Last night I had dinner at the Goetz Dining Facility (DFAC) at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Walton, which is a short helicopter flight from Kandahar, Afghanistan. Before the meal, I raised a “near beer” (non alcoholic) with a chaplain colleague to toast Dale Allen Goetz, the Army chaplain after whom the DFAC is named. Chaplain Goetz died in Afghanistan on August 30, 2010, not far from FOB Walton, and is the only military chaplain from the United States killed in action since 1970, when Phillip Arthur Nichols was killed in Vietnam.
I remember when I got the news that Chaplain Goetz had been killed. I was in the passenger seat of our family mini-van, my wife was driving, and our five kids were in the back. We were on our way back from a vacation in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. I was a few months short of accessioning as an Army chaplain, and the whole family was beginning to prepare for my first deployment to Afghanistan, which at that time seemed likely to happen sometime before spring. The notification came to my Blackberry from the Department of Defense List serve: “Captain Dale A. Goetz was killed when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.” The notice said nothing about Captain Goetz being Chaplain Goetz, but a quick search of his name on Google revealed a more complete story.
When I learned Dale Goetz was a chaplain my gut tightened and I wanted to vomit. My first thought concerned my own mortality: I had not until that moment acknowledged the real risk I would face going to Afghanistan as a chaplain. The next thought was about the unit served by Chaplain Goetz — the soldiers of the 1-66 Armored Battalion of the Fourth Infantry Division. When a soldier dies, the unit turns to their chaplain for comfort, hope and guidance. Their chaplain performs the memorial ceremony for the unit, and provides grief counseling to individuals. In the horror of war the chaplain is a reminder to many of a loving and compassionate God who is present even amidst terrible suffering. But what does it mean when the chaplain gets killed? How do soldiers cope with the existential angst that must arise from such a tragedy — the very angst, which in the moment I heard the news, was making me nauseous.
When the chaplain gets killed some will face one of life’s most perennial questions: why do bad things happen to good people? When the chaplain gets killed some will question the invincibility of “the armor of God” (Ephesians 6: 10-18) which fails to protect God’s very own representative. When the chaplain gets killed some will face the dreadful realization that we are all vulnerable and nobody is really safe. When the chaplain gets killed — the chaplain who is a non combatant and carries no weapon — some will ask where is justice? Where is fairness? When the chaplain gets killed some will examine previously held assumptions: “God is on our side,” “God will protect us,” “God will not let anything bad happen to us,” and “In God we trust,” — and perhaps reject long held beliefs.
Yes, when the chaplain gets killed many will suffer moral injury — defined by Jonathan Shay as “a betrayal of what is right.” And sometimes a moral injury can be the most debilitating wound of war — the wound that is most difficult to heal. To heal from moral injury we need to give meaning to tragedy which might otherwise be inherently meaningless. I have made the tragic killing of Chaplain Goetz meaningful to me by reflecting on his death, examining some of my assumptions, and correcting false views. I am glad for the simple memorial of the Goetz DFAC at FOB Walton, which reminds me of his death, and the sacrifice made by his wife, Christy, and their three sons. I thank and honor Dale Allen Goetz for helping me, in his death, move beyond self deception towards a more right view of warfare and a greater reverence for life.
Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.
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It is astonishing how certain human bonds are able to transcend time and place. Early one year, my brother Chuck made contact—on the Internet, no less—with a long lost relative in Iceland. As genealogists reckon relationships, Kiddi is our second cousin once removed; in the simpler reckoning of the American South, he might be called a “kissing cousin.”
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What are you? Are you a man? A woman? Person of color? Are you straight or gay, able or disabled, citizen, immigrant, settler? Are you legal or illegal? Do you belong here?
Where is it documented? Your birth certificate, in your skin, on your wheelchair, the shape of your hips, or your DNA—does it have a US stamp of approval? Tell me, what are you?
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Whose are you?
Who carries you in their heart, thinks of you, whether you think of them or not? Read more →
It is the middle of the night and my unit has landed at Bangor International Airport, in Maine, for a short stopover before we leave American soil for Afghanistan. We will not be home for many months. We hope we will all come home alive, but in war, as in life, there are risks, there is uncertainty, there is the real possibility of death.
Before we left our mobilization site in Texas I brought a self-selecting group of my soldiers on retreat—a Spiritual Fitness Retreat. We did this to prepare our souls for war, drawing from the wisdom of warrior cultures in earlier times and adopting and adapting spiritual disciplines, rituals, and rites of passage, to serve the needs of the soul.
