You are here: Home > News >United Church News > Military chaplains are on front lines
Military chaplains are on front lines
|
April,
2003
By
Tiffany Vail
As the nation has approached war during these past few months, many clergy have been visible on the front lines of peace protests and vigils.
Sometimes it is easy to forget their less visible brothers and sisters on a different front line – the war front.
Two Massachusetts Conference clergy members, Donald Troast and Jane Vieira, are military chaplains, serving side by side with the nation’s soldiers, sailors and officers.
“I am proud to be with these people and to minister to them,” Troast recently said in an email message from Iwakuni, Japan, where he is stationed at a Marine Corps air station. “They are a cross section of America and not one wants to go to war. But they all believe in what they do.”
Troast, who has been a chaplain for 12 years, said his job is particularly challenging at times of instability and war. Troast was in Afghanistan last year, and is now spending time in Korea, where conflict is threatening.
“The issues I generally deal with are the normal deployment issues such as separation from family, personal growth, mentoring and discipline issues,” he said. “Right now, of course there is much anxiety. Issues of combat and death are much more at the forefront than in peace time. I am helping marines and sailors to cope with their mortality, as well as pondering my own.”
The conflict in Iraq and the accompanying heightened alert for terrorist attacks has also had a profound impact on the ministry of Vieira, who is the Special Assistant for Pastoral Care to the Navy Surgeon General in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, Vieira oversees the 70 chaplains in 25 medical field activities and 15 deployment platforms.
 |
Capt. Jane Vieira |
Vieira has recently been focusing efforts on training the chaplains in how to respond to a major terrorist attack in the U.S.
“The new reality we are in now is that we may not go to a foreign country to fight. We may be defending our own country,” Vieira said in a recent telephone interview. “It has come to our shores. The common citizen in this country is threatened in ways we never imagined 10 years ago.”
“We all have to know the impact of how to deal with mass deaths and terror, and know how to calm people,” she said.
Another change is that Vieira is providing this training not only for military chaplains, but for chaplains from government agencies as well.
“Before, we wouldn’t have military chaplains working with civil agencies such as FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), the Centers for Disease Control or the FBI,” she said. “But with this new reality, we could find ourselves ministering to civilians, or working side-by-side with FBI chaplains.”
Massachusetts Conference Minister and President Nancy Taylor recently emailed Vieira and Troast to offer her support during these difficult times. She said all ministers need to keep their fellow clergy members who have felt called to ministry in the military in their hearts and prayers.
“The UCC Ordained Ministers’ Code sets a high standard. It requires of us that we respect those whose deepest held Christian convictions differ from our own,” she said. “It demands of the peace activist that he or she respect the theological convictions of the military chaplain. It demands of the military chaplain that he or she respect the theological convictions of the peace activist.”
“Christ commanded that we love one another,” Taylor said. “The Code demands the same high standard of love and care commanded by Christ.”
Troast said that his call into the military was probably much like the call to ministry any other pastor receives.
“I can’t quite explain my call to chaplain ministry other than to say I felt compelled to do this,” he said. “It was something that would not go away so I accepted it as God’s will.”
Vieira, who has been a chaplain for nearly
24 years – 13 of them in active duty
and 11 in the
reserves
– said
her
call
relates
to her sense
of being
called to give care.
“I have always felt called to ministry
for two reasons,” she said. “One: to
be a healing
presence
for people
who are hurting,
and
two: to be an
empowering presence.”
“My dad died suddenly when I was 10. I learned early on what it meant to be hurt, to be lonely and asking God ‘why this?’” she said. “As my life unfolded and I went to seminary, I immediately felt drawn to being a health care chaplain.”
While Vieira was serving at a hospital, a friend and Methodist pastor who had served as an army chaplain invited her to go with him to an Army drill weekend, to introduce her to military chaplaincy.
“I said ‘oh no, I could never do this’ but later on, I decided to explore the possibility,” she said.
Vieira said chaplains empower those people in then service to draw upon their own inner strength by providing them with reassurance, encouragement, insight and teaching.
Vieira said part of what she enjoys about military chaplaincy is the opportunity to work with people from such varied cultures.
Troast said he has worked together with many different religious groups to make sure the needs of each marine and sailor in his care is met.
Troast writes: “we are here as chaplains because of the free exercise of religious rights guaranteed by our Constitution. These Marines and sailors are far from home and can’t worship as they would like. So we bring it to them.”