By Kathy L. Gilbert*
June 11, 2007 | NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)     

Duty places a heavy burden on military service members, and warriors need to feel their faith community shares that burden with them, says a Navy chaplain who has served in Iraq.

The needs of service members leaving for and returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is the focus of a task force formed by the United Methodist boards of Church and Society and Higher Education and Ministry.

As part of that effort, the Rev. Laura J. Bender, a Navy chaplain, has written two liturgies for congregations to use in services to bless the deploying soldier and welcome home the returning warrior.

"I think having people come before the congregation and having the congregation send them out is saying, 'We know this is difficult, we know you leave behind your whole life. We will help you carry that burden while you go off to do what your country asks you to do,'" Bender said.

Bender was among active and retired military chaplains who met in February in Nashville with staff members from the two United Methodist agencies to find ways to teach and encourage the church to welcome and support service members and their families.

At that meeting, the Rev. Dale White said churches should think of military chaplains as missionaries. "We have a unique way of presenting God to an audience of 18-to-22-year-olds," said White, who was a chaplain for a Marine unit in Iraq for 14 months. "We bring them God-many of them for the first time."

Bender agrees and says churches also should hold a service to send chaplains out as missionaries, recognizing that they "represent more than themselves."

Long road home

Military members are not war mongers, she said; in fact, they least desire to be in battle because they have the most to lose. "It makes a difference to them that their faith community upholds them even when at times they don't uphold the reason they are fighting," Bender said.

Congregations need to know the journey home from war doesn't end when a soldier steps through the front door. Processing their war experiences can take many years.

Bender served at a field hospital in Iraq and recalls talking with a wounded 19-year-old soldier struggling to come to terms with a battlefield decision.

The young soldier and three other 19-year-olds in his troop had been attacked by two Iraqis. Each Iraqi held a little girl in front of him as a shield. "I asked him what he did, and he said he did what his training had taught him to do. That meant he killed all four," she said. "But it also meant he saved the lives of the three other 19-year-olds that were with him."

“We as a nation send people to war and, even if they pull the trigger, we actually pull the trigger. Until the day we say we are not going to war, we are still all liable for what happens.”–The Rev. Laura J. Bender, Navy chaplain

Bender was thinking of that young man and many others while writing "An Order for Welcoming Service Members Returning from War ."

In the service, the pastor shares that Jesus had compassion on a man who called himself Legion because he was haunted by so many disturbing spirits. The service goes on to say: "As you return to us today, we want you to have the opportunity to leave behind what is past and accept for yourself the healing and comfort that God alone can provide."

In "An Order for Blessing Service Members Deploying for War," the congregation promises to remember the departing service member with prayer, uphold them with encouraging communication and surround their loved ones in a community of care and support.

"We as a nation send people to war and, even if they pull the trigger, we actually pull the trigger," Bender says. "Until the day we say we are not going to war, we are still all liable for what happens."

Bender hopes the two liturgies ease some of the pain for service members and helps congregations offer the comfort and assistance that often is desperately needed by soldiers and military veterans.

"When I was in seminary in Washington D.C. in the '80s, I volunteered for a local soup kitchen and the vast majority of the homeless in the shelters were Vietnam veterans," she said. "I am afraid without intervention, we are making a whole new generation of homeless-of people that don't feel welcome anywhere."

*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org .

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