Here is a link to a great video recently done by PBS about the chaplain school.  It is a little over 8:00 but worth it.

Click Here

One Team – One Fight

John 8:1-11

I have heard the story told of an All American kid named John who grew up in the mid-west in the 1940’s.  He was popular among his friends and successful academically and athletically.  During his High School years John was an all star athlete for his school and was later offered a scholarship to play for the state university.  John was just and ordinary kid much like many of you.  He had dreams for his future; dreams of a family, of college, of a job that he would enjoy and excel at. 

But after graduation, Uncle Sam changed all that.  You see, WWII was in full swing and our country needed John to join the ranks of Americas best.  John was drafted, and after basic training he was assigned to an infantry battalion.  John excelled as a soldier, much like he did in everything else he tried, quickly rising to the position of platoon Sgt. 

During one particular battle, John found himself and the rest of his platoon pinned down by a sniper.  One by one, men were getting picked off or wounded.  If they were to stay were they were, they would surely all die.  John weighed the options carefully before making a decision that would change his life forever.

John rose from his position and charged toward the sniper shooting his rifle as he ran.  He felt a sharp pain in his leg and realized that he had been hit, but he did not stop firing.  His persistence paid off and he was successful in killing the sniper, but his bravery would eventually cost him his leg. 

In the eyes of his platoon, and in the eyes of his country, John was a hero.  He was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions, but was also discharged from the Army due to his injuries.  As he returned to his hometown, he was given a heroes welcome including a parade with much fanfare.  Everyone was proud of him and he was congratulated everywhere he went. 

But as time went on, reality set in.  Where does a one legged man find work.  For a while, everyone helped him out, but after a while, people forgot.  John found himself poor and hungry and struggling for any kind of existence.  One day while hobbling through town on his crutches, he smelled the aroma of fresh baked bread as it sat on a rack outside the bakery.  He was hungry and the smell was causing his stomach to twitch in its need.  He was drawn toward the bread desperate for something to eat.  He knew it was wrong, but his hunger overpowered him and he grabbed a loaf of bread and ran as fast as a one legged man on crutches could possible run. 

The police were called and they quickly apprehended the one time All-American athlete.  He was arrested, taken to jail, and later before the county judge.

What happens in the life of a man that takes him from being an All-American athlete to being a thief?

What happens in the life of a person that takes him or her from being a person that dreams of a great future, to being a drug addict, an alcoholic, a divorcee, suicidal, jobless, a single parent, etc…

In the John 8:1-11, we hear about a woman who had been caught in an affair.  We have to ask, “What happened in the life of this woman that she ended up in this adulteress relationship.  Somehow, I don’t believe that when she was a little girl she dreamed about ending up in this situation.  But yet, here she was.  The Apostle John describes the situation here in chapter 8.

2 Early in the morning Jesus came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

In the story of our soldier John, he too was brought before the judge, and the charges were stated.  The judge knew John, and in fact had known him all his life.  But he had no choice, John was guilty and everyone knew it.  The judge pronounced the judgment and fined John fifteen dollars.  He then stood from behind his desk, took off his robe and stepped out from behind the bench.  He then took out his wallet and paid the fine for John.  He then put his robe back on and turned to the courtroom.  He then said, “Furthermore, I find everyone in this room guilty of for allowing this situation to happen, then he fined everyone a dollar.  The judge held out his hat and waited.  One by one the people filed forward and deposited their fines in the hat before turning to leave the courtroom.  When the last person had passed, the judge turned to John and gave him the money. 

How many of you have ever found yourselves in difficult circumstances? 

Some of you are much like the woman caught in adultery; you feel the world closing in around you with no way out.  This woman had been drug out into the street by a mob of angry men who were each holding stones in their hands for the purpose of putting her to death. 

I call this behavior “the chicken mentality.”  In a flock of chickens, if one of them is wounded or sick, the others will start pecking at it until it is dead.  These men carrying stones where much like chickens.  They found someone weak and intended to clean up their society by killing her. 

Today, we often do much the same thing with people.  We might not through stones anymore, but we whisper rumors and hurl insults instead. 

What we often forget is that we are all in the same boat. 

Jesus said in Romans 3:23 that

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

To the religious leaders of his day, Jesus said

 27“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:27, 28)

And so it is here in John 8 that these religious leaders continue to confront Jesus about this woman:

7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

Army life is hard.  It has a way of getting to the best of us, but at the end of the day, we are one team.  Recently, while I was at Fort Bliss, I heard the gate guard say, “One Team, One Fight.”  I like that saying. 

