Category Archives: PTSD

March 6, 2011 · 19:42

Notes on a Trip to Houston

I have been travelling this week to a Chaplain and Clergy conference of my church, the Apostolic Catholic Orthodox Church in Houston Texas. It has been a really interesting trip. Just a few notes to make as I sit in the back of a cab on the way out to Houston Intercontinental Airport and in the terminal while awaiting my flight.

I am not a big fan of flying anymore and find commercial air in the United States to be a bit more nerve wracking than flying military air in Iraq. There I was treated well and not as a criminal when trying to get aboard an aircraft. I think that the Patriot Act and the TSA has determined that we are all guilty until proven innocent because we wither choose to fly or due to business, even on military orders have to fly. After my criticisms of both the TSA and the Patriot Act last year I was shocked that I have not been put on the no-fly list or selected to have my junk fondled.

In a surprise I found that the agents for U.S. Air were much more polite and helpful than in years past both at Norfolk and Houston. At Norfolk an agent figured out that I was military by my trusty desert tan Blackhawk backpack which has accompanied me almost everywhere since I went to Iraq back in 2007 and made sure that I or you being the taxpayer were not charged for my baggage. The flight crews were also friendly and the check-in personnel at Houston were also polite and helpful and did the same as Norfolk regarding my baggage.

While still having to go through the screening procedure the TSA personnel were better than many that I have encountered and I was not forced to have my junk fondled or go through the super high intensity x-ray machine. Unlike many TSA checkpoints that I have been through I had the agent that checked my ID and boarding pass was polite and called me by my military rank.  This may not seem like a big deal except that I have been accosted in uniform at some TSA checkpoints and forced to remove insignia qualification badges and ribbons despite having my ID and orders in hand while people that were obviously foreign and wearing Middle Eastern garb were permitted through without so much as batting an eyelash.  Thus when I am treated politely by TSA I do think that it is a big deal. That takes nothing away from my beliefs that the Patriot Act and the TSA act as though people are guilty until proven innocent and are egregious violations of the Constitution and the Civil Rights of Americans.

While on flight from Charlotte to Houston I sat next to a man about my age. I noticed that he had a Bible and throughout the flight seemed very engrossed in it and when he looked up appeared as if his gaze was far away. I noticed that he was reading 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and I mentioned that my one of my favorite sections of the Bible was there. He ask which and I pointed out verses 17-21 about those in Christ being new creations and that God was reconciling the World through Christ counting people’s since not against them and that we were Christ’s ambassadors.  He struck up a bit of a conversation with me and mentioned that he was a minister on the staff of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg Virginia and that he was on his way to Texas because his father had just died after a battle with Cancer and that he would be doing his funeral. I had been writing “A Ballgame with St. Pete” and remembering my own father’s death last summer so I gave him my condolences and shared just a bit about losing my dad and how I could not do the funeral because of the emotion involved.  It was nice to be there for someone going through this as the trip to bury a loved one can be one of the loneliest times of one’s life.

The conference was wonderful and in the time together we had many hours of productive discussion of church business, developments in the professional pastoral care world and care for each other. I found that I fit in well and felt an instant kinship with my fellow clergy which in my case for the first time in church included ordained women. My previous church had a male only clergy. I found how much I appreciate the Old Catholic ethos of being a refuge, a place of healing and a place of openness which upholds the teachings of the first seven councils of the Ancient Church and strives for thru ecumenical Catholicity.  Bishop Diana Dale our Presiding Bishop is a gem and I felt kinship with the people that I met. I miss the friends that I served with in the Charismatic Episcopal Church for over 14 years I know that I am in the right place.

After our last formal business session on Saturday we went to get to the San Jacinto Battlefield and while some went to the Memorial to the Texas Independence Memorial some of us went over to the USS Texas to see this last example of the Dreadnought era battleships. I have wanted to see the Texas for many years and have written about her on this site. It was interesting to note despite the fact that she was commissioned 98 years ago that much is still the same in current Navy ships. Yes things were a lot more primitive but at the same time much was the same.  It was really a nice expedition with Robert one of my fellow Priests from Maryland and Gale our senior Deacon who comes from Iowa.

After the trip we went out to a Mexican restaurant named Ninfa’s where the Fajita was invented. One thing about that trip was when we were told that our table was ready. The restaurant was very busy and we waited in the bar. When we were called we were led in and on our right a man, obviously military was giving thanks for the meal with his family. They were holding hands and he had a very loud and clear voice and I heard this little bit. “Father I thank you for being home with my family and that I have returned safe from Afghanistan, please bring a swift end to this war….” That was all that I heard but it was enough to get me to pause and realize that it was my prayer too.  I think that some people wrongly believe that those that serve in the professional military are warmongers when in fact I know that many have no illusions about this war and after 10 years many, especially the regular career professionals in the officer and senior NCO ranks feel the same way.  It was a poignant moment.  We know that the current war will go on and most of us are convinced that the situation around the world is going to cause us to be embroiled in even more conflicts.

I think there was one other significant thing about this trip. I was able to control my anxiety and did not have any PTSD meltdowns in any of the terminals or crowded situations. Not to say that I was entirely comfortable or without anxiety but that unlike many of the trips that I have made since returning from Iraq I did not suffer any panic attacks.

This morning we had an ordination service for a new Deacon which was really nicely done with the traditional Ordination of a Deacon Liturgy and Mass. After that was done I had to make a quick change to catch a cab back to the airport.  I look forward to being home for a bit before Judy comes with me to help me settle in to my new island hermitage on Tuesday.

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

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February 3, 2011 · 23:55

Contemplating the Past, Present and Future: The Third Anniversary of Leaving Iraq

 

“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.” Robert E. Lee

I began my flight home from the Middle East three years ago today. Three years ago I could not imagine what has transpired in my life since neither my return nor the situation that we see developing in Egypt.  It has been three years but it feels longer.  I have recounted my PTSD and psychological collapse as well as my crisis of faith which for nearly two years left me a practical agnostic numerous times so I will not say much about them in this article except to say while I still suffer from the effects of both I am doing better and faith has returned.

The war in Iraq changed me. I saw the suffering of the people of Iraq that the conservative media to which I had been wedded for years ignored or distorted.

Likewise when I came home to the nastiness of the 2008 Presidential Election I was unprepared for it. To see my countrymen tearing each other apart with increasingly violent rhetoric as well as the militancy of some was deeply unsettling and was a part of my collapse because I felt like my country was plunging into the abyss of hatred.

Since I have seen the tragic and long lasting effects of the unbridled hatred among former friends and neighbors in the Balkans as well as Iraq I know that anything is possible when we make the subtle shift from viewing fellow Americans as political opponents to mortal enemies to whom we equate every vice and evil.  What has happened to us?  Last night I responded to a dear family friend who has kept sending me e-mails of such intense anger and even hatred regarding those that he believes are destroying the country. I had to tell him that I could no longer go to those places and told him things that I have experienced after Iraq. He is older and both he and his wife have been sick and are isolated.  They are good people but I have not heard back from him.

Likewise the sense of abandonment I felt from my former church as well as many clergy and chaplains did nothing to help my faith. For the first time I realized how deeply that I needed other Christians and for the most part few were there for me, my brokenness made me radioactive to many.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening.”


