Visiting other areas...

In the past week my assistant and I have been focused on seeing our Soldiers in other areas.  Battlefield circulation is one of the many things I love about this job.  Going out and visiting Soldiers is almost always fun for me.  Not only does it put things in perspective for me and my assistant as we see how life is in other areas, but I also enjoy getting to the smaller areas where the dust and traffic are not so bad.  My biggest hindrance for making these trips is the flights.  I hate flying...  A couple days ago I got to experience my first combat landing. If you don't know what that is, I have attached a picture of it.

Personally, I find the picture insulting because it is not what my

assistant and I went through in the back of the plane. He told me, "I thought they were trying to make a tornado or something." So, I have made a modification to the picture to more accurately portray what we experienced. 

 

Once we got our boots on the ground we met with all our troops and hand delivered some goodies to them. One of the areas was attacked recently and the Soldiers there are not getting the same foods that they are use too. Yes, food is available but its the same stuff again and again. These Soldiers were very happy to see me show up with Ramen Noodles, cans of fruit, and snacks.  While we were there, A couple Soldiers really wanted to walk us around the area and show us what all had happened in the attack a couple weeks ago. As we walked it became very clear to me that this Soldier was needing to talk about what he went through.  As we made our way around the base, he started talking about how all of his Soldiers immediately snapped into "help mode" and helped some wounded Soldiers to the nearest medical station.  "I have not always been a big believer in God," he told me.  And the after a pause he added, "but I just don't see how so many of us were so close to such danger and didn't get killed."  As we made our way back to the company area he pointed out the damages done to the chapel (its the most beautiful chapel in AFG. in my opinion).  The back wall is buckling a little bit and the stain glass was blown out.  But the building still stands and work is being done on it to repair it. 

 

For those praying for us:

I ask that you pray for our chapel service on Sunday mornings.  I ask for God to make himself known in such a big way that it is obvious to everyone that it is God moving, not whatever Chaplain is preaching, or whoever is singing that Sunday.  If we go home and have not had a meaningful encounter with the Creator of us all, then we have been ripped off.

 

 

 

Getting back in the swing of things.

I got back from my R&R three days ago and it has been a non-stop blur of meetings, counseling, and services. 

It is so nice to be back with the Soldiers and help point them towards God’s peace, grace, and mercy.  When I walked into my office, the first thing that I noticed is that I had apparently “won” the Battalion piñata for the month.  What happens is that at the end of every month, the Battalion gets together and has a meal and shares stories about stupid things that people have done.  Then we all vote by round of applause for the dumbest event, and that person gets to keep the piñata in their office for the next month.
 

Why did I win?  Those of you that know me know that I have a mischievous streak in me.  One day I was in the command group office and found that the Battalion Executive officer had left his ID card in his computer and left the room.  So, I decided that I would add a mustache to his picture.  It was a really great mustache and made him look a lot like Luigi of the Mario Brothers.  I quickly left without being spotted and went back to my office.  I laughed at the thought of him not noticing the mustache for weeks or months.  It only took him 10 minutes.  I later found out that instead of using dry erase markers, I had accidentally used a permanent marker.  So, needless to say, the piñata has found a nice home with me for the month.
 
For those of you praying for us:

I ask that you pray for God to put me in the right places at the right times.  I have over 800 Soldiers, 7 different companies, and they are located on over 11 different forward operating bases.  I cannot see how I am going to be able to get to them all as much as I want to before my assistant goes on his R&R.  We also have to coordinate carefully with the other Battalion Chaplain because we cannot both be gone at the same time because of our mission to the convoys and the mortuary affairs Soldiers. 

I also ask that you pray for our Soldiers and their family members.  More specifically, I ask that you pray that God help remind everyone of the worth in their relationships.  There is a huge cost that our Soldiers and family members pay while being deployed.  And, when you cannot be around each other much, the costs appear to outweigh the benefits.  “I don’t see anything left to hold us together,” is what I often hear from my Soldiers in regards to their relationships. 

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Home Sweet Home

I am home!  I flew back on the 25th and have been soaking up ever single second that I can.  My travels between Afghanistan and here were a little difficult for me because somewhere along the way I got some bacteria in me that left me feeling extremely sick and weak.  In the worst for days of it, I lost nine pounds (my apologies to those who had to sit next to me on the flights).  I was literally dizzy as I walked from terminal to terminal in Atlanta and Cleveland.  The doctors gave me some good drugs and I am feeling almost 100 percent better now.  We have gone to parks, played in water, been to a farm to see and feed the animals, and have even gone yard-selling together.  The whole time I have been here Ethan has been saying "Daddy this" and "Daddy that."  He will come up and grab my hand and want me to take him somewhere and do something with him. 

The rest of my R&R is going to be free of sickness I hope!  We are traveling to a waterpartk/hotel tomorrow and will spend a couple days there before we head to the zoo in Syracuse where I will jump on my flight back to Afg, and Lindsay and the boys will start their drive down to North Carolina to visit with family. 

