Store employees gather items for troops
Employees of the Medford J.C. Penney store are rallying to send a box of supplies to soldiers in Iraq by the end of the month at the request of a store manager-turned-chaplain assistant. Sgt. Jean Turner, a full-time store manager on deployment with the Oregon National Guard, e-mailed fellow employees asking for basic supplies because [...]
Baltimore priest helps school children in Iraq
A Baltimore military chaplain serving in Iraq is helping put scarce school supplies into the hands of Iraqi students. Father Tyson Wood, a U.S. Army major, is one of many Americans involved in “Operation Back to School” at Camp Taji, Iraq – a humanitarian effort to collect enough notebooks, pencils, paper, rulers and other supplies [...]
Local families learn to help returning troops adjust
Never stop at red lights or drive slowly when you’re in a war zone. If another vehicle gets too close, ram it. “It’s one of the survival skills over there,” Army Chaplain Bill Cardin said. Returning soldiers have to relearn civilian driving along with everything else — especially relationships, Cardin said. Sunday at the Kelso [...]
Soldiers learning to adjust to life after returning from Iraq
FAIRBANKS — It’s a cool Wednesday morning in September in Fairbanks, the type of fall morning on which you might see soldiers at nearby Fort Wainwright out for a run. But instead of training their bodies, 19 soldiers from Task Force 49’s 6th Squadron, 17th Cavalry and their wives are at the Alpine Lodge, training [...]
Chaplain Assistant Called Into Service
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Spc. Michael Raymond, assigned to the 19th Engineer Battalion, has a calling, he returned to the Army to help Soldiers. After a 12-year hiatus following his first enlistment from 1990 to 1994, Raymond re-entered the Army September 2007 with the chaplain assistant military occupation specialty. He is currently on a 12-month deployment [...]
Chaplain Assistants Not Just Bodyguards
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – For the past 100 years Army chaplain assistants have been protecting and teaming up with chaplains to provide religious support for Soldiers and families across the full spectrum of military operations. “I didn’t know they existed in the Army. The recruiter brought it to my attention,” reminisced Sgt. Esteban Ayala Ramirez, Chaplain [...]
Chaplain Assistants Fill a Time Honored Role in Afghanistan
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – The role of the U. S. Army chaplain assistant can be traced back to the American Civil War. Officially, the military occupational specialty now identified as 56M began in 1909 when the Chief of Staff of the Army authorized that each chaplain have one enlisted Soldier assigned to him as an [...]
Chaplain provides guidance, friendship in time of need
CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq – “As a civilian pastor I can’t go to your office to check up on you, but as an Army chaplain, everywhere you go, that’s where I am,” said Chap. (Maj.) Michael J. King, 17th Fires Brigade, from Vine Grove, Ky. King’s job is to provide Soldiers of the 17th [...]
