Tell me about being a military chaplain, any branch of service. What does your typical day look like? Is there any such thing as a “typical day”? What’s your career path? Ups? Downs? Reserves? Active duty? If you had it to do all over again, you would do what?
Other military Dopers – what is (was) your perception of military chaplaincy? Good experiences? Bad ones? What would you like to see in a military chaplain?
Thanks!
HJ
In general, our experiences with military chaplains have been wonderful. Because they are there to minister to the whole military community, they tend to be very accepting of people in general, and tend not to be nearly as denominationally fixated as many civilian ministers/priests are. For that reason, many are very good counselors regardless of the religious beliefs of the people they are counseling. The ones that have these qualities are the majority of chaplains we have run across.
However, like any group of people, there are the bad ones. Like the head chaplain we knew who moved his denominations services to an optimal time, and marginalized the rest, and aggresively tried to evangelize anyone who came to him for counseling. And the chaplain who counseled a friend of mine in a troubled marriage alone several times, and then, when she returned with her husband, forgot she’d been there before.
But, those are the exceptions. In general, I’d say the qualities I would think are essential for a military chaplain are a genuine love for and desire to help people, and an ability to accept and adapt to an extremely diverse group of spiritual beliefs and needs.
I’ve been a soldier on active duty and in the National Guard. I’m an atheist and I resent the fact that we have men of the cloth on the same payroll. Can you imagine a “Company Preacher” at your civilain job? Now imagine that he outranks you and you have to salute him and call him “Sir”. You also have to be nice when he comes around and preaches to you.
I confided in a Chaplain about a problem I was having that was duty-related. I didn’t expect him to solve the problem. I really just wanted to get it off my chest with someone who “speaks the same language” and would not repeat what I said. He repeated what I said. Never again would I confide in a Chaplain.
**
No, but then my civilian job doesn’t take me thousands of miles away from my friends and family. I imagine that a chaplain could be useful for keeping the moral of troops up.
**
So what? This is the military we’re talking about and unless I’m mistaken you’ve probably had to salute a lot of people you didn’t want to salute.
Marc
Understandable, but the Army probably pays a lot of people who don’t serve you directly.
If you’re a single soldier, you likely don’t use many of the child care and family programs the Army offers. Do you resent having all those MWR workers on payroll?
Lots of soldiers use the chaplains for counseling, and I’m glad there is someone to fill this role–religious or otherwise. It’s a shame that the chaplain you spoke with was a loser, but they’re not all that bad.
:rolleyes:
MGibson and P. Nym-
I think you’re both hijacking the OP because it is his thread and I answered his question. It’s not up to you to take me to task over how I answered.
And, FTR, no I don’t resent saluting other officers or having people such as MWR, FSG, etc on the payroll. You’re both jumping to conclusions. I meant exactly what I said and nothing more. I don’t like someone preaching to me when I can’t tell him to go jump in a lake.
Would you be polite, salute, and call me sir if I walked up and started telling you why atheism can make your life better? What if you had no choice?
If you have a problem with anything I said, take it to the pit. Don’t hijack the OP.
1kBR Kid:
I’m not sure I agree that the OP was hijacked by the responses you mention.
Especially in IMHO, the natural progression of a threa will involve comments on others’ experiences. When the comments also impinge, at least tangentially, on the subject of the thread, it’s hard to characterize them as out-and-out hijacks.
Nor is there a reason to assume the proper place to resolve the differences is the Pit - again, merely in my view, the Pit is the place for flames, while a genuinely debatable proposition may find a home in GD, and an exchange of opinions about a subject in comfy right here in IMHO.
This is, of course… just in my humble opinion.
- Rick