It is such a blessing to me to see how God has taken care of my family.  Ethan and William are always into something and Lindsay and right there, keeping them from killing each other and taking care of all the tasks of the house.  How did I get such a great soul-mate?  There is a growing number of my Soldiers who will be coming home from our deployment to broken homes.  I don't think that deployment in and of itself causes divorces, but it is a clear stressor on top of other issues that are present.  Because of all this stress, some relationships break apart and cause a lot of harm to those involved in them.

Please be praying for our Soldiers and family members who are running a little low on morale right now. 
I also ask that you pray for the Religious Support Teams as we try to plan activities and events to help bring Soldiers together with each other, and to help Soldiers grow closer and more open with their families. 

Blessings! 

Its been a tough week.  Reading over all the grammer errors and typos in my last post show how tired I am.  : )     

In the past 10 days, we have had more than 10 fallen Heroes comes through morturary affairs.  Seeing so much loss is difficult.  The proces for me as a Chaplain is that the transfer case is before me and I give a scripture/prayer, and then the Hero is moved from the Building and into a transport vehicle which drives straight to the runway where there is a larger Ramp ceremony waiting.  My mind keeps calling me back to all the times that I have dressed up in my Army service uniform and gone to someones house with a casualty notification officer to deliver terrible news...    

Honoring our fallen is one of the things that the military does better than anywhere else.  While working at the hospital, there was always a rush (sometimes percieved, sometimes real) to get the loved ones in to grieve, get the information needed, and then move the deceased out and get the next patient in.  I was told by a casualty notification officer once that for every one fallen Hero, there is around 200 or so people who are immediately called, paged, woken up, and put to work to honor the Soldier, and inform the family members as soon as possible.  

Also, one of my Soldies just found out that thier fiance died in a car accident.  They were going to get married when the Soldier returned home in three months.  The Soldier cried as we walked around the block to get away from the office for a little while.  The Soldier showed me the paper that carried the terrible news.  It amazed me how such a frail and small piece of paper can carry such weight.  The Soldier could not and would not believe the news at first.  And honestly, probably still doesnt believe it.  Please pray for this Soldier as they travel back home to attend the funeral.

For me, things are busy and I am a delayer when it comes to my grief and stress so I should be good to go until my Brigade CH gets back.  AND THEN I GO ON LEAVE!  The thought of playing with my sons and being next to Lindsay fills me with joy and energy!  

Thank you for your prayers and support! 
 

We are on the downhill side of the deployment!  It is great to realize how quickly our time has gone.  In the last week or so, I have been filling in for our Brigade Chaplain who is home on R&R.  My days begin early and end late and are filled with a lot of different meetings and events.  Also, one of the companies that I work with is the Soldiers in Mortuary Affairs.  We have been busy in the past week the duty is tough.  I am constantly amazed at how professional and honoring the Soldiers are to our fallen heroes.  I find it such an honor to be their chaplain. 

I am also the only Chaplain here to preach at our service, which adds to the stress.  I figured that I would get a three week series together since that opportunity will not present itself again until we get back home.  The idea is to look at three sentences Jesus said that made (and should make) a huge impact on his followers.  Last week was Matthew 10:39 "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."  This week is Matthew 19:30 "But many who are first will be last, and the last shall be first."  And then next week will be "But whoever wants to be great among you must be last, and a servant to all."  I look forward to see how God shows up in my life, and in the lives of those that attend our service. 

Another development in the last week or so is that another one of our battalions has make it over here with us from Ft. Drum.  I know their Chaplain very well and we celebrated him being here by doing some "aroma therapy" (smoking cigars) which gave me a terrible headache the entire next day.  Headache aside, it is good to get back into the same area with someone that you know. 

Our Soldiers are doing pretty well.  I anticipated that the 6 month mark would see an uptick in the number of counselings that I do. And I was right.  Fights with family members back home, and conflicts with the people working around us is growing.  Because I expected this to happen, I intentionally held on to some cards from people back in the states to save them for days that Soldiers are more stressed out than usual.  Two or three days ago the stress was high.  I went around handing out the cards and it was fun to see how it lifted so many Soldiers' spirits.  I ask that you pray for our Soldiers to be re-united the with the importance of our mission, and the purpose of our deployment. 

My morale is high for the simple fact that my R&R will be in two weeks!  I cannot wait.  I am tired of playing with Ethan via skype.  Yes, we do i have a lot of fun (though my Soldiers in the computer lab while I am on skype think I am insane), but I cant wait to be able to run around with him, and play with little William who I am told is starting to stand up on his own now!  Thinking about it makes me feel jittery.   

As always, please pray for our Soldiers protection. 

Thank you so much!  

First a little about what has been happening in th last couple weeks:  

I cannot believe that we are right at the 6 month mark of our deployment!  Since the weather has started warming up, my assistant and I have been able to focus more on traveling to visit our Soldiers in other areas.  Previously we had been grouped the other bases into clusters.  This meant that we would spend multiple days jumping from FOB to FOB.  Instead of that model, we are trying to do shorter trips more often.  A week ago, we were able to visit three different locations.   

