Tag Archives: PTSD

July 27, 2014 · 14:10

Faith and Doubt on a Sunday Afternoon

shakethefinger

 

“Most priests, if they have any sense or any imagination, wonder if they truly believe all the things they preach. Like Jean-Claude they both believe and not believe at the same time.” Andrew Greeley “The Bishop and the Beggar Girl of St Germain”

Many off my readers as well as people I deal with on a regular basis struggle with faith and doubt. Today I was reading a column in the New York Times that brought up a very interesting article called Where Reason Ends and Faith Begins  by T.M. Luhrmann, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/opinion/sunday/t-m-luhrmann-where-reason-ends-and-faith-begins.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region a professor at Stanford. It talked about the point in different where individuals make a decision of what they chose to believe because it is reasonable and what they chose to believe by faith. I also read an article by Bishop Gene Robinson called Hope When the World’s Gone off the Rails  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/27/hope-when-the-world-s-gone-off-the-rails.html Both were excellent articles because they deal with a reality that many religious people don’t want to deal with. Something that I have struggled with most of my life, but especially after I returned from Iraq in 2008.

When I returned from Iraq in 2008 I was a mess. I had gone to Iraq thinking that I had the answers to about anything and that I was invincible. I felt that with years of experience in the military and in trauma departments of major trauma centers that I was immune to the effects of war and trauma. Likewise I had spent years studying theology, pastoral care and ethics as well as military history, theory and practice. I had studied PTSD and Combat Stress and had worked with Marines that were dealing with it. If there was anyone who could go to Iraq and come back “normal” it had to be me.

Of course as anyone who knows me or reads this website regularly knows I came back from Iraq different. I collapsed in the midst of PTSD induced depression, anxiety and a loss of faith. For nearly two years I was a practical agnostic.
During those dark days, particularly the times where I was working in the ICU and Pediatric ICU at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth attempting to have enough faith to help others in crisis, be they patients at the brink of death or families walking through that dark valley even though I did not have any faith to even believe that God existed.

It was during those dark days that the writings of Father Andrew Greeley, mainly his Bishop Blackie Ryan mysteries that provided me with one of the few places of spiritual solace and hope that I found. Baseball happened to be the other.
During those dark times when prayer seemed futile and the scriptures seemed dry and dead I found some measure of life and hope in the remarkable lives of the people that inhabited the pages of the Bishop Blackie Ryan novels. Through them I learned that doubt and faith could co-exist and that there was a mystery to faith in Jesus that defied doctrinal suppositions as well as cultural, political and sociological prejudices.

I did learn something else, something that makes many people uncomfortable and that took me a long time to accept. That was that doubt and faith could co-exist and as I read Greeley’s stories I began to see scripture in a new light, especially the stories of men and women that we venerate for their faith who doubted and even when they believed often disputed God. The Old Testament is full of their stories and there are even some in the New Testament. Greeley wrote that is was possible for a priest to lose their faith “no more often than a couple of times a day.”

Thus I find it hard to deal with preachers and others who are so full of certitude that they are full of shit, no matter what their faith tradition. God is too big for that.

I rediscovered faith and life as I anointed that man in our emergency room in December 2009. To my surprise faith returned. I believe again but I also doubt, at least a couple of times a day, it keeps me humble. And for that I’m grateful.

Peace and have a wonderful rest of your weekend,

Padre Steve+

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June 24, 2014 · 09:38

Damaged Goods: Broken Clergy and God’s Grace

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I am broken…. That my friends is a fact that I am reminded of daily, especially when I open my life to strangers.

There is a quote by General William Tecumseh Sherman that defines my view of caring for people, friends, colleagues and peers. Sherman said of Grant: “Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.”

That may seem confounding to some, even offensive. However, since I can say that I have been crazy and drunk that Sherman’s words have a particular relevance and affinity to me.

A few years ago as I was beginning to emerge from my period of complete loss of faith and agnosticism following my post Iraq PTSD crash I wrote an article called Raw Edges: Are there other Chaplains out there Like Me? It was an article that I basically wrote to see if there were other clergy or chaplains that were going through similar experiences.

While I did receive some feedback from chaplains and other clergy going through similar issues, the article eventually attracted the attention of a newspaper, followed by the DOD Real Warriors program. In late 2012 I was interviewed by David Wood of the Huffington Post about Moral Injury and featured in a front page article in the Washington Times in early April of this year. That being said all of those experiences, tough ending up being very positive I did not seek out and were quite scary because when I share intimate things about me with anyone it is risky, especially if they are clergy.

The fact is that I have a terrible fear and distrust of most clergy. I have written before that I am afraid of Christians, but I think that I am even more afraid of clergy. Frankly I don’t feel safe or normal when I am around most clergy. I actually feel more at home with atheists, agnostics and other skeptics or doubters hanging out at my favorite watering hole or the ballpark than I do with other clergy.

Part is from my own experience, but also my experience in seeing friends and others treated badly by other clergy. Thus I neither feel safe or accepted by most clergy, be they military chaplains or civilians. The sad thing is I know I am not alone.

That being said, clergy are often the last people who want to admit that they are broken or flawed. I may be a Priest and Chaplain but I know that I and both broken and terribly flawed, as I like to say I am a “Mendoza Line” Christian and Priest. I don’t do the Christian life very well, like Mario Mendoza I hit about .200, just enough to keep myself in the majors but never enough to be a Hall of Fame contender or super-star by any means. I am a flawed journeyman who works hard and cares about his work, but who lacks that natural ability as well as connections of others.

