CLERGY on DUTY : Chaplains Answer the Call on Air, Land, Sea

When President Bush watched U.S. soldiers performing war games in the Mojave Desert recently, he warned them that despite plans to scale back forces in Europe and Asia, America must remain “prepared to fight.”

“God bless you . . . and now, back to war,” he told the Ft. Irwin troops as they paused briefly in their simulated battle between the United States and a Red Army brigade.

The President’s remarks were reminiscent of another line: “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!” immortalized at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Chaplain Howell M. Forgy shouted the encouragement to a chain of men loading guns aboard the cruiser New Orleans.

The tradition of the U.S. military chaplain walking a fine line, upholding the principles of religion and peace in organizations geared to the rigors of war, dates to the Civil War, when Army chaplains ministered to soldiers on the battlefield.

And it continues today. In the latest U.S. military skirmish in Panama, chaplains from the 7th Infantry Division at Ft. Ord and the 82nd Airborne Division from Ft. Bragg, N.C.--testing their mettle in the throes of battle after a long period of peace--went along with the troops.

“The airborne chaplains parachuted right down with them,” said Lt. Col. Dean Ruddle, chaplain recruiter for the 6th Army.

Lt. Col. John Wells, division chaplain for the 7th Infantry, compared the experience to Vietnam and said it was the first time since 1968 that chaplains and chaplains’ assistants were deployed as a unit to a combat situation.

“I’m pretty proud of our division,” he said of the 16 chaplains under him. “Battalion chaplains were as close to the front lines as possible . . . giving a spiritual presence and a calmness prior to battle.”

The need for chaplains will decrease accordingly if U.S. troop strength and military installations are reduced decisively, as proposed by the Defense Department. More than 100 military installations around the world have been proposed for elimination or consolidation because of the relaxing of tensions in Eastern Europe.

But military chaplains are not now an endangered species. In fact, military recruiters predict that a shortage of Roman Catholic chaplains will continue for the foreseeable future. And despite the changing atmosphere, events such as the U.S. invasion of Panama could happen again.

So far, only the Navy has indicated plans to slightly reduce its chaplain corps--from a present 1,138 to 1,116 by 1994. The Navy also supplies the Marines and Coast Guard with chaplains. Spokesmen for the Army and Air Force said it is too early to tell what cuts, if any, the military reductions will mean for their chaplains.

Nearly 12,000 military chaplains and assistants of 162 faiths serve 3.8 million members of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, National Guard and reserves and their families, in addition to military veterans. Leaders of these ministers in uniform agree that their work and religious ideals are neither inconsistent nor compromised.

“It’s tough to talk about the peace of Jesus while working on an ammunition ship,” conceded Rear Adm. Alvin B. Koeneman, Navy chief of chaplains. “But sailors live in that situation. Someone needs to be there to live the contradiction with them and wrestle with it.”

Added Maj. Gen. Norris Einertson, Army chief of chaplains: “My parishioners (Army personnel) are contributing to peace in a troubled world. The military’s first function is to keep the peace, not make war.”

And Lt. Col. Walter H. Quandt, senior chaplain at George Air Force Base near Barstow, said: “No one in the military wants war, but we are asked by our country to be ready.”

Readiness for the Army means looking for a few more good men--352, to be exact--to become Roman Catholic chaplains, as well as several more rabbis, both male and female. Despite plans to slightly reduce its overall chaplain corps in four years, the Navy would like 15 more Jewish chaplains and 20 Catholic priests. The Air Force needs 30 more Roman Catholic and two Eastern Orthodox priests.

The military doesn’t yet have a Buddhist chaplain, but that is expected soon. Two years ago, the Defense Department for the first time authorized the Buddhist chaplaincy. And when he is commissioned, the Rev. Hiroshi Abiko, who serves the Palo Alto Buddhist Temple in Northern California, will become the first official U.S. military chaplain of his faith.

Because quotas for military chaplains roughly follow the percentages of personnel identifying with each faith group, the Roman Catholic Church, representing from one-fourth to one-third of military personnel, requires the single largest number of chaplains. But, according to Archbishop Joseph T. Ryan, who heads the nation’s Archdiocese for the Military Services, the Catholic share of the chaplain corps is only 13%, with a current total of 681 chaplains on active duty.

The shortage of Catholic chaplains is especially acute in the Army, where the ratio of active-duty priests to Catholic personnel is about 1 to 2,500.

“A priest in field maneuvers may do eight to 10 Masses a weekend--minimum,” said Maj. Gregory P. Sykes, Catholic chaplain recruiter in Washington.

According to Maj. Charles Gunti, another full-time Army chaplain recruiter, mailings and brochures have gone out to every priest in the United States, asking them to consider a shorter, two-year (instead of three-year) stint in the chaplaincy before returning to a civilian parish. In addition, older priests are now allowed to stay on active duty to age 65--three years past the usual mandatory retirement.

At the same time, the Army chaplains’ office is advertising for priests in the Catholic press and has hired a high-powered New York advertising agency to plug a “chaplain candidate” program. The plan is designed to induce seminarians to enter the Army Reserve or National Guard and be paid while still in school. After ordination, commissioning and three years’ pastoral experience in a civilian diocese, the candidate would be ready for active duty as a chaplain.