One of the FOBS we made it to was by an accident.  It is my opinion that the person who was supposed to schedule our  
flight fogot about us until the last minute.  So they scheduled us to fly to another FOB in hopes that we could find another way to our destination.  I was tired and not very happy but as we walked to the DFAC that evening i was able to take the picture to the right.  I had to decrease the resolution and quality of the picture because of the slow internet speed, but it was a beautiful scene. 

The next morning we woke up early and flew back home because there were no flights to our final destination where I had a scheduled for a service the next day.  We arrived at home around 0800 via fixed wing flight.  We took all our gear and range walked (walked fast) down to the Helo terminal to see if there was any chance that we might jump on a helicopter to get us where we needed to go.  I walked in and it turned out that there were two chinooks that were getting ready to depart to our destination to pick up some Soldiers who were getting ready to redeploy.  We arrived without incident and immediately went to the chapel to begin our preperations for the service. 

       In celebration of Easter, we ran, and ran, and ran some more.  Ther was a 5 mile, "run for Jesus" that was put on by one of the other Chaplains, and then a couple days later there was a satallite boston marathon here.  The boston marathon began at 0300 and since my travels didnt allow me to properly train I decided it best to work one of the water stations.  After the marathon was the muleskinner challange which was a 100 mile relay event.  Each team could only have a max of seven persons on a team (i think), and you could only have one runner per team at a time.  Run, run, and more run!

2nd a little about our Troops:
The warmer season is also bring more coflict.  The Soldiers in our brigade always amaze me as I see how strong, mentally and physically they are.  One of these Soldiers whom I consider to be one of the strongest and toughest Soldiers we have came up to me the other day with a worried look on his face.  I knew something was wrong, and honestly, I starteld me a little bit.  We made out typical plesantries, and I finally just asked him what was wrong.  He reached for his neck and pulled out a celtic cross that i have given him a few days before.  "I broke the cross," he said as he pulled up on his ID tag Necklace.  Dangling on the end of the neckalce was a cross that had one of the sides of it broken off.  The Soldier nervously said, "I heard that its really bad luck when this happens."  This Soldier goes outside the wire very often and you could see the hurt on his face as he thought about bringing bad luck down on himself and the Soldiers with him.  I went to my office and grabbed another one traded with him but just trading didnt seem to releave his fears.  "I am glad that you wear this thing enough to wear it out," I told him.  He seemed to accept this and he nodded his head.  We then talked about how lucky we are that God is more than just crosses that can be broke, or books that can get torn up. 

For those praying for us:  1st safety, and secondly for me.  I need clarity and wisdom as I work to keep our Soldiers engaded and thier heads in the game as we move past our halfway point. 

Professionalism

What is professionalism?  This is a term that I am learning to define differently as of late.  Since joining the Army, I have been given the opportunity to stand with some of the greatest professionals that I have ever known.  As many of you know, a couple weeks ago some actions by Soldiers on the base caused riots and demonstrations in the surrounding areas.  The protest here was just outside one of the gates which was too close for my comfort.  The day after the protest, I was visiting all my Soldiers and checking in with them to make sure that every ones nerves were in check.  I made my way around the base, and eventually came to a new company to our Battalion.   

This company is a group of Soldiers that supply ammo to our base, and all the other bases around us.  Because they are new to me, I have tried to spend as much time as possible learning from them exactly what they do.  A few weeks ago they were explaining how the process of getting ammo from them to the soldiers works.  I got lost in all the technical terms and the mountain of paperwork, but the gist is that every piece of ammo (or any property for that matter) is always accounted for by someone.  This means that everything is on some persons hand receipt, meaning that they are financially responsible for it.  One pallet of Ammo can cost a small fortune, and someone has to sign for it. 

On this particular visit, I learned that on the day of the protests, the guards for the base came to these Soldiers with a need for support due to the protests.  The protestors were getting out of hand and the situation was growing more and more stressful.  Simply put, the Soldiers needed an alternative to live-rounds to help the situation.  My Soldiers had to quickly analyze the situation, make the decision, and trust that the paperwork would be completed after the fact (which puts all the risk and accountability on the Soldier).  I realize that this might not resound with those who are not in the military, but to let someone walk out the door with something that belongs to you is a very difficult thing to do.  Should that equipment go missing or be damaged, you are held responsible and it could possibly be something that haunts the rest of your career in the military. 
In the end, the Soldier made the right decision and accepted the potential risk.  The Soldiers at the gate got what they needed and the situation soon de-escalated.  I was almost speechless as the Soldier talked to me about the situation and the role that he played in it.  When he was done I told him how amazing that was and that his actions saved lives.  He told me, “it is not that big of a deal Chap, this is what we are here to do.”  What is a professional?  A professional has developed a gut feeling of what “right” looks like.  A professional knows that the right decision remains right even when there is a large amount of risk involved.  A professional sees the right decision as the standard, not the exception.