Being a chaplain in the Armed Forces is “just like” being a pastor, according to the Rev. T. Brannon Bowman of Grace Church of the Islands.

“There’s never really a time when I can say I’m off-duty,” said Brannon, who joined the Georgia Air National Guard in early 2009 at the militarily advanced age of 43 so he could fill both roles.

His enthusiasm for his work indicates he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“As a pastor,” he said, “I love to take care of the men and women at Grace, teaching and watching them grow, and I get to do the same as a chaplain.”

As the senior pastor for Grace, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America whose sanctuary is nestled in a wooded area along Concord Road on Wilmington Island, he ministers to more than 200.

As a chaplain, he provides spiritual guidance for personnel of the Air Guard’s 165th Airlift Wing, whose more than 1,000 members support, maintain and fly C-130 Hercules cargo planes based at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport.

“The vast majority of what I do with the 165th is in counseling airmen through colonels and in advising the leadership in terms of the morale and climate of the wing,” Brannon said.

The idea of becoming a chaplain came to him some six years ago as he watched an Army National Guard unit in Monroeville, Ala. – where he was serving as a pastor – involved in the process of deploying overseas.

“At that time, I felt regret that I had never served,” said Brannon, who then looked into joining the military.

He was dissuaded from doing so, however, because he was approaching his 40th birthday, which was “the drop-dead date to get commissioned.”

After relocating to Savannah to become pastor of Grace in 2005, Brannon was contacted by an active-duty chaplain friend who told him the maximum age for becoming a chaplain had been increased to 47 because of a need for clergy in the military. (It has since been dropped back down to 40.)

“He put me in touch with a recruiter,” Brannon said, “and that began the process of commissioning.

Read More (scroll down in the article to the middle to pick up this story): http://savannahnow.com/column/2010-10-20/wittish-grace-pastor-does-double-duty-air-national-guard-chaplain