“As
the War Goes On, So Does the Work of Military Chaplains.”
By MARCIA Z. NELSON
c. 2007 Religion News Service
CHICAGO --
Once you've seen the brutal face of evil, says the Rev. Robert
Barry, you start looking for the tender face of God.
Barry is an Air National Guard chaplain who spends his summers
working with injured soldiers at Landstuhl military hospital in
southern Germany, where American military personnel are taken
after they are wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's also where Barry gets frequent prayer requests from patients
and staff. No one at Landstuhl, he said, has ever turned down
a prayer. "Nobody has said, `That's not necessary,'"
said Barry, who holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the 183rd
Fighter Wing of the Illinois Air National Guard.
Barry, a gray-haired, bespectacled Dominican priest, will serve
his third tour at Landstuhl this summer during a break from his
duties as campus minister and religious studies professor at Chicago's
St. Xavier University. Landstuhl, he said, is the most challenging
ministry of his career.
"I've never prayed as hard as we do there," said Barry,
59. And it's getting harder, as a shortage of military chaplains
mirrors the shortage of Catholic clergy.
The Army National Guard, for example, is offering a $10,000 signing
bonus for chaplains. Major Timothy L. Baer, the chaplain in charge
of recruiting, said he has only 340 chaplains to fill 770 authorized
positions.
Lt. Col. Ran Dolinger, spokesman for the Army Chief of Chaplains
office, said there are about 452 vacancies among 3,000 chaplain
slots in the National Guard, Army Reserve and active duty positions.
About 300 of those vacancies are in the National Guard branches,
he said.
Said Barry, "They don't have a lot of people who can and
want to do this kind of work."
Chaplains are among the first to greet new patients at Landstuhl
after the 2,500-mile journey from Iraq. A team of nine offloads
those arriving on stretchers, which can weigh up to 600 pounds
with all the critical care equipment.
Some patients may not even know where they are; some arrive with
desert sand still in their hair. "You're in Germany,"
Barry tells them. "We're going to take good care of you."
Barry can fulfill the simplest request, like getting a toothbrush
for someone who hasn't brushed his teeth in three days. But he
is more likely to meet spiritual needs, administering the Catholic
sacrament of the sick when requested. "I've never anointed
so many people in my life," he said.
Because combat armor protects the trunk of the body, the injuries
Barry sees generally involve soldiers' limbs. He knows what to
look for as he enters a patient's room.
"The first thing you look at are the bedcovers, and you look
to see if there are lumps in the covers that should be there and
aren't," he said. Patients with missing limbs are just beginning
to grasp the significance of what has happened to them, an experience
of secondary trauma that can be difficult to witness and respond
to.
Barry recalls one patient in the intensive care unit, propped
up in bed, "looking down, mouth open, both feet below the
ankle gone," he said.
"He gets to all of us," a nurse told the chaplain afterward.
At St. Xavier, Eileen Doherty, Barry's campus supervisor, said
he is not the type to toot his own horn -- he mentioned the Meritorious
Service Medal he received only in passing.
"We know of the work he's been doing," she said. "He
shares a few things but tends to be fairly private."
Barry joined the Dominicans in 1967 — "when religious
orders
started going into the tank," he said with a grin —
and got three
master's degrees before earning a doctorate in moral theology.
He's become an expert on Catholic teaching on medical ethics.
The National Endowment for the Humanities gave him a grant to
study ethics and euthanasia.
During his studies, a fellow Dominican mentioned the armed forces
reserves were looking for Catholic priests. Barry joined the Air
Force Reserve in 1986, moved to the Air National Guard in 1992,
and since 1994 has been called up annually, usually for international
work. He worked in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and counseled
people at the Pentagon after 9/11.
Barry's medal is a significant recognition of non-combat work.
"This is very intense ministry," said Col. Michael Meyer,
Barry's commanding officer from his unit based in Springfield,
Ill. "Sometimes in our job it's difficult, and we can't run
away from what's in front of us."
The Rev. Jeff Laible, a chaplain and National Guard colleague
who has worked with Barry for 15 years, is familiar with the rigors
of the work. "You're not being shot at physically, but it's
very difficult emotionally because of the sheer volume of wounded
you work with," said Laible, pastor of St. Malachy Catholic
Church in Rantoul, Ill.
Barry said he was changed by what he called the "raw, bold
courage" of wounded warriors. "Things that were important
to me before are less important now," he said. Climbing the
academic ladder is one of them.
He also has greater appreciation of the need of spiritual comfort.
"The word really has power with these people," he said.
"Shrapnel hits the body, but it also hits the soul, and that's
where we come in."