Despite this healing came but also change which I think actually has been good for me and for the ministry that I am called to as a Priest and Chaplain.  While healing has begun I am cognizant of my own wounds and how they affect how I deal with life and others. I pray that they have made me a better vessel of the grace of God and his love.

Tonight I am somewhat contemplative. I have turned off the news and I am watching a movie called Lost Command starring Anthony Quinn.  It is an adaptation of Jean Larteguy’s novel The Centurions which is about the French Paratroops in Indo-China and Algeria.  These were men who after surviving Viet Minh prison camps after the fall of Dien Bien Phu were almost immediately redeployed to fight the insurgency in Algeria, sometimes against former Algerian comrades who were now part of the Algerian independence movement. Algeria was brutal and though the French had militarily defeated the insurgency they still lost the war, and for many soldiers part of their souls which were sacrificed for their country.

It has been three years since I stepped on the aircraft to come home and in some ways miss Iraq and my friends American and Iraqi. I watch as that nation and its people struggle.  I watch the continuing war in Afghanistan and emerging danger in Egypt and much of the Arab world I wonder what further sacrifices our Marines, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen will have to make if the chaos spreads and if the violence will again come to our shores.  I wonder if our politicians from both parties will support us or abandon us even as we fight.

I remember my time in Iraq well. I can see the faces of my friends; remember the hospitality of the advisors that I spent my time with and the friendship of Iraqi Officers.  Sometimes the memories seem so real especially when I look into the eyes of those that served in Iraq. Fallujah, Ta-Qaddum, Habbinyah, Al Asad, Al Waleed, Al Qaim, Korean Village, Ramadi and its various neighborhoods, Hit, Baghdadi, COP North and COP South and what seems like a hundred more locations in Al Anbar Province from villages to small outposts.

I remember thousands of miles in helicopters, C-130s and in convoys, the smell of Jet Fuel, Diesel and hydraulic fluid which always seemed to find me in any helicopter I rode in.   I hear the helicopters fly overhead, some even tonight. I close my eyes and it feels like I am in Iraq again.

I am somewhat melancholy tonight, that war is never far away and unfortunately there are more to come.  But tomorrow is another day.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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January 6, 2011 · 00:00

Introduction to “I Believe please Help Me Believe: The Apostle’s Creed for those Who Struggle with Faith”

“God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him.” Jürgen Moltmann

This is the first of a series of essays on the topic of doubt and faith related to the Apostle’s Creed.  There was a time in my life that faith in God, for me the Christian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit was something that I pretty much took for granted until I had my own crisis of faith when I returned from Iraq in 2008.  It was that crisis where for all practical purposes I was an agnostic trying to believe while feeling abandoned by God and many of his people.  That crisis has etched a permanent scar in my soul which has led to some fairly major changes in my life but even more so forced me to actually enter what Saint John of the Cross called the “Dark Night of the Soul.”

I will not tell of how my great spiritual disciplines helped me get through this as they did not. I found it hard to pray or believe in anything for nearly two years as I struggled with abandonment. I felt that God, the Church and the Navy had abandoned me.  I was losing my battle with PTSD during that time, depressed, anxious and despairing I threw myself into my work among the critically ill ICU patients and those that cared for them.  Christmas Eve of 2008 was spent in despair as I wandered through the darkness on a cold night after leaving Mass because I could not get through it.

Though I found a community and camaraderie among those that I worked with and tried to provide spiritual care for my own condition grew worse, so much so that my clinical duties had to be curtailed in September of 2009.  I still stood the overnight duty and filled in for others as needed but for a number of months I had no ward assignments.  On one of the on call nights not long before Christmas I received a call to the ER where I was called to give the last rites to a retired Navy Medical Doctor who was a true Saint, faithful to God, his Church and the community where for years he had dedicated much of his practice to the poorest members of the community to include prisoners in the Portsmouth City Jail. He breathed his last as I prayed this prayer following the anointing of the sick:

Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world;

In the Name of God the Father Almighty who created you;

In the Name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you;

In the Name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you.

May your rest be this day in peace,

and your dwelling place in the Paradise of God.

Something happened that night and by Christmas Eve I realized that something was happening to me. As I wrote in Padre Steve’s Christmas Miracle on Christmas Eve of 2009 following an incredibly busy day full of life and death situations and ministry which amazed me:

“Mid afternoon I was walking down the hall and I experienced a wave of emotion flood over me, and unlike the majority of emotions that I have felt in the past couple of years this was different.  It was a feeling of grace and I guess the presence of God.  I went up and talked with Elmer the shrink about what I was feeling and the experience was awesome, I was in tears as I shared, not the tears of sadness, but of grace.  I am beginning to re-experience the grace of God, something that has been so long absent that I did not expect it, at least right now.  I didn’t do anything differently; I certainly was not working extra hard to pray more, get more spiritual or pack my brain full of Bible verses.  I was too far gone to do those things.  It was all I could do many mornings just to get out of bed and come to work.”

Since that time I have continued to recover faith and belief. I cannot say that it is the same kind of faith that I had before Iraq. No this was different, it was faith born of the terrible emptiness and pain of abandonment and despair, a faith that is not content with easy answers and not afraid to ask questions.  It is a faith in Jesus Christ, the crucified one who’s image we see hanging from the crucifix and adorning icons of the Crucifixion. It is as Jürgen Moltmann wrote in The Crucified God:

“The Symbol of the Crucifix in church points to the God who was crucified not between two candles on an altar, but between two thieves in the place of the skull, where the outcasts belong, outside the gates of the city. It is a symbol which therefore leads out of the church and out of religious longing in to the fellowship of the oppressed and abandoned. On the other hand, it is a symbol which calls the oppressed and godless into the church and through the church into the fellowship of the crucified God”

My Philosophy of Religion Professor in seminary, Dr. Yandall Woodfin told us in class that until we had “dealt with the reality of suffering and death we were not doing Christian theology.” At the time the words were offensive to me, but by the time I had graduated and also done a year of Clinical Pastoral Education they became a part of my experience, but even then that did not prepare me for the darkness that I lived in from February of 2008 until that Christmas Eve of 2009.  I would say that in addition to grappling with suffering and death that one has to add the abandonment of the outcast to the equation.

It is from this perspective that I will look at an ancient document that for many Christians is their Baptismal statement of faith or Creed.  ‘Credo in unum Deum’ “I Believe in God” is no longer for me simply a theological proposition which I both ascent to and defend, but rather an experience of God born out of pain, despair, anxiety, doubt, unbelief and abandonment finding almost no Christians willing to walk through the darkness with me, including clergy. It was if I was radioactive, many people had “answers” but none understood the questions and until my therapist Dr. Elmer Maggard asked me “how I was with the big guy?” and Commodore Tom Sitsch asked me “Where does a Chaplain go for help?”