Today was hard. I was reminded by someone at work, a student who is a peer in the chaplain corps, in an incident that could have been intention or unintentional that I am flawed, and to some senior leaders inconsequential. I say this because as I have gone through the living hell of dealing with PTSD and Moral Injury over the past six years that for the most part it has not been fellow chaplains or clergy who have been there for me. Instead it has been atheists, agnostics, skeptics, other doubters as well as non-Christians of various persuasions who have taken the time to both care for me and affirm me and my ministry. Needless to say there have been some other Christians and clergy to do this, but they are a decided minority, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer so chillingly noted:

“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.”

If anyone wonders why people are fleeing the church and why the fastest growing religious preference in the United States is “none” one only has to look to me. If I wasn’t already a Christian there is little in American Christianity that would attract me to Jesus. But that being said I have to remind myself of the words of the man who coined the term “the wounded healer” Father Henri Nouwen. He noted “Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one’s own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search but do not know how.”

The fact is I am damaged goods, but then of we are honest all of us are, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. As far as what I believe that of itself is something that is at the heart of the Christian understanding of reconcilliation. Thus, to all of those that struggle as I do, I wish you all the best, knowing that somewhere in the grace of God that there is a place for all of us.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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June 9, 2014 · 23:43

D-Day at 70 Years and Forever: Courage, Sacrifice and Reconciliation…

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“We are on this Earth for only a moment in time.  And fewer of us have parents and grandparents to tell us about what the veterans of D-Day did here 70 years ago.  As I was landing on Marine One, I told my staff, I don’t think there’s a time where I miss my grandfather more, where I’d be more happy to have him here, than this day.  So we have to tell their stories for them.  We have to do our best to uphold in our own lives the values that they were prepared to die for.  We have to honor those who carry forward that legacy, recognizing that people cannot live in freedom unless free people are prepared to die for it.” President Barack Obama at the 70th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings, June 6th 2014

Seventy years ago the liberation of France began on the beaches of Normandy.  Soldiers from 6 Allied Infantry and 3 Airborne Divisions supported by an Armada of over 5000 ships and landing craft and several thousand aircraft braved weather, heavy seas and in places fierce German resistance to gain the foothold on beaches named Omaha, Utah, Gold, Sword and Juno.  Over the next seven weeks the Allied soldiers advanced yard by yard through the hedgerows and villages of Normandy against ferocious German resistance before they were able to break out of the lodgement area and begin the drive across France.

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The fighting was bloody, most American, British and Canadian infantry battalions and regiments suffered nearly 100% casualty rates in Normandy.  Replacements were fed in at a cyclic rate to make up the losses even as fresh divisions flowed ashore, but the losses were terrible.  By the time the landings took place, the British having been at war for nearly five years were bled out.  They had little left to replace their losses.  From Normandy on the British were losing combat power at a rate that they could not make up.

For the Americans there was another problem.  The US High command decided to limit the Army to 90 Divisions.  Many of these were committed to the Pacific and Mediterranean theaters.   Likewise, American Infantry units were generally made up of the lowest caliber of recruits, led often by the poorest officers, the best went to either the Air Corps or technical branches of the Army.

Now this is not to criticize veterans, but it is a factor in the campaign.  Most US Infantry Divisions with the exceptions of those previously blooded in North Africa and Sicily often performed badly in action.  Some, after being manhandled by the Germans had their leadership replaced and became excellent combat units.  However, every new division that arrived in France after D-Day always got the worst of their initial engagement against German forces.

While performance suffered there was another problem for the Americans.  With the limitation in number of divisions, they stopped building infantry divisions, upon whom the bulk of the campaign depended. Thus they had little in the way of trained infantry replacements to make up heavy losses in Normandy.  By late 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge the American infantry crisis was so bad that 30,000 Air Corps candidates were trained as infantry and soldiers support units such as Ant-Aircraft battalions were used to bolster infantry units.

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Had the Germans been able to hold out and had they not been bled white by the Red Army on the Easter Front, had they not lost the nearly their entire Army Group Center in the Red Army offensive of 1944 it is conceivable that the British and American offensive in the West would have ground to a halt for lank of infantry in 1945.  In spite of this there was no lack of individual courage among the troops engaged; the courage and sacrifice of all who fought there should not be forgotten.

caen_ruins1The Ruins of Caen

The human toll among the combatants both Allied and German, as well as the local populace was especially traumatic.  While the American, Canadian and British people are keen to remember the sacrifices made by our soldiers we often forget the toll among the French civilian population of Normandy as well as the German soldiers, mostly conscripts, sacrificed by the Nazi regime.  Normandy suffered more than any part of France during the liberation.  In the months leading up to D-Day Allied Air Forces unleashed hell on Normandy to attempt to lessen potential German resistance.  The Allied Naval bombardment added to the carnage ashore and once the campaign began the combined fires of both Allied and German forces devastated the region.  Whole cites such as Caen were destroyed by Allied Air forces and an estimated 30,000 French civilians were killed during the Normandy campaign, 3000 on D-Day alone.  I think it can be said that the blood of the civilians of Normandy was shed for the freedom of all of France.

Normandie, Fallschirmjäger mit MG 42

The campaign in Normandy was one of the most viciously contested in western military history.  German forces, especially Paratroops of the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th Fallschirmjager Divisions, German Army Panzer Divisions such as the 2nd, 21st, 116th and Panzer Lehr and those of the Waffen-SS, especially the 1st, 2nd and 12th SS Panzer Divisions held the line against ever increasing Allied forces.  As they sacrificed themselves Hitler refused to commit more forces to Normandy and insisted that his Army contest every meter of ground.  He forbade his commanders to withdraw to more defensible positions along the Seine.

