A Prayer for Time of War
Today we remember all of the men and women who have sacrificed their lives in time or in death to preserve freedom in America.
We will remember the fallen, they tell the story of our past and future.
A Chaplain’s Legacy – Capt. Beach
www.marines.mil
September 2013
by Mike DiCicco
MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va.
Chaplain David Todd, the Officer Candidates School chaplain, said he had to jump on the chance to bring retired Navy Capt. Stanley Beach to speak at Quantico when he heard that Beach would be in the area.
“He is a hero in the chaplain corps,” Todd said. “He’s a very important part of the heritage and legacy of chaplains, especially chaplains who minister to Marines.”
Todd said Beach is especially renowned for his “ministry of presence,” a style of spiritual leadership that cost the 35-year Navy chaplain a leg and, nearly, his life during his service in Vietnam.
About two dozen chaplains from around the region, including Rear Adm. Margaret Kibben, chaplain of the Marine Corps, gathered at the Clubs at Quantico on Aug. 27 to hear Beach, whose name is now on the Naval Chaplaincy School and Center’s top leadership award, as well as one of the school’s buildings, speak about his experience as a wartime chaplain.
“If you’re not visible to the troops, you don’t need to be available — they won’t look for you,” Beach said, summing up the idea of “ministry of presence.” A chaplain must be on the battlefield, showing that he’s overcome his fear and is committed to his troops, he said. “That means the world to these guys.”
In Vietnam, Beach’s “guys” were the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Division, whom he accompanied during operations around Mutter’s Ridge, just south of the demilitarized zone, where fighting was heavy.
He described days without food or water, taking cover with the Marines in bomb craters during firefights and pulling the dead and wounded to safety without discriminating between the two.
“It was never, ‘Is he OK? Is he alive?’” Beach recalled. “’Did we get him out?’ That’s all they wanted to know.”
He remembered keeping a Marine who’d been shot through the face awake all night in attempt to save his life, and he recalled the time he picked up a rifle despite his noncombatant status after noticing he and a few wounded Marines were being flanked. A Marine remedied the situation with a grenade before Beach had to fire.
Troops feel safer in battle with a chaplain present, he said. “You’re the cosmic rabbit’s foot.”
He remembered helping a Marine who’d been shot through the hand and leg to get to safety and asking him if he wanted to pray. Yes, the Marine said. “And he started praying — praying for me: ‘Protect the chaplain, we need our chaplain,’” Beach recalled. “That’s the kind of people you never forget.”
By the time he was wounded in Operation Prairie, Beach hadn’t eaten in days, he said, and walking was difficult. Having finally received water, he sat next to a spider hole and started reading scripture when everything suddenly “went very silent,” he said. The smell of gunpowder filled his nose, and he noticed his boot lying near his belt.
As he waited to be medically evacuated, lying on a stretcher in a landing zone, his troops had the opportunity to return the dedication he’d shown them. He started to take enemy fire, and a Marine and a corpsman leapt from their foxhole and covered him. One took a piece of shrapnel to the back of his head and is now legally blind.
“If they wouldn’t have come out of their foxhole and covered me …” he trailed off.
“Just the courage, the sacrifice, the compassion — it really makes a mark on your life,” he said.
While he lay in triage, he was comforted just to find that one of his men was also there with him, Beach said. “We make an impact, and you leave an impact. But they make an impact on you, too.”
Now that the military has a better understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder, he said, chaplains are asked to develop healing rituals to help troops returning from deployment to make sense of their experiences.
“Combat is like a defining moment. It clarifies what you already were,” he said, adding, though, that not everyone handles such a moment in the same way. “The chaplain can make the difference. Not every chaplain will make the difference, but you can make the difference.”
Calling Beach “one of our icons in the chaplain corps,” Kibben remembered her first acquaintance with the chaplain, saying her impression of him then was that “this is what a chaplain should be — pastoral, present, intellectual, able to engage at all different levels.”
That was when she arrived as a student at the Naval Chaplaincy School, where Beach was then the director. It was only later, she said, that she learned of his wartime heroism.
Missouri overwhelmingly approves a “right to pray” amendment
By Kellie Kotraba,, Religion News Service
USAToday, 8/8/13
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Voters in Missouri overwhelmingly approved a “right to pray” amendment to the state’s constitution on Tuesday, despite concerns about the measure’s necessity and legality.
Amendment 2, which supporters said would protect the freedom of religious expression in public schools and other public spaces, received nearly 80 percent of the vote.