When I finally collapsed in the summer of 2008 and met with Dr. Maggard I made a conscious decision that I would not hide what I was going through because I felt that if someone didn’t speak out then others like me wouldn’t seek help. In the nearly three years since I returned from Iraq I have encountered many people, men and women, current and former military personnel and families of veterans who came to me either in person or through this website.  Included were military chaplains also experiencing life and faith crisis. Most said that I was the first Chaplain or minister that they had met or read who said that he struggled with faith, belief and didn’t know if God existed.  In each of those encounters there was a glimmer of hope for me and I think for them, for the first time we had people that we could be open with.  Co-workers and others said that I was “real” and I certainly do not boast of that because it was painful to try to be transparent with people while in the depths of doubt and despair while hoping that somehow God would touch them with some measure of grace when I found it hard to believe.  I guess it was the fact that I was willing to walk, sometimes in unusual circumstances and locations with them even if it meant facing my own pain and doubt. I was learning something about being what Henri Nouwen called a wounded healer.  Nouwen wrote:

“Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not “How can we hide our wounds?” so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but “How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?” When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.”

My journey through the words of the Apostle’s Creed will be less of a doctrinal exposition than a pastoral narrative of rediscovering faith. It is my hope and prayer that this feeble and imperfect attempt to experience the Apostle’s Creed will be of help to people.  People like me that have experienced the terrible effects of a crisis of faith that leads a person into despair of even to the point of life itself and all that is good.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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December 13, 2010 · 23:08

Recovering My Spiritual Disciplines during Advent: Celtic Daily Prayer

A few months after I returned from Iraq my spiritual life fell apart. It felt like God was no longer there. It had been that way for a while but in June of 2008 the frustration and despair of the situation coupled with an emotional collapse had gotten the best of me and I stopped doing the various spiritual disciplines that had been an important part of my life as a Christian and Priest for years. I think the last really meaningful times that I had spent with God had been in Iraq and the sense of disorientation, loss and abandonment that I felt when I could no longer pray the Daily Office.

Now for those that don’t know what the Daily Office is, it is a form of prayer that is structured to included Psalms, Prayers and Scripture readings. There are a number of variants within the Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox traditions each with somewhat different emphasis but all similar. I would alternate between those from the Book of Common Prayer and the Catholic Liturgy of the hours. One year I did the Orthodox daily prayers.  I found different things in each that were helpful and version I found a lot that I liked and some things that I didn’t like as much.  The most helpful thing about the Daily Office for me was that it helped build an internal spiritual discipline and order in my life. Contrary to being limiting as some would think it was of great benefit.

However with my internal compass messed up and wondering if God even existed, the mere act of doing what used to bring order and joy to my life became an exercise in futility. I tried different rites to see if it was just me as well as different physical settings to see if something would work. None did and my spiritual crisis continued to grow as I felt estranged from my former church and felt abandoned by God and by some parts of the Navy.  Although I was struggling and people knew it no clergy of any kind asked about my spiritual life, it was my therapist that first asked me “how are you and the Big Guy doing?” I had to admit that I was not doing well with the “Big Guy” and wondered at times if he even existed.

I went through nearly two years of spiritual emptiness with glimmers of hope. Last year in what I describe as my “Christmas Miracle” faith began to return in the midst of the Sacrament of the anointing of the sick in our ER at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center.  In that simple act done on call at the in the final moments of a retired Navy doctor and Episcopal layman who had given himself to his church and the community faith returned.  He died as my hand was upon his head praying the final prayers of commendation. His wife said that he was holding on until I got there and a number of ER staff said that they had never seen anything like what happened.  When I left the next day I knew that something was different, I felt hope again and that maybe just maybe that God might very well exist.

This year has been a continuous yet slow time of spiritual growth. The act of prayer returned as did occasional spiritual reading and reflection. I also began to feel the sense of mystery and awe when celebrating or attending a Eucharist.  Now I was still struggling especially to rebuild my spiritual life, but after 2 years of not even knowing if God existed but it was a quantum improvement over being an agnostic.

Since moving to my new job I have been looking to see how to build structure back into my life using the daily office. I looked at the Roman Catholic Liturgy of the hours which I really like as well as the Book of Common Prayer which I had been using most recently but decided to wait until Advent and the new liturgical year to start. During this time one of my Chaplains shared the “Celtic Daily Prayer” of the Northumbria Community with me. I was hesitant to try something new at first but I respect this Chaplain who as an Evangelical Christian uses the Benedictine Daily Office of the Roman Catholic tradition.  One thing that attracted me to this variant of the Daily Office was its Celtic roots. Celtic Saints have played a part in my spiritual journey St Willibald of Eichstadt a Celtic missionary to Germany has the feast day associated with my ordination, his brother Wunibald an Abbott in Germany that of my Baptism, St Rupert of Salzburg my birthday and St Killian of Wurzburg  the Patron Saint of my first duty station as a Priest. I find great comfort and inspiration in the lives of these saints.

He loaned me his copy and over the weekend I began to explore it. Sunday night before going to bed I prayed the Sunday Night office of Compline.  Since the night is still one of my most difficult times when I struggle with insomnia as well as occasional nightmares, disturbing dreams and even on rare occasion night terrors related to my PTSD.  When I prayed this variant of Compline I felt peace descend and this morning I did the Morning Prayer. Of course I was at work and despite the fact that my door was closed it seemed everyone wanted my time. I was thinking, my God I’m trying to actually pray can’t I catch a break? I finally did and I really liked the order for Morning Prayer.  I am going to begin the Evening Prayer tomorrow and try to finish each night with the Office of Compline.   I am hopeful that the renewal that began last Advent in our ER will continue and become a major part of my spiritual renewal. I do like the basic vow of the Northumbria Community which is to live with Availability and Vulnerability
before God and others as one expression of living faithfully in a fragmented world. I have included the Sunday night Compline below.

Sunday – The Ita Compline

Ita, who died in about 570, was abbess of a women’s community in Killeedy, County Limerick in Ireland. She ran a school for boys where she taught: Faith in God with purity of heart; simplicity of life with religion; generosity with love.  Among those schooled by Ita was Brendan, who honoured her as his foster-mother and adviser. The Compline that follows is named after her because of its emphasis on examination of the heart, and the prayers of care and protection for each soul who crosses our path.

If this Compline is being used in a group setting the * notation indicates a change of reader; words in bold are said all together; words in bold italic are said by each person in turn; and + indicates where you might make the sign of the cross.

+ (silently)

The Sacred Three
to save
to shield
to surround
the hearth
the home
this night
and every night.

* Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Test me and know my thoughts.

* See if there is any wicked way in me
and lead me in the way everlasting.

O Father, O Son, O Holy Spirit,
forgive me my sins.
O only-begotten Son of the heavenly Father,
forgive.
O God who is one,
O God who is true,
O God who is first,
O God who is one substance,
O God only mighty,
in three Persons, truly merciful,
forgive.

* O God of life, this night,
O darken not to me Thy light.

* O God of life, this night,
close not Thy gladness to my sight.

* Keep Your people, Lord,
in the arms of Your embrace.
Shelter them under Your wings.

* Be their light in darkness.
Be their hope in distress.
Be their calm in anxiety.

* Be strength in their weakness.

* Be their comfort in pain.

* Be their song in the night.

In peace will I lie down, for it is You, O Lord,
You alone who makes me to rest secure.

* Be it on Your own beloved arm,
O God of grace, that I in peace shall awake.

Be the peace of the Spirit
mine this night.
Be the peace of the Son
mine this night.
Be the peace of the Father
mine this night.
The peace of all peace
be mine this night
+ in the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Peace

Padre Steve+

P.S. If you desire to find the Celtic Prayer of the Northumbria Community it can be found at their website: http://www.northumbriacommunity.org/pray-the-daily-office

Prayer request. I have been called into the hospital regarding a very sick young man in our ICU. Please pray for him as he is not doing well.

