My 15-month deployment to Iraq as a chaplain in the US Army just came to an end, and in a strange way, I was a bit sad to go.
I’m going to miss the people I’ve met, the friends I’ve made, and, of course, the action and adventure. But I know it was time to go home.
I left my house in Malden last year and reported to the US Army Chaplain School at Fort Jackson, S.C. Upon graduation, I was assigned to the Third Infantry Division in Savannah, Ga. By mid-May 2007, I was on a plane to Iraq.
I’m a battalion chaplain with a Blackhawk helicopter unit. We were based in Baghdad.
My primary responsibility was to look after the spiritual and religious needs of the roughly 400 soldiers in my battalion. I performed Jewish services on my base. About once a month, I’d take a ride in a Blackhawk to visit Jewish soldiers at other bases around the country, giving them a taste of home, if only for a day or two.
For the first half of my deployment, I was the only Jewish chaplain in Iraq.
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