Tag Archives: navy

June 8, 2009 · 23:32

Outlasting everyone else…The value of Longevity in One’s Chosen Vocation

Soldier Once and YoungForward Observer 1982

“I want to stay around longer than the pitchers who were at the top when I came into the big leagues. I don’t want to be gone and have all the old guys — Seaver, Carlton, Ryan and Sutton — still pitching. I got rid of Palmer, now I want to outlast the rest of them.”   Bert Blyleven

Hall of Fame BaseballBert Blyleven

I have come to value longevity in my career.  In fact I did not plan on this when I enlisted in 1981, but I am am coming up on 28 years on the military.  I enlisted in August of 1981 and was commissioned in July of 1983.  In 1988 I left active duty and went to the National Guard for seminary and my Clinical Pastoral Education Residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the Knife and Gun club in the friendly city of Dallas Texas.   I became a chaplain in 1992.  I ended up resigning my commission as a Major in the Army Reserve back in 1999 to enter the Navy.  I’ve been in the Navy now a bit over 10 years.

My plan back in the day was to spend 20 years or more on active duty in the Army and retire as a Lieutenant Colonel or Colonel and then go teach history or military science somewhere.  Things took a very different course.  The Deity Herself somehow had other plans for this at times miscreant Priest.

Berlin WallAt the Berlin Wall, the East Side, November 1986

I can relate to Bert Blyleven’s comments. When I entered the Army in 1981 a lot of folks that I knew had been around for Vietnam and Korea.  My early mentors were all Vietnam vets.  I’m pretty sure that almost all of the people that I came in with are now retired or out of the service.  In fact I cannot think of any of the men and women that I was commissioned with in 1983 who still are in the service.  Likewise, most of the guys that were senior when I entered the Navy are either out or maybe coming up on their last tour.  It is my desire like Blyleven to outlast all those guys who were Commanders and Captains when I came in ten years ago.  I like this longevity thing.  I play hard so to speak and love what I do.  It is kind of like, well heck; it is getting a chance to do what I know I am called to do. For me a second chance because I thought that I would finish my Army career in the obscurity of the Reserves and never get to do what I really wanted to do.  In a sense I am a journeyman who through a lot of ups and downs has finally come into his own.   There is a player named Oscar Salazar who was just called up this weekend from the Norfolk Tides to the Orioles.  Oscar is one of my favorite players.  He is a journeyman who has spent most of his career in the minors.  This year he came into his own.  He was hitting about .380 and was having a great year in Norfolk.  He deserves to be in the majors.  If he can’t stay up with Baltimore then I hope that another team will deal for him.  When you see him on the on deck circle talking to younger players you can tell that he enjoys playing the game.  He hustles and plays hard. I hope that he does well for the Birds while he is up for Caesar Izturis.

WeddingWedding Day 25 June 1983

There is something to longevity in one’s chosen calling.  You get to see a lot, do a lot and experience a lot that other people only get to dream of doing.  When you do what you love and then are blessed to get to do it as long as I have in two military services, the Army and the Navy, you can count yourself fortunate.   There is a certain satisfaction that I have when you look at my career in the long term and see that I have lasted 28 years and that I am still going strong.

In a sense I am a relic, though unlike most of my relic contemporaries I am still relatively junior in rank.  I enlisted at the height of the Cold War a couple of years after the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan and the followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini had overthrown the Shah of Iran, over 8 years prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.  I have been to what I call the “Commie Trifecta,” East Berlin, Panmunjom Korea and Guantanamo Bay Cuba.  I have served in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, at sea and ashore as well as an exchange officer. I have not always been a chaplain.  I have commanded a company in Europe during the cold war.  I have served multiple tours with the Marines, served on a great ship, the USS HUE CITY and done more in my career than I had ever imagined possible.  I am grateful for the experiences that I have been blessed with and even the adversity has made me stronger and wiser, even the times that I have had my ass kicked by it.

Boarding partyBoarding Party Operation Enduring Freedom April-May 2002

Most of the people who have been in the military as long as me are very senior officers or non-commissioned officers.   Thankfully, I still have a relatively young appearance for someone my age, which was enhanced when I shaved the pitiful remnant of graying hair from my now pristine head.  Likewise I stay in pretty good shape.  I actually want to start playing baseball or softball in some old guy league when I have the time.  People say that I appear and act younger than I am.  The acting part is no lie, I have not really grown up, and I’m still a kid at heart.  I like to have fun and see humor in life even sometimes in the midst of tragedy, which I have seen a fair amount of in my life.

