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INTERVIEW:
George E. Packard
May 28, 2004 Episode no. 739
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Read the full R & E interview with the Rt. Rev. George E. Packard, Bishop for Chaplaincies for the Episcopal Church, about World War II, the war in Iraq, and the ministry of military chaplains:
For those who serve in the ranks, chaplains have been probably some of the most memorable persons in their units. It's interesting that from our vantage point we think of them as maybe an afterthought in history, but they bring a pastoral presence. This recollection of World War II [in the National Cathedral exhibition] is so current, even for Iraq. The chaplain is the pastoral person, and that brings out all of the spiritual self of the service members. I'm not sure chaplains are so much forgotten. It's that the rest of society doesn't realize how central they are, particularly now in Iraq, for morale and for cohesion.
[In Iraq] we have a chaplain now who raised his hands in the "orans" position [one who prays with extended arms] and got shot at. We have a Humvee cover that you just slip right on the back or the front of the Humvee and spread your altar out. The great thing about it is you can wipe it and get all the desert dust off the altar cloth. The chaplains scramble and get out with the troops just like you would think they would.
What kind of person would be crazy enough to want to walk into a high-operational military environment, whether it be World War II or Korea, Vietnam, or other conflicts, unarmed, and just bring the faith? Most of all, chaplains have an urgency to serve. Dean Francis B. Sayre, who served here in the National Cathedral [from 1951 to 1978], insisted on serving [as a navy chaplain] when he was a parish priest because he wanted to be where those civilians whom he was currently serving in the pews were going. He couldn't speak to their lives and to what was happening to them if he hadn't gone through it himself. That's one aspect of [military chaplaincy]. Another is that chaplains thrive on the adventure, the energy of the experience ... and they have to be inventive.
The cathedral exhibition reflects the current way it is. Chaplains have got to be ingenious in composing, in putting together sancturies, altars, places to pray on the spur of the moment -- in a mess tent, as they sit on the back of a Humvee. [For the exhibition] there is a whole list of odd places where you would get people together for prayer. In battle there's no kind of calendar; you don't really distinguish one day from the next. And so you gather people who are urgent in their faith, who are worried, depressed, and most of all, afraid wherever you can. Sometimes they are being deployed; sometimes they've just been shot and are about ready to die, and you have to be ready, self-reliant, and able to scramble, and at that moment be there with messages of faith and reassurance.
The Episcopal Church in 1949 created a bishop for chaplaincies. Then we got to 9/11 and determined when we were working at ground zero -- reserve and guard chaplains and active duty chaplains and veterans administration chaplains and hospital chaplains and emergency responder chaplains -- that they didn't know each other. So we combined them all in "chaplaincy." We asked what it was that combines all these things, and one of them is that chaplains seem to have a radar for going on the edges of society for those people who need the ministry the most -- those people who are lingering just before getting on the helicopters, or just after they get off the landing craft, or those people who come up to you on the chow line. Chaplains are good at perceiving that kind of need --and, of course, people in stress. Chaplains, regardless of where they serve, minister to people in stress. The ability to function in stress and not forget who you are and communicate assurance and just being able to get to the next day -- that's what chaplains bring. They bring something from outside ourselves. Senator John McCain, in this great book on courage that he's written, talks about something else that comes to the moment [of courage], and I would say that something else is a faith component. You have to draw on certain truths in life that just endure. Those are things we sometimes forget when we get afraid and all of our possibilities collapse in on us. It takes us time and help and sometimes another person to say, "You are more than this. Let's try to move the clouds of despair and fear and distraction aside so you can have some hope." That's what a chaplain does. They are really remarkable at doing this.
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In Iraq, if I'm there with a military occupational specialty and I don't know the Iraqis, and let's say I work in artillery but I'm pulling military police duty, there's a certain level of confusion about what's going on. Add to that anxiety, because there's such a proliferation of munitions for improvised explosive devices -- there's all of this confusion. The first thing a chaplain would do is try to bring some peace to this moment: "Let's sort this out -- why you are here, who you represent, and what you are about." The people we're finding in Iraq today are well trained, very young, and scared. That's not so different from the people represented [in the cathedral's World War II exhibition.] They are still that way. There's a certain unfairness to that. The sensitive chaplain will stand with the individual and say, if he or she is a Christian, "This moment of ambiguity and anxiety that you have is where Christ stood. You stand there, too. And as long as we are standing and sorting this out together as a brother and sister in the spirit, let's make an assessment of what our country has stood for, what our values have been for. Sometimes we've been wrong; sometimes we've been right. You are going through a lot of anxiety -- depression is probably a better word -- and conscience-stirring about what's happened in the prison in Baghdad: 'What is this about?' 'What are we for?'" This is a time for chaplains to say, "Let's pause and take stock. If this is a democracy and a republic that's stood for value all of these years, it must be transparent and discerning, and you as a member of the armed forces are no less a member of that discernment. You bring to bear morals and good behavior and doing the right thing just like anybody else does." I'm always a little worried about a chaplain who comes in and starts to critique the national character as somebody is starting to duck bullets. On the other hand, our military's never been ranks of automatons. They are called to be reflective, moral people.
It wasn't the capacity for industry or weaponry or armament that won World War II. It was the capacity of that greatest generation to know and be in touch with the values of this country and to stand by them with patience and steadfastness. That's what chaplains try to do.
Chaplains are the pastor to the men and women who serve, but they are also the counselor to the commander. We always encourage chaplains to find other chaplains to pray with and share with. If that's not possible, then find other believers. Episcopal priests are urged to celebrate the Eucharist on a regular basis, because that is how they revivify their priestly vows. Other pastors of other denominations, rabbis, imams, will say the same thing. Even when there are just two or three around, it's important to immerse yourself in a religious, spiritual moment to find those deep roots again. Otherwise, this can be a little like a social service effort: "Are you doing okay? Can I write home?" We do all of those things only as byproducts of the faith we feel. If chaplains start to get too far away from that, they can really get burned out. If you have this kind of intensity, you're going to get burned out anyway.
So many people entered the military, particularly World War II, with a sense of outrage. That was really the motivation. They were outraged, and many people enlisted after Pearl Harbor. But that wasn't the only thing that added to their conviction. They had a sense of, "We'll do this right, and we'll do it well." As time went on, things got difficult. ... Our country became a world citizen through that war. We became a world citizen briefly after 9/11, but then we packed it all up again and got in control of things. Most people in World War II had never left the county of their birth. Their conviction matured into insight.
Fear always seems to be a part of this human dynamic that brings us to the edge of ourselves. Things get really clear real fast when you are afraid. This says something about the fragility of the human condition. The proximate cause of courage is fear. Fear has to be somewhere for it to be overcome and for people to live their lives out nobly. Courage in the World War II generation was not just exhibited by those who were overseas. It was indeed done by people at home doing ingenious things, playing with the fear so that it wouldn't be fearsome -- collecting cans and growing victory gardens.
Faith is really the means by which we understand what God wants of us. We don't move into days of faith unless we've lived into days of consequence in other ways in our lives.
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