Centurion Faith

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully." He said to him, "I will come and cure him." The centurion said in reply, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come here,' and he comes; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, "Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.
(Matthew 8:5-10)

Rest and Rejuvenation

In the sixth chapter of Mark's gospel, Jesus gathers the disciples to himself and says, "Come away with me to a deserted place and rest." They hop in the boat and head to the other side of the sea of Galilee. The crowd sees them and walks to the other side before them, so that when the disciples arrive at their "resting spot," they find a huge crowd of people waiting for them. This is proof, I think, that the disciples really weren't very good sailors. I mean how long does it take to cross a big lake anyway!?!

Yet even though the disciples didn't get rest they wanted, the idea is sound. R&R leave is a great part of every deployment. It's a time that everyone longs for, and a landmark in anyone's deployment. When I first got over here my goal was to make it to R&R (right about at the 6 month mark). Now that I'm back all I have to do is make it a few more months before that big bird takes me home... In the words of John, one of the guys that joined me, "This is no problem!"

Heaven? Or Pattaya?

Thailand is a beautiful, wonderful country. I hardly know where to begin... Probably with my frustrations and adventures of travel... I love flying Army Air, it's a great teacher of patience! I got stuck for three days on Bagram Airfield, and only got out because I happen to be hanging around when a "surprise flight" popped up and they threw as many of us on as they could get their hands on. Then it was off to Kuwait, where all the pax from Iraq and Afghanistan cycle through. The only way I can describe Kuwait is HOT!!! And by that I don't mean summer in USA hot, I mean surface of the sun hot... We walked off the plane and my first thought was that we were walking through the turbine exhaust from the engines. That is until we walked well in front of the engines and the heat/wind simply got worse as we left the shelter of the plane. It was literally so hot that I couldn't sweat! It would evaporate too quickly! I would walk inside an air-conditioned tent or building and then start to sweat... My God, who would choose to live here? Who would actually want to fight for this land? I honestly have no idea how people survived here before the industrial age...

Anyway, once we did get to Thailand we split our time between two locations, Ching Mai up in the north (rainforest country) and Pattaya (on the ocean). The difference between the two was dramatic, and I loved both. Ching Mai is a huge rain forest preserve area that the king of Thailand has set aside. Rain forests, of course, are an incredible part of the ecosystem and unfortunately are disappearing very quickly. So this wasn't something I was about to pass up. We spent a couple of days hiking, but the real fun was the "Go Gibbon" zip-line course through the canopy of the forest. It's about 3 miles worth of cable zip-lines that stretch from treetop to treetop. The idea is that you fly from tree to tree like the Gibbon monkey, which are all over in the area. I gotta say it was the most fun I've had in a long time! There's nothing so exciting as climbing a hundred or so feet off the ground, strapping yourself to this half-inch cable, and launching yourself into midair hoping that the cable really is strong enough after a week of no PT and desert every night! You've got to trust your equipment or be a little crazy, I'll leave you to decide which I am... Of course one of the conditions for me joining the Army was going Airborne, I just had to spend some of my working hours jumping out of perfectly good planes!

The other place we spent time at was a sleepy little town called Pattaya. Of course by sleepy little town I mean compared to Las Vegas... It's a fun little resort town that's full of sun, sand, and an incredible nightlife. The tourist T-shirt that we saw everywhere reads: "Good guy goes to heaven, Bad guy goes to Pattaya." Funny, and unfortunately true. The north side is pretty family friendly, but the further south you go, well the further south you go... But I won't get into that... We found a great 4 star resort across the street from the beach and spent our time doing exactly what someone should do on vacation, nothing! That's my kind of break... where the biggest decision of the day is "Do I want to read by the pool or read on the beach?"

One of the few activities that we planned while there was learning how to scuba dive. It's one of the strangest things to force yourself to stick your head underwater and take a deep breath. However, once you convince your body that it can breath underwater, it's an awesome experience. The sea truly is like another world, full of the strangest and coolest of creatures. I ran into giant jellyfish, sea-horses, eels, sea turtles, and even a sting ray. I'm hooked!

The sanctuary of truth, a temple honoring all the religions of the world.

On the Road Again...

Sgt. McKenna sitting on some plywood to keep it from blowing away.

After I arrived back home on Sharana I ran into Sgt. Neal. He practically hugged me when I finally showed up... Sgt. Neal and I spend most of our time on the road visiting the troops. But for the three weeks I was gone on vacation he was stuck in the office. There are only so many projects that you can do before the walls start to feel like they are closing in, especially when you're used to traveling as much as we are. So needless to say no sooner did I get unpacked then he was throwing me back on a bird to start moving again! Can't say I blame him either...

One of the problems with being on vacation is that the work doesn't stop. You all know what it feels like coming home from 2 weeks of relaxation only to be greeted by a mountain of mail, 32 voice messages, and 500 emails most of which are spam. Well, vacations from the front are no different. My board (the spreadsheet that tracks how long it's been since a location has been visited) looked like a scene from a low budget slasher movie. Tons of red and amber locations, only a few still in the green. Thankfully a brother priest did make it to some of my FOBs, so it wasn't too terrible. Still, we had a lot of catching up to do.