Today was another 13 hour day at work.  Thankfully my department director had taken my duty over the weekend and in a sense sat me down for a game.  We have a couple of kids doing really bad in one of my units.  The last couple of hours were spent working with the families of both of these kids and spending time with our staff.  I also ended up doing country clearances for my boss and I to make a trip out of the US to work with chaplains from another country concerning the people that they are sending into our Pastoral Care Residency Program.  This later thing I have never done before, though I have supplied information plenty of times for others to do my requests.  I was talking to my buddy Elliott the usher of section 102, of which I have seat 102, row B, seat 2. We were talking about baseball and life, which is pretty much par for the course with us.  We were talking about situations that I deal with at work and he said to me, “no wonder you come here to relax.”  It is true.  I have learned that I need to take some time for me, it is imperative for my health if I want to keep myself in the game and like Bert Blyleven outlast the guys who were at the top of their game when I came in.  I have pretty much outlasted most of my Army contemporaries, now I’m working on outlasting Navy guys.

Me and BTT with Bedouin KidsOut on the Syrian Border with the Bedouin

I have come to like Blyleven.  He is one of the more under appreciated pitchers who played the game. He had 287 wins and pitched 242 complete games with a career 3.31 ERA and over 3700 strike outs, 5th on the all-time strike-out list.  He played on 3 All-Star Teams and in 2 World Series.  He played on a lot of really bad teams which probably kept him from winning even more games, yet he is not in the Hall of Fame.  At the same time he did outlast the majority of his contemporaries pitching 22 years in the major leagues.  In a sense I want to be kind of like that.  I want to outlast folks and both do well and have fun when I do it.  I want my last season, or tour in the Navy to be my best.

Pirates Orioles BaseballOscar Salazar

I hope that Bert Blyleven makes the Hall of Fame and that Oscar Salazar makes it in the Majors.  As for me, I just want to do well and have fun doing it while helping as many of the young guys as possible.

Peace, Steve+

Note: Tomorrow I will be taking part in a memorial service and celebration of life for Senior Chief Pam Branum.  She was a great shipmate and tomorrow our Medical Center as well as her many friends will remember he life and say goodbye.

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May 28, 2009 · 21:27

Going Nuclear….Kim Jung Il, Carlos Zambrano and Padre Steve get Sporty

This week we witnessed a couple of big explosions, that of a nuclear test conducted by North Korea and one at Wrigley Field conducted by Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano.  Both were pretty sporty.  However, there the difference is more than one being the test of a weapon of mass destruction and the other an emotional response after a close play at home.   One was a deliberate premeditated act and the other in some sense a “crime of passion.”  They are very different types of acts.

North Korea under the despotic Kim Jung Il decided to give the big fat flying middle finger to the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.  It is interesting that even the Russians and Chinese seem kind of pissed about what the boy named Kim did.  Kim now known as the “Great Leader” having been promoted from simply the “Dear Leader” is kind of wacky but in a dangerous sort of way.  The surly North Koreans then decided that they no longer considered the 1954 armistice valid.  This of course raised the pucker factor on the Korean peninsula and Japan.  Nukes are serious stuff, ask the Japanese.  I remember back in 2002 when my ship, the USS Hue City was deployed supporting Operation Enduring Freedom the Indians and Pakistanis came perilously close to a nuclear confrontation.  We were in between the Indian and Pakistani fleets and their patrol aircraft buzzed us frequently.  It was as my Captain said “A bit sporty.”   Back in my days as a Company XO and Company Commander in Cold War Germany we waited for the day that the Russian would come across the Fulda Gap.  While there I was trained as a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Defense Officer.  The training was kind of cool.  We got to learn how much radiation, measured in “Rads” that we could take and live.  We learned about blast effects, fallout patterns and decoding EAM’s.  The really cool yet scary thing was that the 1:50,000 maps we used to plot the fallout patterns showed our housing areas.  It really brought home that this was not a game.  When the nuclear plant at Chernobyl had its little meltdown the radiation cloud actually went over where we lived.  I think this is why some people refer to me having a “glowing” personality.  So what the nutty North Koreans have done is kind of serious.  Of course they do crazy stuff all the time, but this appears to be their first successful nuke test and significantly raises the stakes.  Of course I want this to pass as it is baseball season and for the first time I have season tickets.  I don’t want a huge war to screw this up.  Of course I want it to not happen at all, but if it does I would prefer it to wait until after the baseball season is over.