Hitler’s decisions actually shortened the campaign.  Whatever the crimes of the Hitler Regime and Nazism, which were among the most heinous in history, one can never question the valor, courage and sacrifice of ordinary German soldiers.  For those Americans who lump all Germans who fought in World War II with the evil of the Nazi regime, please do not forget this fact:  There are those today, even in this country that make the same charge against Americans who have fought in Iraq and those at home and abroad who have labeled the US as an aggressor nation.  When you judge others, know that the same standard will be applied to you someday. It is as Justice Robert Jackson who served as the Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal wrote:

“If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

Normandy was a near run thing for the Allies.  First the weather almost delayed it by 2 to 4 weeks.  Had that happened the Germans might have been even better prepared to meet the invasion.  Likewise, the Red Army’s devastating offensive which annihilated Army Group Center in June kept the Germans from transferring additional forces from the Russian Front to Normandy.  On D-Day itself there were a number of times where Lady Luck, or maybe the Deity Herself, saved the Allies from disaster.

Any person who has seen Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Day or Band of Brothers knows a little bit about how close Overlord came to failure.  Allied Airborne units were dispersed throughout the region after they drooped.  Many units were not fully operational for more than a day as they sought to organize themselves and gather their troops.  At Omaha Beach the Americans had not counted on the presence of the first rate German 352nd Infantry Division.  This division, despite being pounded by naval and air forces almost cause General Bradley to withdraw from Omaha.  At Utah the soldiers of the 4th Infantry division escaped a similar mauling by landing on the wrong beach.  Had they landed at the planned beaches they would have ran into the same kind of resistance from well dug in German forces.  At Gold Juno and Sword British forces benefited from confusion in the German command which kept the 21st Panzer Division from descending on the British forces and quite possibly splitting the British zones.

The Allies benefited from the absence of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, Commander of Army Group B who because of the ad weather assumed no invasion was possible and traveled to German to celebrate his wife’s birthday.  Finally, and perhaps most important they benefited by Hitler’s refusal to immediately commit forces, including his Panzer reserve to defeat the invasion at the beachhead.

For those who fought in Normandy and those civilians who lived through it the memories are still vivid. Many suffer the effects of PTSD, grief and other wounds, physical, emotional and spiritual.  When one is exposed to the danger and destruction of war, the smell of death, the sight of burned out cities, vehicles and the suffering of the wounded and dying, it makes for a lifetime of often painful memories.

For some of the German, British and American veterans, the struggle in Normandy has given way to long lasting friendships.  Many of those who fought against the Allied onslaught became fast friends after the war. Those who fought against each other were soon allies as part of NATO and soldiers of nations which were once bitter enemies serve together in harm’s way in Afghanistan.  The generation that fought at Normandy is rapidly passing away, their numbers ever dwindling they remain a witness to courage, sacrifice and reconciliation.

In the end it is reconciliation and healing that matters. Some scars of war never pass away; some memories are far too painful to release.  Yet we strive to reconcile.  In 2002 while deployed at sea for Operation Enduring Freedom I was an advisor to a boarding team from my ship.  It was our job to make sure that impounded ships which were breaking the UN embargo on Iraq were not in danger of sinking, and that their crews had food, water and medical care.  Since many of these ships remained at anchor for 2-4 weeks in the heat of the Arabian Gulf, this was important.

The delays imposed by UN rules sometimes meant that the sailors of these ships grew resentful.  It was my job to spend time with the Master’s of these ships to keep things calm and work out any issues that arose.  On one of these ships I met an Iraqi merchant skipper.  The man was well traveled, educated in the U.K. in the 1960s and in his career a frequent visitor to the US. In 1990 he was the senior captain of the Kuwaiti shipping line.  Then Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.  As a result of this when Kuwait was liberated he lost his job.  His nation was an international pariah.  Since his life was the sea he took up the only job possible to support his family, what he knew best, captaining ships.  He was most apologetic for the trouble that he and others like him caused us.  We shared much during those visits.   One of his daughters was in medical school and other children in university.  He longed for the day when Iraq would be free.  On our last talk before his ship was released he remarked to me “I hope one day we will meet again.  Maybe someday like the American, British and German soldiers after the war, we can meet in a pub, share a drink and be friends.” 

dinner-w-bg-sabah1Me with Iraqi General Sabah in his Quarters in Ramadi 2007

I too pray for that, especially after my tour in Al Anbar five years after I encountered that Iraqi Merchant Captain.  Maybe someday we will. I thought of him almost every day that I was in Iraq. I only hope that he and his family have survived the war, the continuing violence in Iraq and are doing well. There is hardly a day that goes by that I do not think of this man or the Iraqis that I had the honor of serving alongside in Al Anbar in 2007 and 2008.

President Obama remarked in Normandy last week about the veterans of the 9-11 Generation of service members, of which I and so many others like me are part:

“And this generation — this 9/11 Generation of service members — they, too, felt something.  They answered some call; they said “I will go.”  They, too, chose to serve a cause that’s greater than self — many even after they knew they’d be sent into harm’s way.  And for more than a decade, they have endured tour after tour.”

God bless all those who fought at Normandy and give your peace to all who have served since then. Be with our troops as they serve in Afghanistan. Heal the wounds of war and bring your peace to the nations. Amen

Peace, Steve+

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May 15, 2014 · 17:32

Frightened by Christians

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“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Mahatma Gandhi

I expect that this article might make some people uncomfortable but it is something that I need to write.