War is a Rite of Passage—I have learned this from my mentor Ed Tick—and this rite in history has included several key components: time apart in a sacred space, guidance by elders, trials that recreate the war experience, blessing and gifts from the community in whose name the warrior serves, and initiation into the warrior path. At our retreat we did all these things, and in some mysterious and beautiful way the community came together around us.
Ascension Mena, who established the Holy Trinity Retreat Center in eastern El Paso, hosted our gathering; local ministers, including Sabine Green and Sarah Heartsong, lead the gathering in a drumming circle and Warrior Rite; Hugh Scanlen, a purple heart recipient from two combat tours in Vietnam and elder mentor on the Warrior Path, offered wisdom and guidance; Mahonri Telles and Matt Hopper, both Iraq combat veterans, drew from Native American and Nordic traditions respectively to teach us to activate our shadow with the “warrior cry” and create meaning with Norse Rune symbols; others too many to name came and provided healing through Reiki and gifts of medicine pouches for us each to carry.
Now is the time to depart, but we leave with the blessing of the community, our souls cared for by the ancient wisdom rituals and rites of warrior cultures in earlier times.
Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.
The Army Chaplain Corps has a motto: “nurture the living, care for the wounded, honor the dead.” Army chaplains hold the sacred trust of the people of the United States to provide soul care for America’s sons and daughters. This is an awesome task which I am only able to undertake with the utmost humility and full support of my family, my faith community, my colleagues in ministry, and my God. I write this for all of the above.
My unit has been mobilized to deploy to Afghanistan. Since our mobilization orders began several weeks ago, I have searched for innovative ways to tend to the souls of my soldiers. Alas, many seem too busy to attend to this vital dimension of the self; many seem reluctant to take time for the soul, perhaps out of fear for what they may find, perhaps for no other reason than they really believe they have more important tasks to complete than be still and look inward.
Yet the high rates of suicide and sexual assault in the military are painful indicators that the greatest threat we may face in deployment is ourselves. I am convinced that soul-care is the most effective means to not only decrease suicide and sexual assault but help manage the stress of combat so that soldiers grow and not wither in the wake of trauma. And soul-care begins with cultivating self-awareness.
The Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu understood the importance of knowing oneself in battle. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of one hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” (From The Art of War).
A more recent military leader from this side of the pond, General George Marshall, also understood the importance of caring for the soul. He put it something like this: “The soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul are everything. Unless the soldier’s soul sustains them, they cannot be relied on and will fail themselves and their country in the end.”
I initiated several programs at our mobilization site in order to cultivate self-awareness and keep soldiers mindful of the soul dimension. Some of these initiatives include: morning “Soul Call,” a play on “sick call,” which is basically open chapel time each morning when soldiers can drop-in to pray, meditate, study or meet with me; evening Zen Meditation; “Pocket Stones,” which are small polished rocks engraved with words like faith, hope, courage, strength and happiness- I distribute them at no cost to soldiers to help them be mindful of these important qualities of soul; Spiritual Fitness Retreats – I have two scheduled at a local Catholic retreat center; Chaplain’s Tea – where I serve soldiers tea in a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony; I also perform worship service on Sunday evenings; and have a presence in the daily Commanders Update Brief.
Being self-aware means paying attention to the ways we shield ourselves from painful truths, deny the real horror of warfare, and morally disengage from the consequences of our actions. Yet in order to prepare our souls and care for our souls we need to pay attention to the human cost of war.
Two days ago I recommended to the commander that we include a slide to honor the dead in the daily update brief. Now we have a slide with the photographs of those most recently killed in Afghanistan. I do this to help prepare our souls for the real losses that lie ahead. When we do that, when we embrace tragedy rather than deny or avoid it, we do as my mentor Ed Tick has taught me: we keep our hearts alive. If we allow ourselves to morally disengage, if we try to insulate ourselves from pain, then we risk becoming “people of the lie,” a term I attribute to M. Scott Peck who wrote a book by that name about presence of human evil in our daily lives.
Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.
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Quest for Meaning is a program of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF).
As a Unitarian Universalist congregation with no geographical boundary, the CLF creates global spiritual community, rooted in profound love, which cultivates wonder, imagination, and the courage to act.