Speaking of baseball, Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano was suspended for six games following this meltdown.

http://cubs.fandome.com/video/112492/Carlos-Zambrano-Tantrum-May-27-2009/

Now I will not cast stones at Zambrano.  He plays with passionate fire and really strives for excellence. I have seen him pitch and he is amazing.  I love to watch him and only wished that he pitched for the Giants.  I have a passion for what I do and want to be the best at that I can.  Like Zambrano I have had similar meltdowns when I have felt like I was getting screwed, be it by an umpire or someone else.  I have been tossed from church softball games, pulled aside by coaches and when I watch Zambrano doing his thing I want to hide because I have done this before…well I didn’t take a bat to a Gatorade cooler, but had we had one I might have.  I have thrown things, kicked dirt on umpires and got in people’s faces.  As noted in a previous post when I was in the Army I got thrown out of the officer advanced course and did not help myself by having a Zambrano like meltdown in the process.  I was so lucky to have Chaplain Rich Whaley save me on several occasions both when I got thrown out and when I was the assistance course leader of my Chaplain Officer Basic Course.  With my PTSD I had a number of meltdowns at the tail end of my Iraq tour, before I knew I was whacked out, and have had my moments since I came home.

Now to be fair to me, I am not proud of those kind of outbursts. I usually feel worse afterward because I don’t like being out of control.  I like to control my emotions and stay calm.  I am like a Romulan in that aspect.  I try to keep myself in perfect control but can blow it big, unlike my Vulcan cousins.  I have been fortunate.  First I had people who helped ensure that I did not destroy my Army career.  Likewise, I have had a number of people in my life since I have come back from Iraq help me learn to manage this.  In fact I was able to step back from the brink at one Chaplain Conference where I thought the main presenter had ambushed me and violated essential facets of how cases are presented. I discussed the matter with my colleagues and run a plan by my Department Head on how to publicly address the situation, get my point across and not look like an ass in doing so.  It was like doing a “brush back” pitch rather than a “bean ball.”  I was controlled and afterward got out before I could do anything stupid while department head smoothed ruffled feathers.  The audience was pretty much in a state of shock when I did this, many in sat in silence as I finished and a number of my colleagues who felt the same way as I applauded when I finished.  I left the room and a colleague came out with me and walked with me for a while to make sure that I was okay.  I avoided going nuclear.  I didn’t get tossed this time.  It was a victory.  At the same time I know that when I start playing softball or old man baseball again I will get fired up, and probably like Zambrano tossed out.  If I go into coaching I will probably have arguments with the umpires and hopefully they will not be like this classic Minor League blow up…talk about nukes.  This one is for the ages:

http://www.fandome.com/video/102293/Mississippi-Braves-Manager-Goes-Crazy/

Anyway, I do thank the Deity Herself from keeping me safe from my own tirades and am glad for all those who help me stay in the game and keep my head now.  Because of them and others who have both helped and protected me in the past I hope to be able to mentor and teach others.

Peace, Steve+

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May 12, 2009 · 15:56

Connecting…Baseball and Having My Dad Back for a Few Minutes

San_Francisco_Giants_logo

I visited my dad this morning at his nursing home and it was a good visit. The Deity Herself must have intervened, and I am glad about that.  Alzheimer’s is really a terrible disease.  It robs people of their mind long before they physically pass away.  Dad looks terrible and after yesterday I did not expect much, but I wanted to connect somehow.

On the way I picked him up a San Francisco Giants hat and shirt.  Dad has been a Giants fan since coming to the west coast back in the late 1950s.  When we moved up to Mudville in 1971 he would occasionally take us over to Candlestick Park to see them play. Admittedly this was a pretty decent trip so we didn’t go as often as I’m sure that he would have liked.  The first baseball game that dad took me to was in the summer of 1969 Seattle Pilots at Sick Stadium. I don’t remember what day it was, only that it was either a Saturday or Sunday day game which happened to be “Bat Day.”  In those days teams gave real bats to the kids.  I got one with the signature of Pilot’s First Baseman Mike Hegan.  I had the bat for years.  I think I finally broke it playing a pick-up game in the 1970s.  Dumb me; the damned thing would probably be worth a fortune now.   When we moved to Long Beach in 1970 we went to a lot of California Angels games.  This was in the time before they went through the crisis of what to call themselves.  You know, The California Angels, The Los Angeles Angels, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and finally now the Anaheim Angels.  Those were great times.  Dad was awesome in getting us to the game, helping us shag foul balls and teaching constantly at the game.  If we were not at the game we had it on the radio.  I still enjoy listening to baseball on the radio.  I mostly now listen to the Norfolk Tides when they are on the road.