I am a Christian. I am a Priest and I am a Navy Chaplain. But for the most part I am afraid of Christians. There are many reasons for this. Some are more general in the way I see Christians treat others; their own wounded as well as non-believers, the political machinations of pastors and “Christian” special interest groups masquerading as ministries.

But most of why I am afraid is because what I have experienced at the hand of many Christians, some of whom I had counted as friends many of whom are pastors, priests or chaplains. To experience rejection or being shamed by people that you thought were friends is very hard, especially when that at one time you trusted them implicitly to care for you. However to be rejected by those that you trusted “in the name of God, ” or rather because you violated supposedly “correct” doctrinal beliefs about God is frightening.

It seems to me that with many Christians and churches that the “unconditional” love of God that they proclaim not really unconditional. It is totally conditional on believing what they believe or behaving in the way they think that you should.

For those that do not know me or my story I am a career military officer with over 30 years of service between the Army and Navy. I have been a chaplain since 1992 and served in the National Guard, Army Reserve, Active Duty Army and the Navy. I am a trained hospital chaplain; I have a great academic background. I went to Iraq in 2007 and came home with a terrible case of severe chronic PTSD. I still suffer from some anxiety, depression and plenty of insomnia. I find mental health care hard to get in my new assignment and I realize how woefully unprepared that our medical system, military, VA and civilian is to care for that vast numbers of veterans like me.

After Iraq I suffered a collapse of my faith and for close to two years was a practical agnostic. Only my deep sense of call and vocation kept me going and there were times that I wondered if I would be better off dead.

When faith returned through what I call my Christmas miracle it was different. I totally relate to author Anne Rice who said:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.”

I have always questioned a lot but after my crisis of faith I began to see through the bullshit. I began to not only question things my former church taught, but openly stated my convictions about how we treat others as Christians, the equality of people in general and tolerance for those different than us including gays and Moslems who for some Christians are rather low on the scale of those that God might love.

After Iraq I was sickened by the crass politicization of conservative American Christianity and many of its leaders. Men and women who advocate war without end, be it real wars against “enemies” of American, or promote a culture war even against other Christians that they do not like or agree with. Of course this is all done in “Jesus name.”

Likewise I question the opulence and materialism of the church. I question the nearly cult like focus and near worship accorded to the Pastor-CEOs of the megachurches and the television preachers and teachers. I wonder in amazement about how many of these leaders live like royalty and have devoted followers who despite repeated scandals treat them as the voice of God.

Along with the that I question the preference of many American Christian leaders for the rich and their disdain for the poor, the alien and the outcasts among us. I don’t know where where they get it.

All of that got me thrown out of a church that I had served 14 years a priest and chaplain back in 2010. I thought I had a lot of friends in that church. I still have some that keep in contact with me but after my dismissal most abandoned me. That hurts worse than anything.

In fact when I came home from Iraq in crisis and falling apart the first person who asked about how I was doing with God was not clergy. It was my first shrink. I was asked by a commanding officer after Iraq “where does a chaplain go for help?” I told him “not to other chaplains.”  The sad thing is that man who did care about me suffered untreated terrible PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury and committed suicide earlier this year.

I have had a few experiences this week that have opened that wound again and reminded me of why I am afraid of many that call themselves Christians. I had a friend comment on some coarse language I used in a rant on a social media site, the friend noted a certain word that I used was used to silence others.

I replied that he was wrong, that the ultimate way to silence others was to invoke God and shame them. That is the ultimate trump card because no one is bigger than God.

The good thing is that when he realized why I had said the word and realized what he said had further wounded me and understood a bit of what I was going through he was quite gracious, sympathetic and apologetic. He is still a friend and he means a lot to me. Thankfully there was not another broken relationship.

But my friend’s initial comment made me realize how many of us as Christians, even well meaning people, focus on outward behaviors, words or actions of others without understanding what they are going through. Like 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.”

I am thankful that I have a number of friends including a good number of Christians from various backgrounds who have stood by me even if they disagree with my theology, politics or favorite baseball team.

That being said with the exception of such
people who have been with me through thick and thin I am almost terrified of being around Christians. Church in most cases is a frightening place for me, and the sad fact is that if I were not already a Christian there is little in American Christianity that would ever cause me to be interested in Jesus.  I can totally understand why churches are hemorrhaging members, especially young people and why the fastest growing religious preference in our society is “none” for I too am in some sense an outcast.

As Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert) said in the movie Major League: “I Like Jesus very much, but he no help with curveball.”

Pray for me a sinner,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 4, 2014 · 22:12

PTSD Dreams and Stranger Things

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I didn’t get much sleep last night. For some reason I was back in Iraq.

Last night’s dream world was about every fear I had when I was in Iraq on steroids. I woke up almost every hour in terror of IED attacks, ambushes and attacks on the small groups of advisers on Iraq bases with whom I served.

It is important to note that none of these events happened to me. I was shot at on a number of occasions but none of the terrifying instances that were part of my nightmares last night happened to me. In fact there were people in them who I know now who served in Iraq but not with me. That being said, they were terrifying and all too real in my mind. Though I never actually experienced any of them they were a part of my life and my fears that I lived with on a daily basis as I operated in Al Anbar Province during 2007 and 2008 with small groups of advisers to the Iraqi Army and Security Forces.

Nightmares and dreams are surreal. They are real, but they are not. They blend elements of our lives and our subconscious into visions that can be pleasant or terrifying. Last night was for the most part terrifying but at one point pointed to hope. That being said, I didn’t get much sleep. When I got up for a very busy yet productive day at the final day of my denominational clergy-chaplain training symposium I looked in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot and I looked terrible.

