A Pastor’s Perspective

By Sharon Latour

I was recently asked by a dear friend to create and facilitate a 2-day, team-building retreat for the 17-person chaplain staff at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. And so I did.

I packed lightly, as it was 105-plus degrees there, and didn’t need much in the way of materials...I knew my leadership and followership presentations.

As it turns out, that’s not why I went at all.

I was privileged to help us listen to the beginnings of the thaw for a Master Sergeant, the senior enlisted person on staff. We witnessed the first cracks in the block of ice that had been a human being, before he spent four months assisting families as they met their beloved service member’s remains, returning from the wars, at Dover AFB, Delaware.

Untrained to witness their grief and under-prepared for his own reintegration back to everyday life in Tucson, Tim was emotionally arrested and hadn’t slept a night since returning.

And three other chapel staff, who had been deployed to Iraq, told us how they just wanted to tell well-intentioned loved ones to “Shut up, and listen!” when they would try to comfort them upon their return. “Whatever you do, please don’t say, “I understand” because you can’t possibly!”

In following this unanticipated direction, we began our new way of being together for the two days. We shut up and we listened. And we listened. And we listened.

And we listened; knowing we’d create a safe space, but not nearly enough time to hear all each one needed to say.

When I read that mental health experts say, “We’ve never seen this sort of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) before,” it makes sense. We are calling soldiers and sailors and airmen in a Vietnam-like war, “Heroes,” when only a generation before we court-martialed the most junior of all officers in rank, 2nd Lt. William Calley, for My Lai. The Vietnam soldiers were shamefully called “baby killers,” remember?

What are our troops supposed to do with all these conflicting perceptions?

Our defenders are the best-educated in the world. And many joined to get college education benefits. They want to make a difference, but now carry traumatic and conflicting memories. Cognitive dissonance is driving many of our finest and bravest literally mad.

The military mental health folks can’t keep up, and they don’t seem to have answers. And the troops are still in a “tough-it-out” culture; it’s a Catch-22.

So, many of the troops who seek comfort come to the chaplains instead, and the chaplains aren’t trained in handling PTSD: neither their own nor another’s. It’s all too much right now.

But, as a 20-year Air Force veteran, spiritual director, and pastor, I am beginning to believe something: We need to call this level of pain what it is. It is spiritual; it is fundamentally a moral situation gone awry.

It has physical and mental manifestations, but at its core it is a condition, a malaise, of the human spirit. And we don’t cover that in our medical journals.

We default to mental and physical health avenues, which hold real treatment possibilities. But so far, we are ignoring the unspeakable pain many of our troops carry as a primarily spiritual phenomenon.

I am working to address this through the chaplain corps now. But the larger American military and civilian cultures also need to embrace the whole truth of calling the awfulness of war what it is.

When we can “Shut up and listen,” knowing we will never fully understand what our brave and obedient troops have shouldered on our behalf, the healing will authentically begin. In my mind, that is where truly courageous heroism continues to be exercised: in seeking healing wholeness after the acts of personal sacrifice have been offered.

And what of Tim, after telling us the beginnings of his truth?

At breakfast the next day, a beaming Air Force Master Sergeant hugged me and said, “I slept last night, all night. Thank you.”

I looked into his softened eyes and gratefully thought, “Tim slept.” And then we wept.

Shalom!

Sharon is pastor of the Garberville Community Presbyterian Church. Worship is at 10:30 a.m. every Sunday during the school year. Children’s Sunday School is offered during the adult service. Comments or questions should be addressed to: Dr. Sharon Latour, c/o A Pastor’s Perspective, P.O. Box 65, Garberville, CA 95542. (707) 923-3295.