Me and Lefty Phillips

When we moved to Mudville, dad like I said would take us to Giants games.  The most memorable of these was on August 24th 1975 when in the second game of a double header against the New York Mets, Ed Halicki threw a no-hitter.  That was cool; dad took me to see a game where a no hitter happened.  It was magic.  We would also attend Oakland A’s games.  This was back in the days of Charlie Finley’s ownership and the dynasty team that included Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Rollie Fingers, Vida Blue, Jim “Catfish” Hunter, Joe Rudi, Bert “Campy” Campanaris, “Mudcat” Grant and Paul Linnblad.  We saw a couple of the playoff games against the Detroit Tigers at the Oakland Coliseum in 1972. The A’s won both, Rollie Fingers picking up a win in relief and Blue Moon Odom shutting tehm down in the second.  In Mudville we would go see the Stockton Ports of the California League who at the time were part of the Baltimore Orioles farm system.

halicki no hitter

While we went to a lot of games it didn’t stop there. Dad from as early as I could remember would take me out to the back yard, vacant lot or school baseball field to teach me to pitch, throw and field.  When I saw the movie For the Love of the Game starring Kevin Costner there are old clips, home movie clips of Costner and his parents with his dad playing ball with him.  Those clips sent me back to my childhood when dad did that with me.

oakland a's 1972

Today I had my dad back for about five to seven minutes. They were a good five to seven minutes. The visit yesterday was not so good.  He was not very with it and very anxious.  Today he was calmer and I gave him the Giants hat. When he saw it his eyes lit up.  Then I gave him the shirt, and he smiled.  I then told him the Giants had taken two of three games over the weekend from the Dodgers and he said simply “Good.”  Dad is not a Dodgers fan unless they are playing in the World Series, then he is not a fan, but simply a National League partisan.  I told him about my season ticket with the Norfolk Tides and he said, “I wish I could go with you.”  I then thanked him for all that he taught me about the game and how he taught me to love it.  He said “at least I taught you something.”  I then told him that he had taught me a lot more about life than he might remember.  He smiled.  I told him how he used to take me to the back yard and play catch, teach me to pitch, and to field a ball cleaning as we played pepper.  I said “I still remember you telling me to keep my butt down and keep in front of ground balls.” He said “you have to do that.”  I told him any time that I was in the infield that I could hear his voice telling me to “keep your butt down.”  I did mention that he didn’t teach me how to hit and he said something that surprised me.  He said: “Son, to be a hitter takes a natural gift, a lot of people can’t hit.” I then said, “Well I’m one of them” and he smiled.

He asked me about the Navy and we talked for a minute or two about it.  Then he then started to get anxious and ask me to take him to the recreation room.  They were getting ready for an organ concert.  I wheeled him beside an older lady and he said. “That’s my son…He’s a Navy man too.”

I promised that I would see him again tomorrow.  I don’t know how he will be doing then but at least for a few minutes today I had him back.

Peace, Steve+

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May 8, 2009 · 21:58

PRT’s PFA’s PFT’s APFT’s APRT’s and Whatever Else We Can Call a PT Test

crunches

Today was my time to take my Physical Readiness Test for the Navy.  I actually think that we call it a PFA or Physical Fitness Assessment, but nonetheless it is what in the old days we simply called a “PT Test.”  I have to say that I think that I did okay, despite a conscious decision not to push myself too hard and “strive for mediocrity” for the first time in my Navy career.  You will of course see that I had good reasons for this and that I wasn’t slacking too bad all things considered.

Now I have been doing PT tests  in one way shape or form for almost 28 years.   I started them back when I enlisted in the National Guard and concurrently began Army ROTC at UCLA back in 1981.  Back then the PT test was known as the Army Physical Fitness Test, or APFT.  It consisted then of push ups, sit ups and a 2 mile run and remained that way through my entire Army career.  As a young guy  I was good at the 2 mile run and killed the sit ups. Unfortunately the Army did and still does sit ups the worst way imaginable for your lower back.  You go all the way up and down and keep your hands behind your neck.   In the Army I usually did pretty good on the PT test but initially struggled with push ups.  I had not yet learned the importance of good form and was always psych’d out by them. Thus my scores for the push ups while satisfactory always dragged my overall score down. I finally started getting where I could just about reach the maximum for my age when the Army renamed the test and increased the numbers required to get the maximum score.  The new name was the Army Physical Readiness Test or APRT and the push up numbers went way up from 67 to I think it was 88 for the maximum score.  That sucked, I finally got where I could achieve the maximum and they raised the bar.  So for the rest of my Army career I pretty much resigned myself to the lower score despite doing what was previously the maximum number of push ups.