On a team there is no one person any more important than any other and a team is only as strong as its weakest link.  We need each other.

Galatians 6:2 says, “Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way fulfill the law of Christ.” 

Let us drop the stones, and instead begin to find ways to offer help.

For some of you, you are like that woman, or you arelike that soldier.  You are facing difficult times in your life.  This wasn’t your plan for your future, but here you are now.  You don’t have to face your struggles alone.  Let me offer you some hope!

Matthew 11:28-29

28“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

James 1:5

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

The good news this morning is that whether you are like the woman who’s life had fallen apart, or whether you are like the religions leaders who became hypocritical in their actions, GOD LOVES YOU!

We are preparing to go down range, and we will have to do it together.  Let us begin by examining our lives before God and then entrusting them to Him for the good of our own futures, and for that of our team.

Chaplain Kevin Wainwright was preparing his Easter Sunday sermon in Iraq when there was a knock on his door.

The news was grim: 1st Lt. Phillip Neel was dead. The young officer and fellow West Point grad had been a regular at the chaplain’s Sunday church services. Wainwright knew and admired him. Now he had to find the right words to honor him.

Wainwright chose the legend of Sir Galahad, King Arthur’s noble knight, and the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson to salute Neel in a memorial.

He spoke of his compassion, his devotion to his soldiers. But in trying to understand Neel’s death, the chaplain also posed an agonizing question: “Why does it seem that the good guys are the first ones to fall?”

On Easter night, the sad milestone of 4,000 American deaths in the Iraq war was reached with an announcement by the U.S. military that four U.S. soldiers had been killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

As the toll approached 4,000, Wainwright and hundreds of other military chaplains in Iraq and across America wrestled with hard questions constantly. These are the men and women who pray with the mortally wounded, who administer last rites on bomb-scarred roads, who sit at kitchen tables with grieving families back home.

Army chaplains such as Wainwright have been especially busy: Almost three-fourths of those who have died in Iraq were in the Army. Of the total lost in all services, more than 30 were just 18 years old; about 80 were older than 45, according to the military. Nearly 100 were women. A quarter of those who died were from just three states: California, Texas and New York.

But for every number, there is a name, and for every name, a husband or son, wife or daughter whose life is remembered, often by a chaplain.

“I’m the guy who knows all their stories,” Wainwright says. “Of all the people in the battalion, the chaplain is the one who should know a little about everybody.”

In 14 months in Iraq, Wainwright comforted countless grieving soldiers, composed handwritten notes to families and conducted memorials, including one for Neel held last year at a concrete-barricaded chapel.

“I remember them all,” he says.

Military chaplains don’t carry weapons, don’t engage in combat, and yet they know as well as any the human cost of war.

Here are four of their stories:

___

When Kevin Wainwright arrived in Iraq in October 2006, it was his second deployment — he had served with the North Carolina National Guard two years earlier. This time he shipped out from Fort Hood, Texas.

The Army captain knew what the dangers were, but he was optimistic.

“I think we all go over there believing … we’re going to be that battalion that doesn’t lose anyone,” Wainwright says.

That didn’t happen.

Of the deaths in Iraq, more than 1 in 10 have come from sprawling Fort Hood, including some very personal losses for the chaplain: One was an airman he had given Communion to days before he was killed, one a soldier he had accompanied on patrol, another he had joined for dinner.

Wainwright was familiar with the rhythms of life and death as a Presbyterian minister serving churches in Wisconsin and the Carolinas. But war was different. “It’s personal,” he says. “They WANT to kill you.”

And each soldier’s death, Wainwright says, took a toll. “As a chaplain,” he says, “you lose part of yourself that you’re never going to get back.”

As chaplain for the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, Wainwright, 38, sometimes joined soldiers on patrols. He also tended to the injured.

He was there to tell one wounded soldier after he regained consciousness that five of his comrades had died. Wainwright sat with him for hours, then gently told the survivor: “I’m glad you made it and you’re here.”

He also was there to clutch the wrist of another soldier dying from shrapnel wounds to the head. He prayed in a circle with his friends, then stepped aside so everyone could say goodbye.

Amid so much death, Wainwright remained steadfast in his beliefs.