I remembered a quote by Guy Sager, the author of the classic book of war The Forgotten Soldier:

“Only happy people have nightmares, from overeating. For those who live a nightmare reality, sleep is a black hole, lost in time, like death.”

Since I have to wake up very early for my flight back home tomorrow I do hope that my sleep is sound and my dreams for once pleasant. However, I know that such thoughts are an illusion and that like me countless thousands of other combat veterans live what I live. So my hope an prayer is that we will all be able to get at least one good night of sleep.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 1, 2014 · 21:51

Long Days, Lost Wallets and a Long Layover…Ministry Included

10151918_10152444030142059_7871957421917905974_nWell my friends it is after Nine PM Eastern Time and I am still enroute to Houston after leaving my home at Six AM. This means that I have been traveling for over 15 hours and since I still have about three hours before I get to Houston and maybe more before I lay my head down on my pillow that this qualifies as a long day.

Things went well enough at first until I got to what I thought was my one layover at Baltimore Washington International Airport and discovered that I did not have my wallet. Long story short after about an hour of searching, phone calls and consternation it looked like my travel to an important conference with my church and fellow denomination clergy and chaplains was not going to happen. I went to the Southwest Airlines gate agent who put my information in the computer and found that my missing wallet had been turned in to the gate agent in Norfolk. Armed with that information I called the Staff College and the industrious young man got me back to Norfolk to my wallet and connected me with flights to get me to Houston late tonight.  While in Baltimore some nice lady who overheard my near panicked conversation with people at the Staff College gave me $20 to eat. Since beer is technically bread since it is made from grain that was lunch.

To let you know I do not do airports or aircraft well. Today, even with all the craziness I am still in one peace. I attribute this to prayer and pilsner, though technically I was drinking lagers at almost every stop. I figure when it come to dealing with airports I can deal with panic mode because of the crowds by going crazy, not a good option, drugging myself with anti-anxiety meds which don’t taste good or drink beer which does taste good. Once I had my wallet back I also got food, comfort food instead of healthy food, which I will go back to tomorrow. Of course with over three hours to go before I get to Houston I have switched to lots of water since I tend not to do sodas very often.

While at the Johnny Rivers Grill and Market in Orlando Airport I had some pulled pork BBQ, it was okay, as well as a couple of beers and while there had a young man in a delay situation for another flight sit next to me at the bar. He was a Staff Sergeant in the National Guard who was being called home early from vacation to drill. He was leaving his family in Orlando. He has spent several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and was telling me that he still has not been able to re-set after his last deployment because in addition to his civilian commitments his Guard unit continues to push him and all of its personnel hard, without much thanks and with no support to soldiers or families. It was a similar conversation that I had with a senior Marine Corps Officer recently. The important thing for this soldier who has served his country for 15 years as a citizen soldier was that I cared to listen to him and understood.

I didn’t do much talking, mentioned that I had been to Iraq, had PTSD and had been an agnostic for a couple of years and he was grateful just for someone to listen. The sad thing is there are far to few people, especially leaders who will take the time to do that. The fact is we have to stand by our guys, they have put themselves on the line time and time again, we as leaders owe them. But the truth is as my Marine friend noted is that since 2001 the attitude is that you owe the military.

When I was training to be a Chaplain in the Texas Army National Guard, Colonel John Price, an Episcopal Priest told me that his best ministry happened in officer’s clubs and bars, being available to people who would never darken the door of a church, come to a chapel service or would be too proud to come to the office.  Father Price was right. Jesus didn’t cloister himself, he was out with people. Most religious people didn’t care much for it but he drew people to him because he was where they were.

We as Chaplains as well as leaders must change our culture or we will destroy the men and women entrusted to us by the nation and in the process destroy our armed forces. Without the people the machines don’t matter that much.

So anyway, not much longer until I will board this flight. So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

 

 

 

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April 23, 2014 · 23:59

Not the Cover of the Rolling Stone but the Front Page: Padre Steve Featured in Washington Times article on PTSD

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“We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.” Erich Maria Remarque in All Quiet on the Western Front

Well my friends it has been an interesting week. Last week I was contacted by a Public Affairs Officer at the Pentagon who had been a student in our Winter Class because he had been asked by a reporter if he knew someone who could talk about PTSD. I was then contacted by the reporter, Maggie Ybarra of the Washington Times. I was interviewed and the paper sent a wonderful photographer Eva Russo to take pictures of me at Norfolk’s Harbor Park.

Now the Times is not my paper of choice. However the chance to talk about PTSD and the effect on veterans including senior officers in such a high profile forum is important. One does not have to agree with the political slant of news organization if they present the particular topic with sensitivity and balance. The reporter, editor and photographer involved all treated me and those who suffer with respect. I cannot ask for more. Since I was interviewed and quoted by David Wood of the Huffington Post last month for an article on “Moral Injury” shows a sense of balance, I will talk to anyone willing to fairly present the struggles faced by currently serving military members and veterans suffering from PTSD. My brothers and sisters mean more to me than my political leanings. This week I have been contacted by a producer from the BBC about a documentary on that subject but that is waiting on PAO to do something with it.

What matters to me is that veterans suffering from PTSD, TBI and Moral Injury are not forgotten. That happens far too often often after every war. The public forgets, the military forgets and the government forgets. Major General Smedley Butler wrote in his classic War is a Racket:

“I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are about 50,000 destroyed men- men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital in Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed home.”