The language on Tuesday’s ballot stressed the rights of citizens to express their religious beliefs and the rights of children to pray and acknowledge God in schools. It also stated that students could be exempted from classroom activities that violate their religious beliefs.
State Rep. Mike McGhee, a Republican who sponsored the amendment, said it would remind people about their religious freedoms, such as reading religious books at school. “It’s OK to bring your Bible to study hall,” he said.
It is not clear how students’ exemption from classroom activities will be regulated. McGhee has said it could vary by age group, but individual school districts will likely create their own policies on the matter.
The amendment was backed by Missouri’s four Catholic bishops and the Missouri Baptist Convention. The Episcopal Diocese of Missouri and several non-Christian groups opposed it. Legal experts almost unanimously predict that the amendment will wind up in court.
Critics also argued the amendment is redundant — theU.S. Constitution already protects religious freedom. And some warned that it would spark countless lawsuits and bring unintended consequences.
“It opens up a can of worms most people don’t want to open,” said Greg Grenke, a 22-year-old voter from Columbia who voted against the amendment. He said he’s not against prayer — he just doesn’t think the amendment was necessary.
Pediatrician Ellen Thomas, 48, said the amendment seemed like propaganda.
“I really just think it’s designed to stir up angry sentiment.” She added, “There’s no infringement on people’s right to pray as it is.”
Kathy Rowland, 55, of Columbia, Mo., said the amendment seemed “well-intentioned,” but unnecessary.
Still, the amendment garnered enough support to pass by a 7-1 margin.
“I was glad to see it,” said Margie Cravens, 87, as she left her Columbia polling place. “And we need prayer now more than ever before.”
Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill voted “yes” on the amendment.
Prayer Statistics
Barna research says slightly more than four out of five adults in the U.S. (84%) claim they had prayed in the past week. That has been the case since Barna began tracking the frequency of prayer in 1993.
U.S. News and the Internet site Beliefnet funded a poll to learn more about why, how, where and when people pray. Here is a summary of the findings:
- 75% percent were Christian.
- 64% say they pray more than once a day.
- 56% say they most often pray for family members, with 3.3% saying that they pray for strangers.
- A little over 38% say that the most important purpose of prayer is intimacy with God.
- 41% say that their prayers are answered often.
- 1.5% say that their prayers are never answered.
- Over 73% say when their prayers are not answered, the most important reason is because they did not fit God’s plan.
- 5% say that they pray most often in a house of worship.
- 79% say that they pray most often at home.
- 67% say that in the past six months, their prayers have related to continually giving thanks to God. (Pastor’s Weekly Briefing, 12/24/04)
Military And Veteran Suicides Rise Despite Aggressive Prevention Efforts – But What About Prayer?
By David Wood
Huffington Post
8/29/13
WASHINGTON — The good news: most people with military service never consider suicide. Contrary to popular perception, there is no “epidemic” of military-related suicides — even though President Barack Obama used the word in a speech this summer at the Disabled American Veterans Convention. Among those few whose lives do spiral down toward darkness and despair, the vast majority never take that irrevocable step.
The bad news: the number of military and veteran suicides is rising, and experts fear it will continue to rise despite aggressive suicide prevention campaigns by the government and private organizations.
The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), already struggling to meet an increasing demand from troops and veterans for mental health services, are watching the suicide rates, and the growing number of those considered “at risk” of suicide, with apprehension.
“It really is extremely concerning,” said Caitlin Thompson, a VA psychologist and clinical care coordinator at the national crisis line for the military and veterans.
The suicide numbers are rising despite a determined push by the Pentagon and the VA to connect troops to a proliferation of resources. These range from immediate crisis intervention, to specific therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and other forms of trauma, to broader mental health services, peer mentoring, resiliency training, and financial and relationship counseling. VA specialists scour hundreds of places, from NASCAR events to American Indian reservations, for veterans in need. There is such a drive to provide resources that even the Pentagon can’t say how many programs it has or what they cost.
(Read the rest of Huffington Post’s article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/military-veteran-suicides-prevention_n_3791325.html)
Why Not Try Prayer!?
By Linda Jeffrey, Ed.D.
In 1775, John Adams wrote Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies of North America to create good order and discipline in a newly organized military charged with defeating the most powerful military force in the world. His first principle defined “Exemplary Conduct;” his second principle required prayer and divine services twice daily. The U.S. military was established upon virtue, honor, patriotism and prayer. Adams understood armed men needed a unifying moral foundation especially those trained to search and destroy and charged with defending the American way of life.