“My faith is not a stack of cards — it’s rock solid,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t grieve and think this guy is never going to know what it’s like to be married or be a father. … It hits home, too. You have those fears yourself. What would a loss be like for your own family? But if you dwell on that, it makes you less effective as a chaplain.”

Wainwright smiles as he recalls the time he had some unexpected help soothing souls.

One day, he was trying to counsel a soldier when Eddie, a bomb-sniffing dog with a pitiful look, walked by. The distressed soldier petted the golden Labrador and instantly brightened.

“I was trying to come up with some theologically significant interpretation of a life crisis,” Wainwright says, “but that dog did more ministry in 10 seconds that I could do in a month.”

___

Sometimes he arrived by foot, other times by helicopter, but Chaplain Jesus Perez always had the same feeling when he visited a morgue in Iraq.

“I had this sensation of emptiness,” he says. “The place is so cold, even colder than you expect. You’re losing somebody you probably know, or at least a brother in arms. But when you’re there with your commander and rendering honor to the soldier who died, it’s a solemn moment in the life of everyone in that room.”

In 14 months, the Fort Hood chaplain prayed over 56 fallen soldiers.

After the salutes and prayers were over, Perez, 43, always lingered behind.

“I’d wait for everybody to leave, then I’d cry like a baby,” he says. “I tried not to show my emotions in front of the other soldiers. I wanted to be strong for them. But when I was by myself, I cried. … That was my way of coping with the situation.”

As chaplain for the Army’s 3rd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division, Perez conducted several memorial ceremonies. He comforted the survivors, then took care of himself by talking with another chaplain or counselor.

“I had to protect myself from burnout,” he says. “There comes a time after you hear so many are dead, you become frustrated, there’s some anger. You ask yourself: ‘When is this going to end?’”

But nothing he saw, he says, tested his faith.

“I believe God has his reasons,” says Perez, who is a Messianic Jew. “Who am I to ask why? I know a lot of people have that question. I don’t have that answer obviously. Since I don’t have the answer, I don’t even ask it.”

In February, Perez received a poster he had ordered in Iraq that includes the names of 110 soldiers lost in his brigade. He plans to have it framed.

“It will go with me everywhere I go,” he says. “It will go with me if I go back to Iraq. Some people may forget their names, but not this chaplain.”

___

The Rev. David Sivret still lives with nightmares, headaches and memories of his brush with a suicide bomber.

The Maine Army National Guard chaplain was severely injured in the Dec. 21, 2004, attack at a mess hall in Mosul, Iraq, that killed 22 people and wounded dozens more.

Sivret has vivid memories of the day: sitting down for a roast beef lunch, saying grace, seeing a bright flash, waking up on the floor — having been thrown 10 to 20 feet — next to a soldier dying of catastrophic head injuries.

“That’s one of those dreams that haunts me,” he says. “The floor was slippery with residue and blood. People were screaming and hollering.”

Sivret managed to stand, but he couldn’t hear. He shouted some angry words — language, he says, “unbecoming a chaplain” — then collected himself and began praying with the wounded sprawled on the floor or on tables converted into stretchers.

The chaplain moved outside, unzipping body bags to examine dog tags, performing last rites to those who were Christian.

“I was running on adrenaline,” he says. “I had a wicked headache. My left knee was shattered. My ribs were broken.”

But Sivret didn’t let on, fearing he’d be hospitalized. “I wasn’t going to leave them,” he says. “They were my soldiers.”

National Guard members have accounted for 10 percent of the U.S. deaths in Iraq, including three men from Sivret’s unit, two of whom were killed in that blast.

One was Sgt. Lynn Poulin Sr. The chaplain had celebrated his marriage in Maine.

The other was Spc. Thomas Dostie, whose parents had been Sivret’s classmates, prompting the Guardsman to teasingly tell the chaplain: “‘I know what you were like in high school.’”

Sivret presided at a memorial for the two, breaking down outside before he spoke.

He remained in Iraq a few more months, constantly encouraging the soldiers, telling them they were doing good. “I was trying to give them perspective and hope,” he says. “You have to build them up because they have to go back out there again.”

Sivret, now 52, returned to being the parish priest at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Calais, Maine, where Guard soldiers occasionally visit.

Sivret’s hearing has returned and his ribs have healed, but the war remains part of his life.

In December, he accompanied a master sergeant to notify a family of a soldier’s death. Seeing the father’s pained face, knowing the death occurred in Mosul — the city where Sivret was injured — brought back a flood of memories.

