By Admin 27 October 2009. Filed in News & Commentary.
0Employees 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 of a shortage at the Base Exchange where the Eagle Point resident is stationed in Tallil, Iraq.
By Admin 26 October 2009. Filed in Deployment.
0A 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 to make 10,000 school kits for Iraqi children.
READ MORE from The Catholic Review
By Admin 26 October 2009. Filed in News & Commentary.
0Never 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 Red Lion, Cardin and other counselors held reintegration counseling seminars for members of Bravo Battery, based out of the Longview National Guard Armory, which returned from its second tour of Iraq in August.
Cardin said the Army started the seminars after realizing “that deployments have some impact on soldiers and families,” he said. “The program got started because we were seeing too many failures.”
By Admin 18 October 2009. Filed in News & Commentary.
0FAIRBANKS — 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 for better marriages.
For the past three days, Lt. Col Jack Woodford, chaplain for Task Force 49, has been going over tips for a successful marriage at the Strong Bonds Training for Couples retreat. In the closing hour of the session, he reminds the couples, none of whom are in uniform, to “sharpen the saw,” to work every day to improve their marriage, and he leaves them with a parting word about intimacy.
READ MORE from Daily News-Miner
By Admin 18 October 2009. Filed in Chaplain Assistants.
0KANDAHAR, 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 to Kandahar, Afghanistan.
“I felt called back to the service,” said Raymond. “Soldiers are married with families and are completing multiple deployments; specifically I really wanted to help Soldiers with the problems that come from those two areas.”
By Admin 18 October 2009. Filed in Chaplain Assistants.
0KANDAHAR, 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 Assistant for the 4th Engineer Battalion.
According to Ayala, his recruiter recommended the chaplain assistant military occupation specialty after learning that he enjoyed bible study and church events in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas.
“He asked me if I wanted to be a chaplain assistant,” said Ayala. “He told me the basics; set up religious services, give administrative support, and protect the chaplain.”
Ayala has been a chaplain assistant for seven years. He joined the Army September 2003 and presently is on his first tour in Afghanistan after two tours in Iraq.
By Admin 10 October 2009. Filed in Chaplain Assistants.
0KANDAHAR 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 aid. One hundred years later, chaplain assistants still fill a crucial need by supporting their assigned chaplain in a broad range of areas, from secretarial work to physical protection.
Chaplain assistants for the Joint Sustainment Command-Afghanistan, Sgt. Lindsay A. Canterbury and Spc. Joshua A. Sennett, fill a time honored role in the Army while deployed to Kandahar Airfield.
“Chaplain assistants do a myriad of things that multiply the time the chaplain has to give to Soldiers,” said Chaplain (Col.) Stanley Puckett, the JSC-A command chaplain.
By Admin 9 October 2009. Filed in Deployment.
0CONTINGENCY 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 FB with an open door to talk, spiritual guidance and a friend in their time of need.
“It all begins with a call to serve God,” said King as he reminisced on the steps that led him to become a chaplain. “I was a teenager when I first gave my life to Christ and I can remember having this longing to serve in mission work. I did a few mission trips and enjoyed them. Early on, I wanted to be a youth pastor, but ended up teaching high school instead.”
By Admin 9 October 2009. Filed in News & Commentary.
0American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains of two US battalions that have spent nine months on the front line in the war against the Taleban.
Many feel that they are risking their lives — and that colleagues have died — for a futile mission and an Afghan population that does nothing to help them, the chaplains told The Times in their makeshift chapel on this fortress-like base in a dusty, brown valley southwest of Kabul.
“The many soldiers who come to see us have a sense of futility and anger about being here. They are really in a state of depression and despair and just want to get back to their families,” said Captain Jeff Masengale, of the 10th Mountain Division’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion.
By Admin 6 October 2009. Filed in News & Commentary.
0A famous quote, from English poet John Donne, says, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of a continent, a part of a main.”
Similarly, no Soldier comes to the Army without a host of past experiences and some version of a family or network of friendships.
The sacrifices made in order to complete the mission are shared. As a military involved in a prolonged conflict, the biggest challenge the Army faces is developing the resiliency of their Soldiers and loved ones.
“It is very evident that relationships are under an immense amount of stress,” said Maj. Darin Nielsen, 1st Armored Division family life chaplain.