Likewise I understand the stigma of PTSD. Many senior personnel both officers and enlisted, the career men and women effected by it PTSD, TBI or Moral Injury don’t want to identify themselves or seek help. I can’t blame them in some ways even though it is killing them. My choice back in 2009 was to decide try tell my story as honestly and transparently. When my shrink asked me what I was going to do with this I thought about it hard. I am very much an introvert and it was scary to “come out.” It was even harder then because though a chaplain I was for all practical purposes an agnostic hoping that there was a God and I was afraid of everything. But I knew that I had to start speaking out because very few senior leaders affected by this scourge had the freedom to do so. That is one of the reasons that I started this website.

It was risky to speak out. Despite efforts by some senior leaders to change the military culture the fact is that there still is a great stigma attached to “coming out” and seeking help for PTSD and other mental illnesses. In fact I know of numerous senior leaders, officer and enlisted whose careers have cratered due to the effects of PTSD and even some who have lost their families or even taken their lives. So for me this is very personal and serious.

The first time I spoke out being interviewed in the Jacksonville (North Carolina) Daily News back in April 2011 there were trolls who made some incredibly hateful and vicious comments about me in the comments of the online edition. Some were even threatening. The paper took the abusive comments down but the wounds remain, some people are simply assholes and I pity them. No wonder people don’t want to talk about the subject and would rather resort to silence, substance abuse and suicide than talk about it.

The fact is that despite the fact that some senior leaders are doing what they can to try to change the culture of the military from one that penalizes, marginalizes and trivializes the suffering of those that serve the stigma remains, and many feel it. One senior enlisted leader in an elite branch of the Navy told me that “leaders could seek help that they would never get any more career enhancing or important assignments.” That was only a few months ago after the suicide of a retired Navy Captain who suffered from PTSD and TBI, a man who meant much to both of us.

The fact is that as a Chaplain I feel pretty much “radioactive” to other chaplains, at senior chaplains. I can count on one hand the number of senior chaplains who have bothered to contact me or ask how I was doing. But that being said I have been contacted by others, chaplains line officers and enlisted personnel who tell me that I am one of the few people who “gets it” and that they feel safe confiding in. Personally I would rather have that be my legacy than anything else.

The fact is it will take a generation of leaders to change the military culture to give the men and women who put it all on the line and suffer for their efforts to get help.

But enough of that for now, I’m getting upset and I already have a terrible time sleeping, I don’t need to spin myself up any more than I am. If you want to read the Times article the link is here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/22/less-silent-suffering-veterans-post-traumatic-stre/

On a different note, I did something today that in more than 32 years in the military I have never done. I received a maximum score on my physical fitness test. The past few years I have come close but never maxed it. The sad thing is what I need to do now to get a maximum score is more than I needed to do as a young Army officer in the 1980s.

Anyway, until tomorrow when I will have another Gettysburg article for you, have a great night and remember to care for the veterans and families who suffer the effects of PTSD, TBI and Moral Injury.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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April 20, 2014 · 23:31

Easter Sunday, Baseball and Interviews

meharborpark“I believe in the Church of Baseball…the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.” Annie Savoy Bull Durham

For those that didn’t notice today was Easter Sunday. It is the Sunday where Christians remember and celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus and others go into diabetic comas because of the amount of candy they ingested even if they don’t believe.

For me it was a simple celebration of Eucharist at my Staff College Chapel with some of our students and their families. Following that a nice breakfast with Judy and then a trip to the ballpark to see the Norfolk Tides play the Durham Bulls.

It has been a busy and eventful week. First it was Holy Week and it was the first week of teaching my Ethics Elective for our current class, finalizing my Gettysburg Staff Ride “Tome” for this class and taking care of the ever bothersome military health and physical fitness requirements. In addition to everything else I made  four trips to medical and dental to get routine exams and paperwork accomplished so I can do my physical fitness test this week. As for a frame of reference even about 10 years ago guys my age didn’t need to do this. However the physical requirements I have to meet at age 54 in the Navy are little different from the ones I had to meet at age 22 in the Army. Of course I still had to do my taxes and other things around the house as contractors were back in on Friday doing the painting in the house. Hopefully by the end of this week most if not all of that is done, but I digress…

The Easter celebration of the Eucharist was really nice, several of our students and family members attending, which for my chapel is like “mega-church” numbers.

Following breakfast, or maybe it was really brunch I went over to Harbor Park where I met a photographer from the Washington Times. A reporter from that newspaper asked a former student of mine who serves as a Public Affairs Officer at the Pentagon if he knew anyone who knew something about PTSD and he referred her to me. The article will run tomorrow from what I am told. They liked the interview and wanted to get some photos of me in my natural environment, Harbor Park in Norfolk, a place which is a refuge to me and has been since I returned from Iraq. There is something healing to me about going to the ballpark. To me baseball is more than a game, it is an important part of my spirituality and my mental health.

The photographer stayed with me about 6 innings before having to return to Washington. It was a nice day. After the game, which the Tides won by a score of 6-3 with Kevin Gausman pitching well against a strong Durham team. The photographer and I had some nice conversations as she shot the story and followed me around the ballpark. What was nice is that I know the people there well enough after so many years of going there that I could just be me, I didn’t have to alter much, just have someone follow me around. Since I do a lot of baseball photography we were able to compare notes and I was able to talk to her about better equipment than I have for sports photography. That being said she did like some of the pictures I showed from past events. Who knows maybe I can do this after I retire from the Navy whenever that is?

Anyway. Tonight has been spent watching the movies Bull Durhamand Kelly’s Heroes. I go back to work tomorrow, yet have one more medical appointment Tuesday and then my Physical Readiness Test on Wednesday. The last won’t be hard.