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December 2, 2010 · 01:11

Advent 2010: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Christmas Eve 2007 with Border Team and Bedouin family on Syrian Border

The Season of Advent and the celebration of the Incarnation of Jesus on Christmas and during the Christmas Octave is my favorite season of the Church year. I have always even as a child been mesmerized by the aspect of hope that is intrinsic to the celebration, the twofold emphasis on the time leading to the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary in the manger of Bethlehem and the personalities involved to the promise of the Second Coming which was considered the “Blessed Hope” by the early Church which believed that the event would occur during their time as has the Church in times ever since.

I think the most meaningful season of Advent and Christmas that I have known was my time in Iraq in 2007.  At the time I was travelling about the remote western regions of Al Anbar province with my trusty assistant RP2 Nelson Lebron.  We had been doing this kind of work at a steady pace travelling thousands of miles by air and ground to be with the Military Training Teams that were assigned to the 1st and 7th Iraqi Divisions and those of the Border Training Teams assigned to the 2nd Border Brigade as well as Army advisors assigned to the Iraqi Police and Marines working with the Iraqi Highway Patrol.  By the time we made our far west Christmas expedition which lasted almost two weeks.  The immediate days around Christmas were spent on the Syrian Border with the teams assigned to the 1st and 3rd Battalions, 3rd Brigade 7th Division and Border forces at COP South and COP North.

As we traveled the area with our teams, especially Captain Josh Chartier’s Military Training Team and Major Stan Horton’s Border team out of COP South I was taken in by the Bedouin camps that dotted the desert because in so many ways they lived a life so similar to the shepherds that received the angelic visitation recorded in the Gospel according to Saint Luke.  The Bedouin are nomads and travel where they can tend flocks or fields according to the season.  On December 23rd we traveled with Major Horton’s team visiting both the Bedouin in the area and the Iraqi Border Forces in a number of border forts along the Syrian border which at the time was a major conduit for money and arms being smuggled to Al Qaeda Iraq and indigenous Iraqi insurgents.  The Iraqi troops were most hospitable as were the Bedouin who hosted us in their tents or homes.  We delivered toys, candy and school supplies to the Bedouin kids and were treated to food and Ch’ai tea. Had it not been late and we had not had more sites to visit we would have taken the invitation of the head of one Bedouin family to have dinner with him.

That night we celebrated a Christmas Eve Eucharist a day early for the teams at COP South.  Since we were the only Religious Ministry team that spent any real time with the isolated teams like these it was a special occasion for all, one man in particular, one of the Iraqi interpreters, a Christian who had not been able to attend a Mass of any kind for over two years.  The next day we would travel 50 miles of often very rough roads and trails to the even more isolated COP North where we did the same for the members of those teams and had a wonderful Christmas day and eve with these Marines.

That was the most meaningful Advent and Christmas season I had ever seen. It was a season without all the bells and whistles, without all the commercialism and distractions to take away from the simplicity of the message that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children” (Galatians 4:4-5) the simple message of redemption and the grace and mercy of God that has been shown to all people and is the heart of the season.

After my return from Iraq I experienced a major spiritual and emotional collapse related to PTSD which changed me in fairly significant ways.  For nearly two years I struggled desperately to recover faith that was lost after I returned home.  I was overwhelmed with the turbulence of the country, a disastrous series of splits in my old church, feeling abandoned by the Navy and dealing with the long, slow and painful demise of my father due to the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. I am told that I am not alone in what I went through.  I begin this Advent having made the transition from my old church to the Apostolic Catholic Orthodox Church which is a North American expression of the Old Catholic faith and I am quite at peace with that move.

After nearly two years faith returned during Advent due to an event in the Medical Center that I worked in where I provided the last rights to an Anglican patient as he drew his last breathe in our ER. I call it my “Christmas miracle.”   https://padresteve.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/padre-steve%E2%80%99s-christmas-miracle/

It was ironic and fitting that my spiritual rebirth came in the midst administering the Sacrament of the Anointing of the sick.  Faith has returned and unlike last year when in the midst of my personal gloom and despair I rediscovered faith and the wonder of the season I look forward to the fullness of the season.

I don’t know how much I will write about the season this year, certainly some articles but I do look forward to the continued rediscovery of faith in the Incarnate God.

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

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November 19, 2010 · 00:06

Fly the Friendly Skies….The TSA Way

Well, I used to be a frequent flier because of my military assignments.  Back in those days I became quite good at making sure that I presented as little trouble to TSA screeners as possible.  I planned and organized every part of my trip to make sure that the screening process would be quick and painless to all involved. Everything I did was done to make things easy for the TSA screeners because I figured that they had a thankless task dealing with irate travelers already pissed off about long lines, baggage fees, flight delays and generally being treated like chattel every step of the way. On rare occasion something would occur that caused me to get pulled aside, maybe it was my field communion set, my oil stock or some other religious item.  These were generally minor inconveniences that were resolved quickly and in a usually friendly manner.
However on one occasion I was subjected to the most humiliating public humiliation of my life. I was travelling in my Khaki uniform.  Of course I had me rank and ribbons on and my USS Hue City belt buckle.  Where I live we have a very large military population that frequents our airport with many having to fly in uniform.  Thus the screeners tend to be respectful of military personnel in uniform.  One day back in 2003 well before the current “Say Cheese” and “Grope on Sight” order went out.  I took everything out of my pockets, took of my shoes and presented myself for inspection. Of course as I went through the scanner my shiny big belt buckle, shiny rank and multi-colored stack of ribbons set of the scanner.  I was ushered aside and told to remove everything and even told to unzip my trousers.  The agent in full view of hundreds of people then went through a hard pat down that included my “junk.” Meanwhile people who were obviously foreign and wearing clothing that could hide a truck bomb walked by without getting groped.  I was stunned, embarrassed and shocked. I had just completed a combat deployment and this idiot was treating me like a criminal.  When I got home I wrote a letter to the head of the TSA requesting an apology. I got no reply.  This soured me on the TSA even before the new draconian rules went into force.
You see I am a patriot, I want to see terrorists killed off like vermin and I don’t want to see another American or anyone else harmed. However it seems to me in their haste to look like they are doing something in the name of “security” that the Department of Homeland Security is willing to trample over the rights of self respecting, law abiding citizens using methods that the Gestapo would have had wet dreams thinking about. Back in 2001 civil libertarians warned of the dangers inherent in the cleverly named “Patriot Act.”  We are now seeing how an agency created by that act is willing to abuse citizens, and yes groping qualifies as abuse especially in the absence of probable cause.  But wait, probable cause is given when a person refuses to go through a high powered x-ray machine that looks through their clothing to expose their nakedness to TSA employees who in some cases have laughed and made fun of their subjects and some of which have found their way to the internet.