“It stays with me,” Sivret says. “You change. You’re never the same.”

___

Chaplain Irvine Bryer faced death before, 40 years ago in another war — in Vietnam.

The skinny kid who survived the jungles returned to a desert battlefield as a grandfather — and Army Reserve chaplain for the 3rd Medical Command.

In Iraq, Bryer dodged mortars, rockets and shots fired at his helicopter.

Still, he says, “Never did I feel there was anything to fear. There is a season for everything under the sun. That’s what Ecclesiastes says. …I take that now and have a for long time as an important part of who I am.”

The lieutenant colonel and Baptist minister was based at Camp Victory, the main U.S. military headquarters. He flew more than 11,000 miles in helicopters, frequently visiting hospitals, chatting and praying with the wounded, bringing calm to the chaos.

One day he went to the morgue to pray for a soldier but had been given the wrong name. When a soldier there cursed him and said he should have gotten the identification right, Bryer agreed, and asked him to get the correct information.

Later, the soldier apologized but still admonished him: “Get it right next time.”

Bryer wore a Vietnam patch on his right shoulder that didn’t go unnoticed in Iraq. Once, he says, a soldier said to him: “You’ve done this before. You think it makes a difference?”

“I hope so,” he replied.

Despite all the tragedy he saw, Bryer had joyful moments — his favorite involving a little boy.

While visiting a health clinic, he says, a little Iraqi boy pointed to the chaplain’s shaved head. His mother said her son wanted to touch it.

“He rubbed it like it was a ball,” Bryer says.

The chaplain pulled a Snicker’s bar from his pocket, broke it in two and gave half to the boy. “We pushed it together, toasting like we’re ready to have champagne. I bit in and was making all kinds of sounds like mmmmm,” Bryer says. “He was just sitting and laughing.”

For Bryer, now 62, this fleeting moment of friendship offers promise for the future.

“I hope that when we’re finished,” he says, “this is what it’s all about.”

___

In February, Capt. Wainwright stood in a brick chapel at Fort Hood to honor fallen soldiers.

This was not a day to mourn 4,000 lost, but the eight men from his battalion who did not come home.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of those guys and feel some hurt in my heart,” he says.

Wainwright spoke in a chapel with stained glass windows that depict cavalry soldiers. The names of those who’ve died in other wars are engraved on plaques.

Wainwright remembered each of the eight killed in Iraq by name, quoted from Psalm 20 and told mourners that these soldiers are “beckoning from the grave, demanding us to be the men they were … good and honorable men.”

The chaplain wears a memory bracelet with the name of one of them, Phillip Neel, who is buried in the West Point cemetery next to the Old Cadet chapel, where Wainwright used to worship.

“Every time I go back, even when I’m a decrepit old man,” the chaplain says, “I’m going to go to the cemetery and look at the headstone, think and remember him, who he was, what he stood for.”

Here is a video of a lifelong friend of mine and his wife who serve as missionaries in Mexico. They have devoted their lives to educating and improving the lives of nearly a hundred missionary children. Alan and Beth are heroes in my eyes, and I hope that this will encourage you to pray for them

http://abcdmcmanus.blogspot.com/

Here is a recent article I wrote that was published in the Fort Hood Sentinel. It is not the best writing I have ever done, but it highlights an important issue!

One of God’s greatest gifts is parenthood

By Chaplain (Capt.) Mark Olson, 3-4 Avn. Regt., 4th Inf. Div

One of the greatest gifts God has to offer is the gift of being a parent.

There is no joy that quite matches having a child climb into your lap and say “I love you.” But for many Soldiers who serve throughout the military, being a parent is bitter sweet.

“It’s hard,” Spc. Misty Polk who works in the S-3 shop, 3rd Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, said. “I don’t feel like I get to raise my own children.”

Misty, who is a single parent and the mother of two, Devan, 2, and Demie, 3 months, will be leaving her children with her parents while she deploys to Iraq.

For Misty and so many others who serve our country as single parents, the word “sacrifice” means so much more.

Spc. Guadalupe Lopez, also part of 3-4 AV Regt. and the mother of one 14-month-old girl named Samantha, is preparing to send her daughter to Mexico to live with grandparents during her upcoming deployment.

“It’s terrible,” Lopez said. “When I left her for four months, she didn’t know who I was. And now I am leaving her for 15 months.”