In the coming couple of weeks you can look forward to more articles about Gettysburg as well as some other topics that I am doing some reading, reflection and research on.

Again, Happy Easter,

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

 

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April 3, 2014 · 17:05

Another Tragic Day at Fort Hood

Thirteen Dead In Mass Shooting At Fort Hood

Back in November 2009 Fort Hood Texas was rocked by the killing of 13 people and the wounding of 32 others when Major Nidal Malik Hassan went on a religious based rampage at the giant installation. Hassan now sits on death row at the Military prison at Fort Leavenworth Kansas after being convicted of his crimes by a General Courts Martial.

This afternoon there was another mass shooting. Reports are that at least four people have been killed and another 14 wounded. The alleged shooter, Specialist van Lopez was among the dead.

It was yet another tragic day on the largest Army installation in the country, the home of the 1st Cavalry and 4th Infantry Divisions, over 450,000 soldiers plus their family members, the civilian support staff. I am well acquainted with the base having spent much time as an Army National Guard officer there in the 1980s and 1990s.

Though I left the Army Reserve to go on active duty in the Navy back in 1999 I still have many friends that serve in the Army as well as its Reserve and National Guard components. Likewise I serve at a Joint Command where many of our faculty are active duty or retired Army officers. So when something like this happens I get worried as I have lost friends and others that I have served with in Iraq, Afghanistan and on September 11th 2001 at the Pentagon.

This time it was not a American Jihadi doing the killing. Instead is was an ordinary solder with a wife and young child who served in Iraq and was being treated for some kind of mental health issues. Of course that did not stop some from immediately raising the specter of Moslem extremist terrorism. One blogger or as he calls himself a “journalist” Pat Dollard at Breitbart site tweeted this which sounds a lot like Nazi “journalist” Julius Streicher’s Der Sturmer rants against the Jews:

“If there is even one more act of Muslim terrorism, it is then time for Americans to start slaughtering Muslims in the streets, all of them.”

Threatening to “slaughter” all American Moslems “in the streets.” My God, what the hell? But such rants are par for Dollard who tweets such race hatred as well as conspiracy theories so outlandish as to be laughable if he were not serious and followed by a lot of people on a daily basis.

So we have a mentally ill soldier who killed 3 and wounded 16 others creating havoc and destroying the lives of many people, including his own wife and child before taking his own life. Such incidents have occurred at other bases including one at Camp LeJeune where I was last stationed. The fact is there are a lot of active duty, reserve, retired and other veterans with significant medical and mental health problems that are not being addressed well in the either the military, civilian or VA medical systems.

We know very little about this soldier, Specialist Ivan Lopez, who served in Iraq but took part in no combat. We don’t know what his mental issues are nor do we know the motive. One thing we do know is that he was not a Moslem and that this was not an act of terrorism. It was a criminal act committed by a man not authorized to carry a concealed weapon who was possibly insane.

We will certainly find out more about Lopez in the coming days and hopefully that will shed light on this crime.

We also know something else, much more disturbing than Lopez’s crime. That there are people in this country just waiting for a Moslem terrorist to kill some people on this country in order that they might have the excuse to start slaughtering Moslems in the streets.

That my friends is truly frightening.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 26, 2014 · 20:11

The Freedom of Living on the Margins of American Christianity

1622612_10152232336042059_727365308_nMe and my Littlest Buddy, Minnie Scule

I have been living on the margins of American Christianity for a bit over six years now. The watershed moment was when I returned from Iraq in February 2008 my faith shattered and my soul wounded suffering from severe PTSD. I was not in good shape then and two years later after faith returned, albeit in a different form I realized that I no longer fit in the mainstream of conservative American Christianity.

When I began to express some of those changes, which mainly had to do in the manner of how I viewed others I got in trouble. At the time I was part of a pretty conservative Episcopal-Catholic denomination with very strong Evangelical and Charismatic leanings. I wrote that I thought that homosexuals could be Christians and not automatically damned to hell. I wrote that not all Moslems were bad. I expressed a great deal of empathy for non-believers, particularly Atheists and Agnostics having recently come out of a period where for all intents I was an Agnostic praying that God really did exist and care. I also asserted that I saw no reason why women could not or should not be ordained to the Priesthood and the Episcopacy and I expressed other views that while not connected with anything to do in the Christian faith was not politically correct in conservative circles.

During that time period I found that I was getting slammed and “unfriended” on Facebook by people I had previously considered friends whenever I had the nerve to disagree with them, or innocently post something that they disagreed with on my Facebook page. I think that was the hardest part for me, I was shocked that people who I had thought were friends, who knew what I was going through were so devoted to their ideology that they condemned me and threw me away. I found that I agreed with Mahatma Gandhi who observed: “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Of course I say that with a fair amount of humility because most of the time I am not a very good Christian, if that means actually trying to emulate Jesus.

Of course that is not uncommon in the annals of Christianity. Ulrich Zwingli, the Reformer of Zurich was so upset when his students and closest associates became Anabaptist that he had them drowned in the Rhine River. In fact any time Church leaders have had significant powers over people through the levers of the State they have quite often used that power to crush anyone that did not believe like them or questioned their authority.

In a sense for two millennia various groups of Christians have been creating God in their own image and inflicting their beliefs on others. Anne Lamott has a pithy little thought that I love: “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

In September of 2010 I was asked to leave that church, even though my actual theological orthodoxy, as to what I believed about God and Christ was unchanged. Thankfully another church, the Apostolic Catholic Orthodox Church, a denomination of the Old Catholic tradition took me in. It is a tiny denomination, much like the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands, but very affirming and I fit well in it.