Then after 17 1/2 years in the Army I went over to the Navy.  I had to do the PRT, or the Physical Readiness Test.  The Navy test is similar to the Army but different.  I don’t know what the Army does now, except that they still do the push ups, sit ups and 2 mile run.  The Navy does push ups, curl ups and a mile and a half run.  The Navy numbers even at my age of 49 to get a “Outstanding” score are more than anything I had to do at a younger age in the Army.  The one and a half mile run is harder for me than the 2 mile run.  I am a distance runner.  When I am healthy, which I really have  not been since Iraq I run 5-8 miles.  Now I’m doing 3-4, not bad, but not what I want.  Just a few years ago I was doing half-marathons.  So a mile and a half to me is a sprint.  To get the maximum score I need to light the afterburners.  However after a lot of years of doing these things I have learned all about form and the nuances of how to do well, even the run, which when I am not injured a I can do in 10:00 to 10:00.  Not bad for an old guy.  When I was  at  EOD Group Two before I went to Iraq my RP2, Nelson Lebron and I smoked the test.  Afterward one of the EOD techs kiddingly asked Nelson “Dude, what kind of ‘roids is the chaplain on?”  The fact is that I love doing well and beating the young guys.  It has become a personal challenge.  Part of this is because I’m not young, and the other is I remember so many Army Chaplains who were physical wrecks who looked bad in uniform and had really poor physical conditioning.  Now there were fit chaplains but there were enough of the others to make the Corps look bad.  As a professional officer as well as a priest, I am 100% officer and 100% priest.  Kind of  a hypostatic union kind of thing going on here.

Now in addition to the Navy I have served two Fleet Marine Force tours and have my Fleet Marine Force Officer Qualification pin.  Part of the joy of serving with the Marines as a Navy Officer is getting to do their physical fitness test as an option to the Navy.  The Marines use pull ups instead of push ups, curl ups and a 3 mile run.  The run is actually my favorite of the three services.  My first mile is my warm up.  I hit my stride in the second and smoke the third.  I had to work hard at the pull ups but got where I could do enough to pass the Marine PFT with a “Class One” score.  The Marines have three levels of passing, Class one, two and three.  The Marines have recently added a Combat Fitness Test with all sorts of really tough stuff that guys might have to do in combat.  It does not look fun.

DMZ PTPT on the Korean DMZ March 2001

The penalty for failing the PT test in the Army, Marines or Navy is tough.  It can stop promotion or even get one kicked out of the service.  Height and weight standards too are important.  You don’t want to be flagged as overweight.  If you fail the PT test or bust the weight or body fat you get to go on some form of remedial PT which is usually in addition to everything else that you have to do.  I am genetically undertall and I really have to watch this.

Today I had my Spring PRT or was we call them now the PFA.  The events haven’t changed but the name has been changed to protect the innocent.  As I said I have had a lot of nagging injuries returning from Iraq, coupled with my PTSD and insomnia made the past year or so pretty hard.  I came back from Iraq and continued to push myself and while getting my usual “Outstanding” score made my injuries worse.  Shoulder problems kept me from the push ups for the first time in my career.  I had mildly sprained my left ankle running last week.  So I decided today that I would simply shoot for an “Excellent” score.  The Deity Herself was with me this morning despite being dinged up. After I drank my 24 once cup of Southern Pecan coffee with a healthy dose of Splenda and French Vanilla creamer from “The Dancing Goat”  and an el cheapo chocolate donut I did 75 push ups in about a minute and a half and stopped, I knew I had 10 or 15 more in me but decided to strive for mediocrity.  The run I decided to set an 8 minute mile pace and not get too excited completing the run in 11:56.  This is the worst time I have ever did the run in since I joined the Navy.  However I finished 3rd of the 25 or so sailors doing the run.   In the fall I hope to be fully spun up and really ready to embarrass the young guys.  Until then I will celebrate tomorrow when I come off of duty with donuts, hot and fresh Krispy Kreme donuts with coffee.  Back to the ICU.

Peace and blessings, Steve+

Note: I have absolutely no idea what the Air Force does.  I think though that their PT test includes a round of golf, and time at the 19th hole.

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April 24, 2009 · 22:58

Wear of the FWU-“Faggoty White Uniform” or Summer Whites

fwu-crete-2002Me in my FWU’s as a LT on USS Hue City CG-66 off Crete July 2002

We in the Mid-Atlantic Region of the Navy have now transitioned to our summer uniforms.  I’ve talked in depth about the NWU or Navy Working Uniform which is now an all year working uniform.  While this is not the most traditional Naval uniform, we do still maintain some traditions.  Both enlisted sailors and officers still have white uniforms for the summer.  Enlisted in the pay grades E1-E6 wear the Service Dress White, or the Cracker Jack uniform for Dress occasions.  A new service uniform which looks similar to the Marine Corps Charlies with black versus olive green trousers is replacing the short sleeve summer white and long sleeve Winter and Working Blues.  So for the enlisted the Cracker Jack remains for dress occasions, the Summer Dress White and Service Dress Blue for summer and winter respectively.

