejacket. No one asked who was a Jew, Catholic, Mormon, Protestant, Muslim or atheist.

Some who desire to serve as chaplains get the point, others don’t. Those who can’t in good faith get past faith-based divisions are not a good fit for the role because, as Hurley and the other chaplains gathered in his office explained, every chaplain has to be every soldier’s chaplain.

In recent years, there have been court fights and contention about the parameters and the do’s and don’t’s of being a military chaplain, and even as to whether there should be chaplains at all.

The need for chaplains to be inclusive in the prayers they offer up at command functions has even led to an urban legend, spread via chain e-mails, that a chaplain by law can no longer say the name of Jesus.

The story might be mistakenly believed by some who only consider the chaplain’s ceremonial role of offering up invocations and benedictions for diverse audiences at events where attendance is mandatory, but chaplains do a lot more, and much of it isn’t on public display.

Certainly, the most important aspects are not performed for an audience, And Christian chaplains aren’t shy about their faith or saying the name, “Jesus,” whether in performing religious services or ministering in their most important role.

Spiritual medics

Gathered together in Hurley’s office were five other chaplains from within the division — Major Moon Kim, a Presbyterian minister who serves as Deputy Division Chaplain; Maj. Clayton Gregory, a Church of God minister and Family Life Chaplain; Capt. Jared Vineyard, 4th Brigade Combat Team; Capt. Erik Alfsen, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, and Capt. William “Jeff” Sheets, 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion.

All of the men displayed a sense of humor at several points of the discussion, while they also related deployment experiences that cast a light on more serious aspects of the role of chaplains.

Both Vineyard and Alfsen were in the harsh environment of Regional Command East in Afghanistan, scene of a number of traumatic events during the recent deployment.

“Every week-and-a-half or so, we were at every one of our locations (including remote combat outposts), so ministry looked different no matter where we were,” Alfsen explained.

“If we were at a big FOB (forward operating base), it might be ministry with the forward surgical team where they’re bringing in casualties, when you’re praying over them and encouraging them when the doctors are working on them.

“They’re not wholly anesthetized where we live,” Alfsen said grimly, with his habitually easy smile temporarily missing. “Maybe when they get to Bagram and Landstuhl, but when they’re with us, when they’re getting cut open, they’re still awake and alive and we’re holding their hands, praying with them.”

Chaplain Kim had the experience of performing that function with a fellow officer he had known and trained with, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company Commander who was brought to the forward surgical team with a massive head wound.

“The doctor knew probably he wasn’t going to make it,” Kim said sadly. “As I happened to be there, they were trying to stop the bleeding for about five hours. The nurse said, ‘Chaplain Kim, I think he’s about to see Jesus.’

“I knew him. It was hard for me, but at that very moment I was experiencing the reality that God was using me to help him…

“In those times, I experience something that I cannot do with my own strength except through God.”

Vineyard took up the thought. “We had several soldiers that passed at Orgun-E in Paktika. The guys see I’m here, I’ve got blood on me, too. After the fact, it opened up some pretty powerful ministries.

“It’s not us. It’s Christ in us, being there with the soldiers and letting God move in a powerful way.”

Sheets recalled being in Iraq and seeing God in the fact that he seemed to spend more time than usual with a particular platoon before it hit a bad place. He called the time spent “relational equity.”

“It ended up that this platoon got hit the hardest,” he recalled. “They lost six KIA, scores of wounded, lost their platoon sergeant. It was a really hard deployment. But God used me and those months of relational investment. They knew they could trust the chaplain because I was someone they had gotten to know.”

Rubber meets road

Did the group think there was more of an opportunity to talk about things of the spirit in a place where the artificiality of modern life had been ripped away?

Alfsen jumped on the question.

“Absolutely,” he answered. “The guy who brought me into the Army said, ‘If you want to go where the ministry is best, you have to go where it sucks the most.’ ”

Is it actually important for soldiers to see the chaplains out where the rubber meets the road? Do soldiers actually care? Sgt. Scottie Turner, a chaplain’s assistant, has no doubt that it is, and they do.

“Downrange when they come to visit, soldiers’ faces light up,” said Turner. “I don’t know of one visit when somebody didn’t come up and say to the chaplain or to me, ‘You got a minute?’

“They just need to let it go. It’s just having that presence.”

Chaplain Hurley remembered a group of Catholic soldiers in Afghanistan braving the dangerous roads and coming to get him to conduct Mass. He came close to tearing up remembering the gratitude in their faces.

Sitting in Soldier’s Chapel at Fort Campbell, Sgt. Andrew Spiegel of the “Iron Rakkasans” of 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team recalled his own gratitude for a service conducted by Chaplain Alfsen when his platoon lost one of its most beloved members — his best friend, Spc. Jonathan “Doc” Hall — in April 2010.

“He (Hall) had an awesome service,” Spiegel remembered. “I know the guys were comforted in that time by that service, and I think it helped me work through it and find closure.”

Speaking of the chaplains as a whole, Spiegel said he really didn’t know what Chaplains did beyond religious services until that time, when he saw the work they also did as counselors.

Turner saw it, too, as a member of 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team “Bastogne,” which had its share of trauma in RC East.

“Chaplains are real good about talking to people, helping soldiers get through that,” Turner said. “When something happens, the chaplain is the first one out the door, on the way there without hesitation.”

Spc. Raymone Byrd of 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion also had his image of chaplains changed from guys in uniform who happened to perform religious services on occasion.

“That was my thought,” Byrd admitted. “It was negative, but Afghanistan shined a light on chaplains in general.

“We lost a buddy, Sgt. (Michael) Beckerman, and the support from the chaplains wasn’t just for that space in time; it was continuous.

“Then I went through a divorce and, oh man, it was crazy. I was referred to the Christian Life Center and their passion to help me out and give me a support system was amazing.”

Post-traumatic growth

“We have a motto in the Chaplains Corps,” Hurley said. “Bringing God to soldiers and soldiers to God. That happens in counseling, in worship services, in a place where bullets are flying … it happens everywhere. It can be articulated in a thousand different ways.”

As an example, it was articulated in a really different way by Chaplain Alfsen, a born story-teller who told of accompanying a patrol that was hit by an ambush and cut off in Paktika Province. Moments later, a soldier standing five feet from him was dropped by a sniper.

“I remember getting low, getting as small as I could get. I’m a pretty big guy, but I’m hugging the dirt and the first thing that went through my mind was, ‘Man, I’m glad I bought that extra life insurance policy.’ ”

He grinned a little sheepishly and drove on.

“Then I realized, ‘O.K. God, I’m ready to go when you’ve got me, but I don’t think today’s the day.’ ”

Alfsen described moving to the casualty collection point as the bullets flew.

“My assistant is pulling security, and we’re praying for this guy, reading Psalm 23, giving him some hope and encouragement in this moment of terror as RPG’s are exploding, airbursts overhead, snipers shooting at people near us, and as I’m praying this kid moves up to me and says, ‘You know, sir, I’ve been thinking a lot about God lately.’

“I said, ‘Yeah, you know, me too.”

The other chaplains in the room broke up laughing. Alfsen went on.

“We talk about post-traumatic stress and the trauma we experience as a result, but there’s such a thing as post-traumatic growth. We become more resilient and we grow as a result of these experiences. I think God uses these in our lives, these deserts we have to walk through that shape us into who He wants us to be.”

This article first appeared in HOOAHCampbell.com, the military online version of The Leaf Chronicle Newspaper in Clarksdale, TN; it is used with permission

[Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced in this article is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]