There is a glaring omission in the August 2010 233-page report on suicide prevention issued by the DoD—it does not mention prayer. The omission is borne out of ignorance and neglect of military history that clearly points to chaplain and leader-led prayer as the sustenance and encouragement of battle weary soldiers worldwide. History is replete with examples of the “military necessity” of prayer in the life of all service members. General J. Lawton Collins, Former Army Chief of Staff, who served in the 1950s on the President’s Committee on Religion and Welfare in the Armed Forces, wrote:
Our present responsibilities of world leadership call for strength in great measure—strength born of physical power and technological skill superiority, and even more, the spiritual strength that is basic to the American way of life.[2]
Guided by the therapeutic professions, the military institution continues to spend millions seeking answers as 50 percent more soldiers have succumbed to suicide than to military action in Afghanistan this year.[3] Is the best we can come up with for our war-wearied souls today only to be found in psychotropic drugs, cognitive behavioral therapy and NASCAR events? Drugs such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, which boost serotonin levels in the brain, come with warning labels of increased risk of suicide for those up to age 24. All of these drugs are included in the modern military psychiatrist’s deployment kit, and soldiers are often given a six-month supply of medications. According to the Army Surgeon General, 8% of active duty soldiers are on sedatives, and more that 6% are on antidepressants, which is an eightfold increase since 2005.[1] Our soldiers are facing significant stresses with more than 30% of the force having gone on three or more deployments.
Is it because morals and the military’s first principles are divinely based, that they are deemed archaic and unemployable in today’s US Armed Forces? If the question seems far-fetched to those who think science and pharmaceutical therapies can replace the many features of moral support, they should review the scientific evidence from World War II, a war that saw long deployments and grievous loss of life on both sides in Europe and the Pacific.
“The Studies in Social Psychology in World War II Series,” produced by the Social Science Research Council, was one of the largest social science research projects in history. Volume II, The American Soldier, Combat and Its Aftermath, Princeton University Press, (1949), reported data on the importance of prayer to officers and enlisted infantrymen. Prayer was selected most frequently as the soldier’s source of combat motivation. The motivation of prayer was selected over the next highest categories of “thinking that you couldn’t let the other men down,” and “thinking that you had to finish the job in order to get home again.” From the responses, “did not help at all,” “helped some,” and “helped a lot,” 70% of enlisted men in the Pacific Theatre (n = 4,734), and 83% in the Mediterranean theatre (n = 1,766) responded “helped a lot,” as did 60% of Infantry officers (n = 319).
These data would suggest that combat men who had experienced greater stress were at least as likely to say they were helped by prayer as those who had been subjected to less stress” (p. 176)…[T]he fact that such an overwhelming majority of combat men said that prayer helped them a lot certainly means that they almost universally had recourse to prayer and probably found relief, distraction, or consolation in the process (p. 185). [Emphasis added.]
The founding principles of the military have been all but abandoned, and the thousands of World War II soldiers, who declared prayer to be a primary source of moral support, are forgotten. Five-star General George C. Marshall was one of America’s foremost soldier during World War II. He served as Army Chief of Staff from 1939 to 1945, and built and directed the largest army in history. General Marshall said,
…I look upon the spiritual life of the soldier as even more important than his physical equipment…the soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul are everything. Unless the soldier’s soul sustains him, he cannot be relied upon and will fail himself and his commander and his country in the end. It’s morale, and I mean morale, which wins the victory in the ultimate, and that type of morale can only come out of the religious fervor in his soul. I count heavily on that type of man and that kind of Army.[5]
The problem of suicide in the military reflects a loss of moral support to a soul not girded by the prayers and moral support that carried our soldiers, who fought without medication, through bitter battles like Normandy. Maybe the answer for many of our battle worn troops today is as simple as a prayer.
[1] Murphy, Kim. “A Fog of Drugs and War”. Los Angeles Times. April 7, 2012.
[2] President’s Committee on Religion and Welfare in the Armed Forces, October 1, 1950, at 13
[3] Suicide Soars Among Troops, Reflecting Cost of U.S. Wars. Robert Burns, Associated Press, June 8, 2012.
[4] http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,moral
[5] Joint Pub 1-05. Religious Ministry Support for Joint Operations. Joint Chiefs of Staff. 26 August 1996, p. II-3.