Navy Chiefs and Officers have three, make that four variations of whites.  We have the Summer Dress White which is short sleeve, Service Dress White, which is the choker jacket worn with ribbons.  The Full Dress White, which is the same with large medals and ribbons as well as white gloves.  Lastly there is the seldom worn Tropical White which includes shorts and knee socks, a very colonial British look if you ask me, though the thought of the sun maybe reaching my legs and allowing them to tan while I am at work is an interesting thought.  Since when summer hits I normally am in shorts almost every day when not in uniform, I think shorts with the Whites would work fine here.

However, here lies the problem.  White is white and it is nearly impossible to keep clean.  If you sneeze and blow a huge luggie that ends up on them, it will be seen.  If your coffee is too hot and some drips on the uniform, it too will be seen.  Please do not even think about trying to eat a chili dog, wings or ribs in any of these uniforms.  If you end up making a splort on them it will be there for all too see and someone will be asking who the homeless dude masquerading as Captain Stubing from the Love Boat is. So when wearing any of these summer uniforms caution is required, and if you are eating, probably a bib.  However I am not sure if Naval Uniform Regulations permit you to sport a bib or not.  I suppose that if it was a Go Navy bib it might be okay, but otherwise I believe that it would be frowned upon as violating the decorum of the Wardroom.

Additionally, every time I wear this uniform I can hear the theme from the movie Top Gun playing in my head.  I’m sure that my dear Judy would kill me of I were to walk up to her in a bar or Officer’s Club singing You’ve lost that Lovin’ Feelin.’ Neither the humor or the singing would be appreciated as I think that they should be.  Likewise every time that I wear this uniform, especially when I was serving with the Marines I can almost hear Colonel Nathan R Jessup (Jack Nicholson) of A Few Good Men snear at me and say:

“You see Danny, I can deal with the bullets, and the bombs, and the blood. I don’t want money, and I don’t want medals. What I do want is for you to stand there in that faggoty white uniform and with your Harvard mouth extend me some f**king courtesy. You gotta ask me nicely.”  (sorry if anyone is offended by the language but it is the line from the movie and yes Marines can and do often talk that way, sometimes using the F-bomb as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective and sometimes even an action verb  in past present and future tenses in the same sentence. After all I am sure that the Deity Herself will forgive them as she will have Marines stationed on post around the Pearly Gates.)

Thanks to Colonel Jessup I have thought of the Summer Whites as the Faggoty White Uniform or by the acronym FWU since I arrived at Camp LeJeune North Carolina in 1999.  I figure now that we have the NWU this will work.

Today was my first chance to wear this uniform since last year.  I have to admit that it looks pretty good on me, especially with my weight loss, which I do plan on maintaining and continuing.  As I walked through the hall I could hear the Top Gun Theme going through my head and Colonel Jessup growling at me.  When I was stationed with the Marines I would ask what uniform we might be wearing for a certain ceremony.  If the answer was Your Summer White I would say, “Oh, the Faggoty White Uniform” often drawing looks of amazement and comments of “That’s really bad Chaplain,” followed by a laugh.   Now I simply call them the FWU.  Let’s keep things simple.  As long as I don’t run into Colonel Nathan R Jessup anytime soon I should be okay, at least I am not scheduled to go to Gitmo anytime soon.

At the same time this is a classy uniform.  Sorry to say, or beat the hell out of anything in the Army or Air Force inventory, and only is really outdone by the Marine Service Dress Blues.  It is traditional.  You can go to any Navy around the world and find a similar uniform.  I find this kind of cool.  I do like tradition and hope that the wear test of the Service Dress Khaki uniform is successful and that it will be brought back by the Navy.

So anyway, those are my thoughts about the uniform change.   A final note.  I went and saw the Tides tonight.  They won their 9th straight beating the Durham Bulls 8-2 and moving into first place in the Southern Division of the International League.

Peace,

Steve+

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April 13, 2009 · 20:00

The Call

Note:  To clear up some confusion my references to “The Deity Herself.”  God is neither male nor female and Scripture records that God made Man and Woman in his image, not just Man.  Likewise there are both male and female images used in the Hebrew which refer to God.  I am not turning to “goddess worship” if anyone is concerned. I patently, as anyone who knows me well, understand God within the accepted bounds of the Trinity.  My use of the female imagery is for the most part to get people to think and maybe actually notice that I am referring to God. Maybe too it will encourage women who have been hurt or victimized by men, especially abusive fathers to see that the Christian message is not something that excludes them.  While some may not approve, or even think that I have succumbed to “political correctness,”  I see this as legitimate use of the language, which because of its limited nature can never fully show us the glory of God. Peace and Blessings, Steve+

I’ve been asked by some how I was “called” into the ministry or my vocation as a Priest and Chaplain.  I have done a lot, I mean really a lot of reflecting on this over the years.  Honestly, I don’t really know how it happened.  I mean I like sort of know, but the “how it happened” is pretty much a God thing I guess.  Looking back I think I get it, but am still amazed that I get to do what I get to do.  To use the words of Elton John “I’m still standing after all these years.” The reason I say this is because I’m NOT the greatest theologian, preacher, pastor, or even chaplain around.  Likewise, I know that I am certainly not among the most “spiritual.”  For me the Christian life takes work, really hard work.  There are guys and gals around who who can do circles around me in most of these facets of the Christian life and ministry.   Now on the other hand I don’t think that I drag up the rear, but I’m not going to over play my hand.  There are things that I think that I do pretty well, but I consider myself kind of a journeyman.