I have seen videos of TSA agents patting down tiny children and watched in horror when the traumatized children were crying.  I’m sorry that is as close to legal sexual abuse of a child as you can get.  But then to keep us secure it’s okay for the TSA to do things that would get a teacher, pastor, scoutmaster or anyone else thrown in jail and forever listed as a sexual predator.
When I came back from Iraq and was going in my Marine Corps pattern camouflaged uniform after an arduous return which culminated in an 18 hour flight from Kuwait to the States I was welcomed home to an airport on the East Coast. Customs agents were kind and we had a small group of really nice people welcoming us home.  As I ran to the connecting flight accompanied by my trusty assistant Nelson Lebron we got to the TSA screening checkpoint with minutes to spare.  We got our gear through the machine and then it was time for us.  I had to remove my shirt, my belt buckle and my boots and run to the aircraft gate with my boots untied because they were getting ready to close the gate.  At least the screeners were not rude but even still, for crying out loud, we just came home from Iraq.  Is there something wrong with this picture?  Have we lost our minds?  Welcome home from TSA.

Now if you ask me I think that the complaints of people are entirely justified. On the absence of being able to bring home Osama Bin Laden’s head on a platter we now assume that everyone is a terrorist and those that complain must be sympathizers. Well I tell you what, as someone who has seen the ravages of what terrorists can do dating back to the 1980s when the Red Brigades terrorized Americans, NATO allies and Germans bombing and killing.  However even the thorough Germans never subjected their citizens to this type of humiliation.  I think that they learned something from the Third Reich, something that we seem to have forgotten. The “Greatest Generation” went to war to defeat Nazi tyranny and free Europe from the evil of a police state.  Now it seems that our own TSA deems that we the people are the enemy.  I figured that out in 2003 and again in 2008.

I think now with the abuses being heaped upon Americans that people are finally taking notice.

Until things change let’s all just sit back and enjoy the groping, enjoy the friendly skies.  Your papers please.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 11, 2010 · 16:47

Veterans Day 2010: Counting the Cost of War

“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.” General Robert E. Lee

Veterans Day had become a rather somber occasion for me over the past decade and since returning from Iraq in 2008 has taken on added personal significance.  I have noticed that I have become much more reflective about the sacrifices made by our military and the terrible coasts of war on our Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen and their families in this age of the all volunteer military.  The military which has about 2,225,000 members including the Reserves and National Guard is just 0.7% of the total population, the lowest percentage of military personnel compared to total population during any war in our history.  As a result this force has borne the brunt of a war that no politicians or bureaucrats figured would last half as long as it has.  As a result the “few” have been asked to do more for longer than and military that this nation has ever fielded during a war.

Thus for me Veterans Day has become a rather somber and reflective occasion as I ponder all the sacrifices made by our military and their families. In Afghanistan the U.S. Military has lost 1378 killed and our allies another 825.  In Iraq 4427 U.S. Military personnel have died along with 318 allied soldiers, not including the Iraqi military losses.  For each of the killed there are about 8 more wounded a total of over 38,000 wounded.  Of course the wounded numbers do not include 170,000+ cases of hearing damage; 130,000+ cases of mild traumatic brain injuries; and 200,000+ cases of serious mental health problems, over 30,000 serious disease cases, including a disfiguring, parasitic disease called Leishmaniasis, which results from bites of sand flies; thousands of cases of respiratory disease linked to exposure to toxic burn pit smoke and hundreds of suicides.  Then there are the injuries related to road and aviation accidents not in direct combat.  In my recent assignments in Iraq and Naval Medical facilities I have seen the human cost of the war.  I have friends who suffer as the result of Traumatic Brain Injury, PTSD and Pulmonary diseases as well as those that have been wounded as the result enemy action.  I have a dear friend with a rare and irreversible pulmonary condition from two tours in Iraq. He is 41 his lungs are those of a 70 year old man.  My best friend, a senior Naval Officer is still suffering from the effects of TBI and PTSD incurred while serving with the Marines in Al Anbar Province.

My Dad Aviation Storekeeper Chief Carl Dundas aboard USS Hancock CVA-19 off Vietnam circa 1971-72

A year ago on Veterans Day I was at with my parents in Stockton California to visit my mom and my dad who was then in a nursing facility due to the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.  It was a terrible visit conflict with my mother due to witches’ brew of my PTSD and grief for my dad and my mother’s struggles with my dad’s condition and her own physical condition.  I visited my dad every day when in two and unfortunately he did not know who I was, Alzheimer’s had robbed him of everything that made him my dad.  He died on June 23rd of this year a day after I found out that I had been selected for promotion to Commander.  My dad was a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer who served in Vietnam on a beach detachment manning an emergency airfield in the besieged city of An Loc in 1972.  He never talked about that tour or what happened there except to tell me that he saw the Communists executing civilians in the city from his observation point.  He came home a changed man.  Thankfully he is now out of his suffering and our family is beginning to find its way back from the abyss of his illness.

I have served for over 29 years in the Army and the Navy and have witnessed many things and been blessed to have my life enriched by many veterans.  Unfortunately many of these brave men have since passed away, some having lived many years and others that have died far too young as a result of service connected injuries.

With advisors to the 3rd Bn, 3rd Brigade 7th Iraq Division COP South 2008

In my current work I see many young men that wear the Purple Heart for being wounded in combat. I see those that need assistance to walk, amputees, men with obvious scars from burns and others suffering blindness from their injuries. Our hospital’s Medical Board sees 40-60 Marines and Sailors a day, quite a few of whom that will be medically retired due to their injuries.  There are also those that have died by their own hand suffering from psychological and spiritual injuries too deep to fathom, we had one of our own Corpsman suicide last week.

The cost of war is terrible, as General William Tecumseh Sherman so eloquently put it: “War is Hell.”

Despite this our brave men and women that serve in all branches of the military as well as those that have gone before us in the 235 year history of our military have shouldered the load, for most of that history depending on volunteers who often served in obscurity often derided by their fellow Americans who believed that the military was a place to go if you could not be successful in the civilian world. The pay was low, the duty arduous and benefits few. In the Civil War, the World Wars and up until 1974 the professionals were augmented by draftees who outnumbered the professionals by a huge margin.  Since 1974 the force has been an all volunteer force.

Health and Comfort Board Team USS Hue City, Northern Arabian Gulf May 2002

Regardless of whether our Veterans were draftees or volunteers they have served this country well and on the whole to use the current Navy description are “A Global Force for Good.” The countries liberated from oppressors and helped in humanitarian operations by American Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen are many and varied.  They have represented the spectrum of our society and represent the best the country has to offer.  Unfortunately they have not always been honored by some of their our countrymen and women and sometimes the children and grandchildren of the peoples that they liberated from Nazi, Fascist or Communist oppressors who often use the wrongdoing of a few military personnel or the decisions or actions of American politicians or businessmen to label American military personnel as criminals.

Unfortunately since the military is such a small part of our population and concentrated in a few large bases it is invisible to most Americans as they live their daily lives. Often in isolated from the bulk of America such as Killeen Texas home of the U.S. III Corps and Jacksonville North Carolina the home of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force and Second Marine Division are quintessential military towns but neither are near major population centers and thus the sacrifice of these Soldiers, Marines and Sailors goes unnoticed by most of the nation.  In a sense the human cost of the war falls inordinately upon these military communities where there are few strangers.