As far as my old church, it was going through a difficult time and the Bishop who threw me out was a big part of the problem. He was removed a few months later when it was revealed that he was plotting to take all of the military chaplains out of the denomination to another without consulting the other bishops. One friend who is still in that church speculated that I was asked to leave by the bishop because he thought I might reveal his plans, even though he had not told me directly about them.

What was odd about that church was that in 2004 I was censured by the then second ranking archbishop in that church, forbidden from publishing and even having or having any personal contact with his clergy where I was living because I was “too Catholic.” The irony was that this bishop was a big cause of the trouble that the church went through including the massive splits that occurred in 2005-2010. He left that church, became the editor of a conservative Catholic website and now is a Priest in the Anglican Ordinate and effectively a Roman Catholic Priest.  I love irony.

Thankfully I still have many friends in my old church, and thankfully there are good people there doing their best to live the Gospel. I can’t say that I would fit in there anymore, but I have no residual animosity to the current leadership of that denomination and pray that they continue to recover from the tumult and division that marked their struggle from 2005-2011. I admit that it was a painful time and for a while I was quite bitter about how I had been treated, but it has been easier to live by forgiving. C. S. Lewis noted: “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” Since I have been forgiven for so much how can I not at least try to live in a forgiving manner?

Last night I wrote about my frustrations with American Christianity in particular the conservative Christian subculture. Looking at what I wrote I can see that I definitely exist on the margins of that world. But that is not a bad thing, there is a certain amount of freedom as well as intellectual honesty and integrity that I have now that I could not have being for all intents closeted in my former denomination.

Living on the margins allows me to echo Galileo who wrote: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” It allows me to be at the intersection of faith and unbelief and allows me entry into both worlds, both of which I believe to be sacred and both need to be heard, as well as protected.

Thus when I champion religious liberty, it is not the liberty to use religion to bludgeon others or to use the police power of the State to enforce their religious views on others. Unfortunately that is what I see going on in this country as conservative American Christians especially Evangelicals, Charismatics and conservative Roman Catholics wage a Kulturkampf against modernism and secularism. It as if many of the leaders of that movement desire to set up a Christian theocracy. Gary North, a longtime adviser to Ron Paul and many in the Tea Party movement wrote:

“We must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”

Personally, and with no invective intended I have to imagine that if a Moslem leader in this country said somethings similar that the Religious Right would be screaming bloody murder and that Bill O’Reilly and Fox News would be leading the charge.

Thus we see a reprise of the Scopes Monkey Trial in efforts to diminish the teaching of real science in schools and replace it with various religious theories of origins such as Young Earth Creationism. It doesn’t seem to matter what the issue is: equality for women, minorities, gays, teaching science, caring for the poor, the sick and the weak, acknowledging the value of other cultural traditions and religions it seems that many politically charged conservative Christians have no tolerance for anyone outside their often quite narrow belief system. North wrote:

“The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant–baptism and holy communion–must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.”

I’m sorry but again this sounds not too dissimilar to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, without the sheep and the comfortable clothes, or the Moslem Brotherhood types, Hezbollah or the Iranian Imams. The religion of North might be different from the Taliban but the goals are eerily similar, and only a fool would not see that. But then we Christians are quite good at ignoring the hate being preached by those that claim to be defending us from those “evil” Moslems.

This is no empty threat, throughout the country Christian Conservatives and their political front men are ramming through laws that have but one intent, the establishment of a Christian theocracy and the persecution of those who do not agree. Allegedly all of these laws are designed to “protect religious liberty” but in fact are nothing more than a legislative attempt to disenfranchise non-believers or others that the majority does not approve. Unfortunately the people pushing these laws do not understand that once the become law they can be used against them if another group comes into power. They set precedent and under such precedent even Sharia Law could could be enacted in Moslem dominated areas of the country, such as Dearborn Michigan, or polygamy in separatist Mormon communities in Utah and Idaho.

I am sorry but that is antithetical to the thoughts of our founders and the real defenders of religious liberty in the early days of our republic. John Leland, head of the Virginia Baptists and a key player in the drafting of the First Amendment and religious liberty protections in Virginia wrote:

“The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever…Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”

Leland understood what he was talking about, because in Virginia Baptists and others were being persecuted by Anglicans who before the Revolution had been the State Church of Virginia and wanted to be again in the new republic. James Madison wrote of the danger:  “Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?”

I will defend the right of religious conservative to believe what they want, including the right to teach it in their churches, church schools and homes and to express those views in the public square as part of real dialogue. I may not agree with them, but if I want my views to be protected I should grant others what I would want. What I cannot support is the attempt of some politically active Christian conservatives to force those views on others through the power of the State, the public schools or any other place where the citizens of our very diverse and pluralistic society have to co-exist.

I love the movie Inherit the Wind. I especially love the scene where Spencer Tracy playing the fictionalized version of Clarence Darrow gives a logical yet passionate defense of religious, civil and intellectual liberty.

“Can’t you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we’ll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!”

Since I don’t want to go back to the 16th Century I will be content to live in the freedom that I have on the margins of contemporary American Christianity. Personally I would rather be there than in the 16th century.

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Back in 2010 when I was getting kicked out of my old church and suffering the rejection of friends it wasn’t something that I enjoyed. However, I am grateful to be where I am now and to have the freedom that I enjoy. I certainly didn’t plan it this way, but I am definitely okay with the way things have turned out.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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