“As an Army priest,” says a recruiting brochure, “you’ll minister to officers and enlisted men and women, their family members, hospital patients, prisoners. You’ll officiate at a wedding one day, hear confession in a pine forest the next.”

But despite aggressive recruiting at most of the nation’s Catholic seminaries, the Army is gaining an average of 14 new priests a year, and retirees are outpacing new recruits. The Navy and Air Force chaplain candidate programs are having only slightly better results attracting Catholic priests.

Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of white male Protestant candidates from major denominations. And chaplains representing conservative, evangelical churches are in abundant supply. But chaplains of racial minority groups and female chaplains tend to be under-represented.

Because the overall number of U.S. Catholic priests has declined drastically during the last two decades, competition is keen for the few men who are preparing for ordination. And some bishops are reluctant to see their valuable priests disappear from the local scene for far-off military duty.

In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation’s most populous with 3.5 million Catholics, 83,000 members serve in the armed forces worldwide. But there are only 11 active-duty military chaplains, including three serving the Veterans Administration.

Although four seminarians in final years of study at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo are preparing for the chaplaincy, the school--which supplies priests for the archdiocese--is one of a handful that no longer allow chaplain recruiting on campus.

Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony “thinks we are sheep-stealing, I’ve been told,” Army recruiter Gunti said in a telephone interview.

Msgr. George Niedenauer, rector at St. John’s Seminary, said the school doesn’t allow new chaplain candidates because the seminary’s summer internship program conflicts with the chaplain candidacy summer camp. But Gunti said the conflict could be worked out: “We work with other seminaries that have similar arrangements.”

Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, vicar for Los Angeles priests, said the archdiocese’s policy is to replace a priest who returns from active duty with another chaplain. But, if they don’t return to the archdiocese--or if they die or retire while in the military--”we tend not to replace them,” Curry explained.

The two dozen reserve and active-duty chaplains interviewed for this story said their military service had been a good experience; many said they would like to make the chaplaincy a career.

“So far, I love it,” said Lt. Betty Lawson, 31, who has been a Navy chaplain for four months.

Lawson works with up to 1,600 all-male boot-camp recruits between the ages of 18 and 21 at the Naval Training Station in San Diego. Her husband, Greg, is also a Navy chaplain, assigned to the 450-member crew of the cruiser William H. Standley in San Diego.

Lawson, ordained by an independent evangelical charismatic church group, said she finds “nothing negative” in working strictly with men.

“When people need a chaplain, they’re looking for someone who can help; they don’t care if it’s a man or a woman,” she said. Overall, women make up 10.8% of the armed forces.

A highlight of her work, Lawson said, is “seeing these recruits very involved in worship.”

The San Diego training station has one of the largest religious programs in the Navy, offering 13 worship services each weekend--including Jewish, Seventh-day Adventist, Roman Catholic, “general” Protestant, Latter-day Saints (Mormon), Eastern Orthodox, Islam and Church of Christ.

Lawson works with 15 other chaplains, including Lt. Mark Koczak, one of the Navy’s nine Orthodox priests. Like most chaplains, Koczak spends a major share of his time counseling--385 personnel sought him out in the last three months.

And what do they talk about? “Getting out of the Navy and changing orders (assignments) are the two big concerns,” Koczak said.

Chaplain Ruddle, a Seventh-day Adventist, said he is challenged to help young members of the military “find answers and values in life when they find themselves with a gun in their hands . . . things they’re not willing to face out there in civilian life.”

Col. Shimon Paskow, an Army Reserve rabbi, is attached to the Health Services Command and also serves a temple in Thousand Oaks. He thinks chaplains have a special entree to 18- to 30-year-olds and that rabbis should be “more involved” in the chaplaincy.

Lt. Col. John Dawson, pastor of St. Sebastian’s Catholic Parish in West Los Angeles and an Army Reserve chaplain, likes the authority a chaplain wields.

“The chaplaincy is an escape valve to relieve stress; you can cut through red tape for immediate or pressing problems. You can go to whoever is in charge--including the general,” he said.

The chaplains mentioned other reasons they prefer the military life: the stimulation of working with those of different faiths; overseas assignments; unlimited accessibility to personnel in an informal atmosphere, and relative freedom from administrative tasks found in civilian parishes, such as dealing with church mortgages and raising funds.

But there are drawbacks too.

Frequent moves, family separations and hardship assignments can take their toll, chaplains said. Because of rotation, personnel turnover at a typical Air Force base is about 100% within three years, according to Chaplain Quandt of George AFB, making for a transient congregation rather than a longtime ministry.

And chaplains affiliated with minority religious groups sometimes find the going lonely when they are isolated from other clergy of their faith, Eastern Orthodox Chaplain Koczak noted.

Still, few chaplains seemed ready to turn in their military insignia.

“The luster still continues,” says Air Force Col. Bill Mattimore, 63, with 33 years experience as a chaplain. “Working with people has been the best thing for me.”

CHAPLAIN STRENGTH Protestant military chaplains are slightly above required quotas, but a critical need exists for more Roman Catholic priests. Jewish chaplains are also under-represented.

EXISTING NEEDED CATHOLIC 681 1,696 PROTESTANT 2,792 2,674 ORTHODOX 26 28 JEWISH 45 62 TOTAL 3,544 4,460

SOURCE: U.S. Armed Forces chaplain recruiters