In spite of this the current men and women of the American Military train, deploy, fight and return every day as they have since the 9-11-2001 attacks, many if not most have made multiple combat tours.  I have been pleased to see more support of the military in the media, especially sports media and leagues.  Many businesses are taking time to offer things of value to servicemen and women and those businesses should be commended and patronized.  I was touched by many stories that I saw about our veterans on ESPN over the past few days.  http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2010/11/espn%E2%80%99s-weeklong-salute-to-veterans-day/

Many of our Reserve component personnel give up civilian employment and chances for promotion to serve in the military, particularly when they are mobilized for service. When they return home most return to towns and cities that have little of the support afforded to active duty members when they return.  I pray that our political leaders in the future will exercise discernment and wisdom before committing us to another war. Otto Von Bismarck said: “Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.” Unfortunately the current members of the House, Senate and Executive branch have little connection to the military as very few have served and I wonder if any really comprehend this maxim.  In the 111th Congress 120 members had some form of military service.  The number of veterans in the 111th Congress reflects the trend of a steady decline in the number of Members who have served in the military. For example, there were 298 veterans (240 Representatives, 58 Senators) in the 96th Congress (1979-1981); and 398 veterans (329Representatives, 69 Senators) in the 91st Congress (1969-1971).  Those who have served a full military career are far fewer; the number of congressmen with military careers will remain relatively constant for the 112th Congress. In the Senate there will be one (as compared with two in 2006 and one in 2008) and in the House there will be eight (as compared with four in 2006 and six in 2008).  Some of these Congressional Veterans have been vilified by some broadcasters and pundits of the extreme right wing media most of whom who have never served in the military.  On the positive side nine members of the new Congress will have served in the current wars which hopefully will help promote the sacrifice of our current Veterans and help with programs that will help returning Veterans.

I have seen the cost of war up close and personal in Iraq and back here in the States. I suffer some the afflictions described as a result of my service and see the young men and women many of whom were not yet born when I enlisted in the Army, or when I was commissioned as an Army Officer, when I was a Company Commander or when I was a senior Captain in the Army. These young men and women are heroes.

Please take a moment to thank a Veteran.  If you have time volunteers are always welcome at organizations such as the USO and American Red Cross working with our troops, join or support organizations which promote the causes of Veterans including the Iraq Afghanistan Veteran’s Association www.iava.org the Veterans of Foreign Wars http://www.vfw.org/, American Legion http://www.legion.org/ , Marine Corps League http://www.mcleague.org/, the Fleet Reserve Association http://www.fra.org/, the Association of the U.S. Army http://www.ausa.org and the Disabled American Veterans http://www.dav.org/. There are also many charitable organizations that provide assistance to Veterans and their families’ one of the best being the Fisher House Foundation http://www.fisherhouse.org/ which provides comfortable and free lodging to the families of wounded, injured or sick military personnel on bases adjacent to military hospitals. I found these ten ways that you can help on Yahoo.com:

1. At 11 a.m., observe a moment of silence for those who’ve fought and died while in service to the country

2. Display an American flag

3. Attend a Veterans Day parade

4. Thank a vet for his/her service

5. Send a letter to troops through the U.S. Department of Defense Website

6. Work in a homeless shelter or soup kitchen

7. Visit a veteran’s grave or pick up trash at a veterans cemetery

8. Visit with the family of a veteran who’s serving overseas

9. Visit with a wounded vet at a local VA facility

10. Donate to the USO, the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars USA or other organizations that honor and assist vets

Keep us all in your prayers and please when Veterans Day is past do not forget those of us that serve and our families, especially those men and women serving in harm’s way.  To my friends and comrades I echo the words of the German commander to his troops in captivity at the end of the Band of Brother’s mini-series:

“Men, it’s been a long war, it’s been a tough war. You’ve fought bravely, proudly for your country. You’re a special group. You’ve found in one another a bond that exists only in combat, among brothers. You’ve shared foxholes, held each other in dire moments. You’ve seen death and suffered together. I’m proud to have served with each and every one of you. You all deserve long and happy lives in peace.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 3, 2010 · 18:18

A Base at War: First Impressions of Camp LeJeune Nine Years after my First Tour

This is just a brief post on some first impressions on my assignment to Camp LeJeune after a nine year absence from the base. When I left LeJeune and my assignment with the Second Marine Division I had just completed twenty years in the military though I was not even three years into my service as a Naval Officer.

Today I was part of a Casualty Assistance Team meeting with the family of a young Navy Corpsman and Afghanistan veteran who killed himself in his apartment last night.  The Corpsman was part of a family with a long tradition of Naval Service who in his time in the Navy had gone to war with a Marine Battalion in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province and returned home changed by the war and struggling with PTSD and all the related symptoms of it.  This is something that I can understand having come back from Iraq in a rather bad way about two and a half years ago.  In my time with this young man’s parents today I found a young man that loved life but was wracked by his experiences of war.  He was well liked at his Marine Battalion as well as at the hospital and his death shocked the community almost as much as it did his family.  The sad thing is that this young man is emblematic the suicide problem in the military.  He is not alone, far too many Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen on active duty, in the Reserves or those that have left the service suffer so much from the unseen wounds of war that they commit suicide.  Since I have been here just a bit under two weeks this was a confirmation of what I knew just walking around the hospital, getting around the base and the local area.  Camp LeJeune is a base at war with Marines and Sailors fighting in Afghanistan and unfortunately many suffering from deep wounds of war at home living with physical, psychological, spiritual and moral injuries that don’t go away just because they return home.

When I left LeJeune in compliance with orders to the USS Hue City CG-66 in December 2001 we were just 3 months into the current war and barley two months into the Afghanistan campaign.  Marine morale was high though most Marines had not been to combat and those that had were veterans of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Somalia or the Balkans. Of course none of these actions lasted as long nor caused the amount of deaths as either the campaign in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Marines wanted to get a shot at the Al Qaeda terrorists that had attacked the United States and killed nearly 3000 Americans.

The Marines answered the call and have performed magnificently in every theater of the current war but the Corps has changed. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s the Marines had a swagger that was typical of the work hard; train hard and play hard attitude of the Corps.  The Corps is now composed of many battle hardened veterans that have made deployment after deployment to the hottest combat zones in both Iraq and Afghanistan in which they took the initiative in both offensive operations in taking the battle to the enemy and employing solid counterinsurgency techniques especially in Al Anbar Province where the Iraqi Army performed quantitatively better under their tutelage in helping to turn the tide during the Anbar awakening.  Navy Corpsmen, Doctors and Chaplains serve alongside the Marines as they have done throughout our history.

I served with Marine and Army advisors in Al Anbar in 2007 and early 2008 in many of the remotest parts of the province and have dealt with individual Marines since. The Marines still have much of their swagger but it seems more fatalistic now.  An expert in trauma and moral injury told me of a recent visit to Camp Pendleton where Marines referred to themselves as “the walking dead” in an almost cavalier manner. The sad thing is that for many Marines this is only half a joke. The Corps in 2009 had the highest suicide rate in the military at 24 per 100,000 and suicides continue at a similar pace in 2010.  http://www.yuma.usmc.mil/desertwarrior/2010/03/11/feature6.html One occurred on Camp LeJeune where a Marine Sergeant pulled out a pistol and shot himself after being pulled over by Military Police in front of the base Fire Station.