Sgt. Siebeda getting the donkeys ready to take supplies up the hill at COP Tillman.

One of the complications we also faced is the tight Brigade standard we're told to meet. Normally the standard is that each location must be visited once every 20 days for Protestant chaplains, once every 30 days for Catholic chaplains. The difference is due to the fact that there are so few Catholic priests in the Army. Catholic priests usually provide Catholic support over an area covered by 3 Protestant chaplains, meaning I visit 3 times the number of locations as some of my brother chaplains. There's simply no way I can keep the same standard and maintain my sanity. Yet our Brigade command has asked us to visit every FOB once every 15 days, for both Catholic and Protestant services. It's a hard standard to meet, but it's good that our command takes religious support so seriously. Unfortunately my Brigade Chaplain gets chewed out week after week for all the locations over 15 days. To his credit though, he never passes on the pain to his chaplains (at least never to me). His consistent message to us is simply: "Keep on swimming..." Which is very Christo-centric. Like Jesus on the cross, he takes the worst the world can dish out and absorbs it, transforming it into peace, hope, and encouragement. (Yes, I just compared Ch. Lewis to Jesus, and he's not even on my distro-list!)

Gathering the Brothers

Because there are so few priests in Afghanistan (12 for the entire country), we run the risk of burn-out. So a few times a year we are all called together for a couple days of rest, sharing of stories, and general training. It's a nice conference, and I thoroughly enjoyed the last one I attended. However this latest gathering was scheduled only 5 days after I got back from R&R. My board was red, my command was telling me to move, and I couldn't bear the thought of sitting in one place for three days. Fortunately for us, despite our best attempts to get out of it, we were directed in no uncertain terms that our presence was not optional and our absence would be noted (it is hard to slip through the cracks when there's only 12 of you)! So, off to BAF!

The gathering was truly a lot of fun, and very informative. Despite my earlier attempts to duck out I was actually very glad to attend. It's always good and rewarding to gather a bunch of priests together, especially a bunch of priests doing something crazy like ministering in a war-zone! The stories and jokes alone was worth the hassles and discomforts of BAF. (When we stay there we live in a 30'x100' tent with maybe 100-150 other guys. The nights are cold, the days are hot, and the jets coming and going keep you up all night. It's a terrible place to get a good nights sleep!)

The Chapel at Kuwait, I spent a lot of time on that couch!

The training for this gathering consisted of briefings on: finding balance (vital for a chaplain in the battlefield), recognizing and treating PTSD, Chaplains and Mental Health professionals working together, and a review of the commander's vision for the war in Afghanistan. From the list of topics you can see that it was a full day packed with some great and very relevant information. But the highlights, above all, were the 20 minute breaks between conferences where we would make our Green Beans and Dairy Queen runs. Just imagine 12 chaplains running 200 yards down the street to the food court, shouting out their orders, and then running back to make the next meeting! (Ok, so we never actually ran to or from the food court, we were very courteous when giving our orders, and we always stretched that 20 minutes into 30 or more... Hey, 2 of the priests were Lt Colonels, who were constantly telling us younger guys to slow down and relax! So really we weren't late, we were just obeying orders, right?!?)

PICS PAGE!

Sgt. Siebeda hooking up a slingload under a Chinook. How'd you like that job!

The rear gunner hanging out. You can see a second Chinook following us.

LTC Martin is on leave, his stand-in is not quite as animated.

Sgt. Neal's last mission before R&R leave. I don't know, he looks pretty relaxed to me already...

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Care packages ready to be sent out to troops all over East Afghanistan.

Once again, the final page of this newsletter is dedicated to all those that have sent stuff forward to us to be distributed to the troops. One of the great joys and blessings of being a chaplain is that I get to give away a lot of stuff. Chaplains are always very good at seeing a need, and then acquiring the resources needed to ease that need and make the lives of their guys a little easier. Chaplains hand out snacks and supplies to troops, organize coffee house gatherings, set up movie theaters and book clubs, and distribute humanitarian aid to locals. The resources for this comes partly from the Army, but mainly from the contacts each chaplain has nurtured back home. Churches, families, and charities like Adopt-A-Chaplain, Adopt-A-Platoon, Anysoldier, Soldiers Angels, Operation Gratitude, Operation Carepackage, and many many more fill our offices with boxes that get sorted and set back out to those that need them the most. Every day we receive packages from home, every day is like Christmas not only for Sgt. Neal and I, but also for the guys we visit each month. We send out about 5 care packages to 15 locations each month, which not only boosts morale but also opens the door to meaningful talks about faith. The snacks are located just outside my office for a reason, it gives guys that might be a little reluctant to see me another reason to stop by... Of course none of these great things would happen without you. So thank you thank you thank you for making a difference, not only in my life but also helping me make an impact in the life of an American Soldier.

Centurion Faith!

Rest and Rejuvenation

Heaven? Or Pattaya?

On the Road Again...

Gathering the Brothers

PICS PAGE!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!