I'm sure you have all seen the famous photo of a group of soldiers with their heads bowed, arms interlocked, saying a prayer together. The photo has traveled the globe via the internet many times over and caused much controversy. After all, public prayer is outlawed across the U.S.
Well, each of the Armed Forces deploys with their chaplains and chaplain
assistants. Chaplains are routinely stationed in hospitals, chapels are
built on every post stateside and over here, and chaplains perform
battlefield circulation to help meet the religious needs of our service
members out in the more remote areas.
The Geneva Conventions are silent on whether chaplains may bear arms. However, the Conventions do state (Protocol I, 8 June 1977, Art 43.2) that chaplains are noncombatants: they do not have the right to participate directly in hostilities. In recent years both the UK and U.S. have required chaplains, but not medical personnel, to be unarmed in combat.
My friend, the chaplain here at Craig Joint Theatre Hospital, reminded anyone who asked that "although she could not carry a weapon; her chaplain's assistant was a crack shot."
If Congress did not establish an Army chaplaincy, it would deny soldiers the right to exercise their religion freely, particularly given the mobile and deployable nature of the nation's armed forces. Chaplains have been going to war with our service members since the Revolutionary War; they participated in the Civil War, War of 1812, the Korean and Vietnam wars, World Wars I and II, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The hospital chaplain has a very specific mission for patient care. Hospital chaplains administer last rights, console patients who may have lost their best friends or comrades in the accidents that sent them to the hospital as patients, or just may need someone to talk to as they adjust to their injuries and incapacitations. Chaplains perform a variety of services, ceremonies, and vital functions, including baptisms in the field; or in my case, just inside Entry Control Point One. Who else but a combat chaplain would carry a bottle of holy water in their cargo pocket?