As I made my way around the base the past week or so, I saw a lot more Marines with canes and obvious physical injuries from their combat injuries incurred in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Marines as always were professional but appeared to be much more serious than 9 years ago, many seeming to be old beyond their years. I love serving with and around Marines because they have a unique sense of professionalism combined with humor that is unlike almost any found in any part of the United States Military. However that positive is sometimes offset by a need to maintain an image of toughness even when they are dying on the inside which leads many not to seek help because it might make them look weak or broken, terms that no self-respecting Marine wants associated with his or her name.

In addition to the obvious injuries I noticed that while there was a much more serious tenor around the base that the Staff Sergeants and Gunnery Sergeants are a lot younger than they used to be back 9 years ago. With the war lasting as long as it has and the coupled with the expansion of the Marines during the war coupled with casualties and attrition by other means these young men and women are being promoted sooner than they were in the prewar days. Their leadership experience is mostly combat-related and they are in general superb combat leaders. However, this does not always translate well in a garrison setting especially if they are dealing with their own untreated PTSD or TBI nor is it helpful on the home front. As a result many of these young leaders are suffering the breakups of families at a record rate as well as substance abuse when they return home.

As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted in a speech at Duke University on September 29th of this year:

“There are a number of consequences that stem from the pressure repeated of deployments – especially when a service member returns home sometimes permanently changed by their experience.  These consequences include more anxiety and disruption inflicted on children, increased domestic strife and a corresponding rising divorce rate, which in the case of Army enlisted has nearly doubled since the wars began.  And, most tragically, a growing number of suicides.

While we often speak generally of a force under stress, in reality, it is certain parts of the military that have borne the brunt of repeat deployments and exposure to fire – above all, junior and mid-level officers and sergeants in ground combat and support specialties.  These young men and women have seen the complex, grueling, maddening face of asymmetric warfare in the 21st century up close.  They’ve lost friends and comrades.  Some are struggling psychologically with what they’ve seen, and heard and felt on the battlefield.  And yet they keep coming back.” http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1508

These young men and women have forged a bond in combat and in many cases multiple combat tours. The have served well with honor and many don’t feel that people who have not been “in the shit” understand them or what they have been through.  There is a comradeship that comes out of war. There is segment at the end of the Band of Brothers mini-series where a German Commander is speaking to his soldiers after they have surrendered to the Americans. As the German Commander speaks to the survivors of his unit Corporal Joe Liebgott is asked to translate by another American. As he translates the German officer’s words the Americans know that he also speaks for their experience of war:

“Men, it’s been a long war, it’s been a tough war. You’ve fought bravely, proudly for your country. You’re a special group. You’ve found in one another a bond that exists only in combat, among brothers. You’ve shared foxholes, held each other in dire moments. You’ve seen death and suffered together. I’m proud to have served with each and every one of you. You all deserve long and happy lives in peace.”

I think that sums up what many feel today except unlike the Germans our war drags on with no end in sight.

The Marines are still tough and a force to be reckoned with on any battlefield. They, especially the Marine Divisions are an elite force but I believe that many are losing some of their resilience as the war goes in Afghanistan goes on.  Many from reports that I have read as well as those that I have talked with are concerned that much of the country doesn’t support the war nor appreciate their sacrifice. Many are concerned that their sacrifices as well as those of their friends, those killed and wounded will be wasted and the suffering that goes on after the war will be swept aside by politicians, the media and the public at large. They are also concerned that the people that they have worked with against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and those that they have tried to protect and care for will suffer even more if the Taliban return to power.  I can say that I worry about my Iraqi friends and fear for them when I hear news of more attacks.

In the midst of this war we went through a number of elections and it troubles me that in the last election that the war and those fighting it were hardly ever mentioned by candidates from either party.  We mentioned it was usually for show to help politicians gain favor with voters.  We deserve better, we are not just a something to talk about at political rallies that when the election is over simply budget item to be slashed because the country is in a mess. These young men and women, as well as old guys like me are the sons, daughters, husbands and wives and brothers and sisters that have volunteered to serve this country.  The wounds that these young men and women, their experiences in combat that have left their souls scared will not go away when the last American leaves Iraq or Afghanistan.

This young man that we lost last night will be buried by his family and we will have a memorial service in his honor.  His many friends will grieve and those of us who are caring for his family will not forget them. I don’t want this young man or any other to be forgotten like so many who have returned from war before them.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

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October 17, 2010 · 16:35

To the Edge of Oddness and Beyond: Let’s Stuff Bliss Between Peoples Ears Until the Cows Come Home

I don’t think like a lot of people finding humor in events that others see in a more serious light and irony in so many places, so many that I have to remember that I don’t iron anything anymore. Back when I was in college Judy and I had a friend named Eric. Eric to be kind was slightly on the eccentric side of life and he had a phrase that I appropriated for when people told him that he was “weird.” He would say “weird takes work, not crazy like most people.”  Yes weird does take work and as most of the people that know me well attest most never know what I will find funny or say next. Of course there people who are humor deprived that do not see anything that I say or do to be funny or witty.  But that is okay with me because I find their humorlessness humorous. I think our little Red Dachshund named Greta who took life so seriously that it was funny to us helped me in this. I see so many people so consumed with the cares of live that they live in a perpetual state of unhappiness, anxiety, depression with anger seething below the surface ready to implode or explode depending on what day it is.

Even in my darkest moments coming back from Iraq I found humor even in some of the nuttiness that was part and parcel of my PTSD like the time that I got rudely cut off in a grocery store parking lot and I called the other driver an Oedipal Mother you-know-whater.  There were so many other things that even when depressed, anxious and struggling to believe that I found funny, ironic and just plain amusing even things about me that when I got over whatever I wasn’t over that I found ludicrous and had to laugh at myself. I think that humor help sustain me through the most difficult times when I could have easily sunk into a morose bitterness that would have been the end of me as you know me and I think that that would have been a fate worse than a fate worse than death.

This has been especially helpful during the prevailing national nastiness that we Americans seem to be reveling in as we find more ways to hate one another.  That my friends is not for me, I just want to get along and care about people that come my way no matter who they are, what they believe or any other defining characteristic that others label them as.  Why do I want this? Because it is so wacky that it makes absolute sense. I think that if we start learning to love each other despite our differences that we can make this world a better place.

Although some would say that “ignorance is bliss” and I certainly am not ignorant I like bliss.  Bliss should be good even if not grounded in ignorance.  I wish bliss on unhappy and overly serious people because it has to be good for them.  Now we can’t make people blissful even if we stuff bliss between their ears until the cows come home but it would be worth a shot.  Some might find that odd but I think that it might be the will of God.  Kind of like when the Ghostbusters II when they Ghostbusters blasted the toxic slime out of existance with “put a little love in your heart.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3XXWTV0cV0

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 29, 2010 · 23:58

Suicide isn’t Painless: The Epidemic of Suicide in the Military

I leave the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth Virginia tomorrow and toward the end of October report as the Command Chaplain for Naval Hospital Camp LeJeune North Carolina. My last time at Camp LeJeune was as part of the Portsmouth SPRINT (Special Psychiatric Rapid Intervention Team) mission to care for Emergency Department personnel at the Naval Hospital and Base Fire/EMS responders to a particularly gruesome suicide of a young Marine who had recently served in Iraq and was preparing for another tour.