General George Patton recounted in his memoirs that “he prayed that he would never get ‘the Call’ because he knew that he would have to leave the Army.”  In some ways I think I can understand that.  Now I know that I was called.  In fact that call probably goes back to a pretty early age.  I found among things grandmother had saved a short paper I had written in the 4th Grade about Easter.  It was not about the Easter Bunny but it was about the Resurrection of Jesus.  So I guess that I had some kind of faith stuff going on back that far.  I think that the first inkling of a call came when I was 11 or 12. At the time the Roman Catholic Chaplain at our base took care of my Protestant family when a local church Sunday School teacher told me that my dad was a baby killer.  Toward the end of high I felt  that call during a NJROTC cadet cruise from San Diego to Pearl Harbor and back.  I wrote my grand parents that I felt that I was being called to be a Navy Chaplain.  I did a short term mission with a Christian Singing group called the Continental Singers and Orchestra in the summer of 1979.  By the way I was the spotlight tech, I did not sing, the Deity Herself was wise enough not to inflict my “joyful noise” on our audiences.  That trip was remarkable, but when I was getting ready for it my local church had a nasty split.  As a result I got caught in the middle of it.  I was in military parlance “collateral damage.” To tell the truth, that experience was kind of sucky.

That was rough, in fact my reaction was to withdraw.  I left that church when I returned and started attending the church of my girlfriend. Patently she is now my ever patient and long suffering wife.  The poor girl should have realized what she was getting into with me when about a month into our dating relationship I left for three months.   Yet she has persevered.

What I figured during this time was that the Deity and I would make a deal.  I would stay in church.  I would even teach Sunday School, and that I would go in the military as a “good Christian officer.” She being the Deity of course would agree to that deal, everything would be copasetic and we would cooperate on my terms.  Pretty arrogant for a 20 year old, but hey, like most young people I had my really dumb moments.  She of course had other plans….

So I went in the Army because Judy forbade me to join the Navy.  She had good reason. Her two sisters married knuckle-headed sailors who were always deployed.  Neither of course were good husbands.  She however let me go into the Army.  I said “cool beans” and I thought I was on my way to fulfilling the deal I had made with the Deity.  As I made my way through my young Army career it seemed that She used very unfair and devious means to rub the call in my face.  Chapel friends would tell me that I needed to stop running from God.  A good friend left the Army for seminary.  In fact the good Deity ensured that I was miserable even though I loved being an Army officer.  Finally in 1987 She used my Brigade XO, LTC Ike Adams to kick me in the teeth. We would run together at lunch. One day while running he asked: “Hey Captain, what do you think your doing with the rest of your life?”  I responded in typical junior Army officer fashion: “Well, I’m going to the Advanced Course, take another Company and after that get promoted to Major.”  I mean I had this planned out, and then he cut me off…”Well I don’t think that’s what God has in mind, you were called to the ministry and are running from it.”

If there was ever an “oh crap” moment, this was it.  People had been pinging on me for five or six years about this, but nobody, ever ever  dropped the bomb like that.  I could have died.  I had never mentioned anything about this to the man. Yet here he was, or God was, reading my mail.  This was not fun.  So I asked him: “How do you know?”  I was stunned by the reply.  “Well the Holy Spirit revealed it to me.”  Now Ike was not and is not a flake.  He was a Social Worker and career Army officer.  He retired from the Army and went to Asbury Seminary where he got his M.Div and University of Kentucky where he picked up his Ph.D.  He’s now the Chair of the Social Work Department at Asbury College.  Shaken by the incident I took myself home.  I told the long suffering Judy what had happened.  She told me “Well I could have told you that.”

So a year and some change later I left the Army to go to seminary.  I was accepted at Asbury, Austin Presbyterian and Southwestern Baptist.  I chose Southwestern for the simple reason that it was cheaper.  Back in those days before the Fundamentalist takeover of the seminaries, the Southern Baptist “Cooperative Fund” underwrote the majority of even non-Southern Baptist students tuition.  What would have been a $5,000 per semester or so bill was reduced to $1,000 a semester give or take a bit depending on the semester.  It was a good thing, because seminary was hell on earth.  How we made it through that ordeal is beyond me. It was like going through the gauntlet of Klingon Pain Sticks in the Rite of Ascension.