Misty and Guadalupe both shared their hurts, pains and concerns at a single parent retreat sponsored by the 3-4 AV Regt. chaplain’s office.

While visiting Tyson’s Corner Retreat Center in Lampasas, these and other single parents had the opportunity to share their deepest needs with each other while working through many of the fears and frustrations they had each been privately wrestling with.

The needs of single parents are often so very different than those of other parents within the Army.

These parents often feel that they are all alone in raising their children and that by leaving their children for such long periods of time, they are abandoning them to be raised by other people.

I know that retreats like this one can really help these Soldiers come to grips with their thoughts and emotions, and find ways for both they and their children to not only survive this deployment, but thrive together in spite of this deployment.

Retired Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Gene Tyson, the owner of Tyson’s Corner, shared perhaps, the greatest bit of encouragement that could have been given to these parents during the retreat. He pointed to a stone mounted on the chimney above the fireplace inscribed with the words God spoke to the Prophet Jeremiah.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11).

For these single parents, and for so many of you who are reading this article today, God has provided hope for you. He has great plans for you and a great future for you and your children’s lives if you will only turn your cares over to him.

Life is precious.  I am reminded today of the importance of living life to its fullest.  How important it is to say “I love you” one more time, or how important it is to say how much you appreciate that person you work with, or how important it is to tell that neighbor that “Jesus Loves You!”

This morning I had to break the news to a family that their son was a hero.  That he had served his country bravely, and paid the ultimate price.  For this family, it was their second loss in less than one year.

How precious is life.  Scripture tells us:

Ps 103:15-16

15 As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

Job 14:1-2

1 “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.
2 He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

But Scripture also says:

Ps 139:16

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

 I look at my family of eight (six children), and when I blink, they are another year older.  My oldest is  becoming a man right in front of my eyes.  I am afraid to blink again.  Soon I will leave them for at least a year, and when I return, I will have blinked again.  But these are the days God has given me.  I am more determined today to make the most of them; to laugh, to love, to cry, to say those things that need to be said. 

Some of you remember that I lost both my grandmother and my father within three days of each other back in August.  I blinked and they were both gone.  I am glad however that I took the time to tell them I loved them.  I am thankful I took the time to tell my grandmother about Jesus one more time.  I am thankful for the days God allowed me to be blessed by their company.

As you live your days, live them to their fullest.  Have no regrets.  I leave you with one last quote.  William Borden, heir to the Borden dairy estate, gave it all up to live his life to its fullest (Read Story). His story is summed up in this simply quote, “No reserves, No retreats, No regrets.”  This is written in the flyleaf of my Bible.  I challenge you to do the same.

I have deleted this last entry at the request of a friend whom I respect due to his many years of ministry in the military context. However, I have to ask the question, “Why do I write?” I suppose there are many answers to this question. The first and most obvious is that writing provides an outlet for thoughts. However, this can be done in a more private context. I write for other reasons though, perhaps bigger reasons than the first. I write for those who would pray. I write also for the sake of those who would consider becoming Army chaplains or for those who are now in the process. I write because there is a story to be told that others will connect with.
I was moved by some of the comments that have been left by those who read. I am glad I could speak to you in some way. Here are a few quotes from what you have said:

• “This is why you have to keep writing. Alan and I check your site everyday so we can remember to pray for you guys.” (a prayer supporter)
• “I appreciate the unvarnished look into the Military Chaplaincy.” (An upcoming Chaplain)
• “From personal experience with my son, I know you’re job is not easy. I wish he would have gone to the chaplain for help before things got out of hand.” (A hurting mother)

I have been challenged to guard what I say. This is good advice. So I will wrestle instead with the question of what to write without putting forth the wrong image. Thanks for your prayers and your thoughts.

For God and Country

Chaplain Olson

I spent Monday through Thursday this week taking a Combat Life Saver course. We were trained in basic skills that will make the crucial difference between life and death for a wounded soldier, or maybe even for myself. Let’s hope I never have to use them.

The art of inserting a nasal breathing tube

Oh the joy

Now that is a Vein

Chaplain Randles inflicts much pain on me and turns loose a torrent of blood.

Chaplain Randles and I help low crawl a “wounded soldier” out on a litter.

 Annual Santa Picture

(He’s not the “real” Santa as Joshua told us because his beard doesn’t stick to his chin)

Christmas Lights at BLORA

(Belton Lake Outdoor Recreation Area)