As a Chaplain and in my previous life as a Medical Service Corps officer commanding a Medical Company in Germany and Brigade Adjutant in Texas I have dealt with a lot of suicides, attempted suicides and the lives left shattered by suicide.  Likewise I have seen the results of suicide attempts as a trauma, emergency and critical care chaplain in major medical centers. I have attended the DOD Suicide Prevention Conference on a number of occasions and gotten to know many of the experts working in the field.

As I said I began my career as an officer in the Army Medical Service Corps. We had a close connection to the movie and television series M*A*S*H and the theme music to that movie is emblematic of the feelings of many combat vets who continue to deploy even after making many combat deployments. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3444418/suicide_is_painless_johnny_mandel/

Through early morning fog I see
visions of the things to be
the pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see…
[chorus]:

That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.

I try to find a way to make
all our little joys relate
without that ever-present hate
but now I know that it’s too late, and…
[Chorus]

The game of life is hard to play
I’m gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I’ll someday lay
so this is all I have to say.
[Chorus]

The only way to win is cheat
And lay it down before I’m beat
and to another give my seat
for that’s the only painless feat.
[Chorus]

The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn’t hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger…watch it grin, but…
[Chorus]

A brave man once requested me
to answer questions that are key
‘is it to be or not to be’
and I replied ‘oh why ask me?’

‘Cause suicide is painless
it brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
…and you can do the same thing if you choose.

Last week four soldiers, one a highly decorated senior NCO and all combat veterans are believed to have committed suicide at Fort Hood Texas.  The base which has already seen more than its fair share of tragedy with 14 confirmed suicides this year is stunned that these occurred in one weekend.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates commented about the stress on the all-volunteer force: “No major war in our history has been fought with a smaller percentage of this country’s citizens in uniform full-time — roughly 2.4 million active and reserve service members out of a country of over 300 million, less than 1 percent,” as a result the wars have been fought by a small proportion of the country, for many they are “a distant and unpleasant series of news items that does not affect them personally.” While the distance grows between those that serve and the general population military families are under even more stress, with anxiety and disruption inflicted on children, increased domestic strife and a growing number of suicides. Divorce rates in the Army have doubled since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began.

In the years prior to about 2004-2005 the military suicide rate was almost always below civilian rates in all demographics.  This is something that we took legitimate pride in.  That began to change as the war in Iraq shifted from a “Shock and Awe” campaign to a rather nasty and intractable insurgency this began to change as the deployment tempo increased and the Army increased its “boots on ground” time from a year to 15 months with a one year dwell time between deployments. Even as Iraq calmed down and the US role shifted many troops remain and Afghanistan has become a much more difficult war than it was even a few years ago. The Marines retained a 6-7 month deployment schedule but as the war went on and personnel requirements increased many Marine units were doing 6 months in country and 6 months home.  The difficult of what was described as “dwell time” for the Army and Marines was that for all intents and purposes it wasn’t. The units would get a few weeks leave and stand down time on their return home and then begin preparing for their next deployment. These preparations out of necessity entailed much time in the field training including trips to the Fort Irwin National Training Center (NTC) or the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Training Center at 29 Palms.  Speaking from experience before 9-11 I can say that a Marine battalion going to 29 Palms in reality makes a short but intense deployment which is taxing on the organization even as it sharpens combat skills.  The same can be said for Army units going to NTC.  Thus the time that is nominally considered time at home to recuperate is not that and instead serves to keep the pressure on already stressed units, leaders and soldiers/Marines.  In the intervening time those that present to mental health providers or chaplains are provided with care to get them back in shape for the next deployment but never really get to deal with the deeper psychological and spiritual wounds. These include “moral injury”  which often involves unresolved grief for the loss of comrades and real or imagined guilt for their own actions in war.  Such wounds ultimately create despair, loss of faith and eventually cause some service members to make attempts on their life with varying degrees of “success” in “completing” the suicide.

The result is that those who have experienced the moral injuries that come as a result of combat, seeing comrades killed and wounded, participating in actions where they are directly or indirectly involved in killing the enemy, see the “collateral damage” of civilians, including children killed and maimed go right back into to fight.  Since this war has now gone on longer than any war in US history and we are fighting it with an all volunteer force of limited numbers with many making multiple deployments, some as many as 5 or more these wounds are pushed aside.  The effect of this is a cumulative grinding down of those that serve in harm’s way. Many suffer from some form of psychological, neurological or even spiritual injury that in combination with other life stressors make them particularly vulnerable to taking their lives.  In regard to moral injury “Many of the troops kill themselves because they feel that those kinds of experiences have made them unforgivable,” said Dr. William Nash, a top PTSD researcher. “It’s a lot harder for most people to forgive themselves than to forgive others.”

Unfortunately there is a stigma attached to seeking treatment or admitting that one is suffering from depression, anxiety or any other condition associated with either seeking help on their own or being “command referred” for psychological/psychiatric help.  Since that stigma is real many war fighters don’t seek help and take “refuge” in destructive behaviors such as alcohol abuse, drug abuse (to include prescription drugs) and risky behaviors.  One wonders how many of the single vehicle accident fatalities that occur late at night to combat vets are not accidental at all but are suicides by another more “socially acceptable” means.  If a forensic psychological profile was done on every service member that dies in such events I would guess that the finding would be a lot more suicides not an accidental deaths as we would like to believe. Yes all of these deaths are tragic but it is far easier to rationalize death in an auto accident than death by gunshot, knife wounds, overdose or hanging.

I am not proposing any solutions for this problem.  I do believe that somehow the deployment tempo needs to be slowed down to allow troops to actually recover and get help.  This is one of the suggestions of the DOD Suicide Prevention Task Force.  Their report is linked here: http://www.health.mil/dhb/downloads/Suicide%20Prevention%20Task%20Force%20report%2008-21-10_V4_RLN.pdf

When I go to LeJeune I know that as a Chaplain at the Naval Hospital I will be collaborating with our mental health professionals to provide care to Marines, Sailors and their families that are living this daily.  The Marine situation is poignantly show in this article: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/military/article_3dc03ec3-6a37-5608-8563-aca88f635271.html

I have served with the Marines almost 6 years and from what I see the Corps has changed.  It is battle hardened but less resilient than it used to be.  The Marine Corps’ suicide rate has reached 24 per 100,000, a rate that surpasses all the other services. The rate was 13 per 100,000 in 2006 when I finished my tour at Marine Security Forces. The latest available figures put the civilian suicide rate at 20 per 100,000.  The problem extends past active duty as Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, said the suicide rate for men aged 18-29 who have been discharged had gone up by 26% from 2005-07. Likewise, “of the more than 30,000 suicides in this country each year, fully 20% of them are acts by veterans.” This means as Shinseki said “on average 18 veterans commit suicide each day. Five of those veterans are under our care at VA. So losing five veterans who are in treatment every month, and then not having a shot at the other 13 who for some reason haven’t come under our care, means that we have a lot of work to do.”

There is also an effect on military health care providers of all kinds and chaplains. These individuals not only have to deal with their trauma but the trauma and hopelessness that they see in many of their patients or parishioners. These caregivers have no respite between deployments because their reason for being is to care for the Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors that present to them be they deployed or back in a military hospital or clinic.

The work will be hard and long after the last Marine, Sailor, Soldier or Airman leaves Iraq and Afghanistan we will be dealing with this for years to come.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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