First Judy got sick and had to leave her job, a crummy one working for the government in an office rife with sexual harassment.  I left active duty during the Texas Oil bust of 1988.  I couldn’t get a job.  Seminary students without a technical skill were a dime a dozen, and the attitude of many employers was that they didn’t need you and if they did, they would not pay you much.  We lost everything, I mean almost everything but our books and our dogs.  We lost our house, our cars, and were pretty much poverty stricken despite working  full time in social service agencies, night shelters, pizza parlors and part time as a janitor.  Finally I had to take a semester off just to try to get back on our feet.

About that time I was accepted into the Chaplain Candidate program in the National Guard.  I got back in school, but once again came to a point were my job was drying up and with it the money I needed to go to seminary.  I had been given my two week notice.  I was the highest paid hourly worker, expenses had to be cut and I was gone.  At that point I thought stick a fork in me, I’m done.  I took my last finals that semester in absolute despair thinking that all had gone for naught.  Walking down the hallway in tears I met a couple of my Professors, my Church history and Missiology professors. They saw me.  Both simply let me cry and then prayed for me.  I got home that afternoon, ready to quit. I figured that it was over and that I had failed. I was going to find a regular job and start over, maybe go back in the Army.  As I walked in the door the phone rang and I got a call from a Christian ministry that Judy forced me to apply to. They offered me a job doing counseling.  It paid better than anything I had since the Army and even had, get this, tuition assistance and medical benefits.   Now we still had some more rough times but somehow God got us through this incredibly difficult but formative time in our lives.  I think that She was ensuring that I would be able to care for those going through similar circumstances and never let me forget Her care and assistance as I slogged my way through seminary.  The weird thing about seminary was that this independent evangelical guy came out on the Anglican and Catholic side of life.  I had my Baptist and Assembly of God friends ask me if I was a “closet Catholic or Anglican.” Believe me, that was not a cool thing to be asked in a Southern Baptist Seminary that was getting hit hard by a Fundamentalist assault.

I finished seminary and was ordained in 1992, at which time I also became a National Guard Chaplain.  I did a Clinical Pastoral Education Residency at Parkland Hospital in Dallas from 1993-94.  That was an experience that helped me continue my education, formation and discernment at I continued to track in this Anglican-Catholic manner.  On top of this Judy became Catholic in 1994 and we moved to West Virginia where I took my first post CPE Chaplain job. This was a contract position at a hospital in the town where my parents were from and where my both of my grand mothers lived.  Unfortunately I worked bad hours and spent weekends on call at the hospital or with the National Guard or Reserves.  I had no fellowship, pretty much no life outside the hospital.  I was isolated and I knew that I did not fit in many of the churches in the town.  At a chaplain conference I met a Priest from a Anglican “Continuing Church” who told me about the Charismatic Episcopal Church in 1995.  My friend told me that he thought that it would be a good place for me.  I met with the local bishop and in July 1996 I was ordained as a Priest.  It should have been September, but the time-line was moved forward when I was mobilized for the Bosnia operation.  The day before my ordination my bishop made a comment to me.  He said that this was no longer about simply “doing ministry.”  He said it was about a Sacramental Grace that was ontological in nature.   In other words, it was something that God would do to change me in that Sacrament.

When I was mobilized I lost my contract job.  Thankfully, the Army managed to find ways to keep me employed as a base chaplain when I returned from Europe. This let to a string of events which eventually led me to the Navy Chaplain Corps.  I know that my call is that of a Priest.  That now is my identity, though I function as a Chaplain within that vocation.  I have been blessed in every assignment with wonderful people and almost in every place a supportive atmosphere.  My long military and Chaplain experience has helped me not screw up a lot since coming to the Navy.  I had made plenty of mistakes in the Army. The cool thing is that like changing services is like going from the National League to the American League in mid-season. All of your stats start over.  Kind of like the Bible says, “old things passed away, behold all things become new.”

I am a proud journeyman. I love what I do and the people that I work with and serve.  At the same time one day I will retire from the Navy.  I am sure that the Deity Herself will patently guide me into whatever She has for me as a Priest in her Church. I cannot imagine anything else.  I love being a mentor to young people, especially young ministers and seminarians.  If I have my way I hope to be serving as a Priest until the day that I’m really finished.  This is not about preaching, it is about serving God’s people, in Word and in Sacrament in whatever capacity the church decides to use me until I am done. I figure that since Jesus and the Holy Spirit and a whole lot of persistence  have gotten me this far that it must be right.

I hope that this somewhat explains my call and vocation as a Priest.  It has been to use the words of Jerry Garcia: “A long strange trip.”

Peace, Steve+

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