1. What is your own history in ministry and what is your background in ministry to veterans?

After graduating from the Lutheran Brethren Seminary in 1971, I was ordained in the Free Methodist Church and served the church as a local church pastor, hospital chaplain, military chaplain, nursing home chaplain, and denominational conference superintendent.

My ministry to veterans involves a career as a Navy chaplain, serving sailors and marines on Pacific Fleet ships and Fleet Marine Force units and at Navy-Marine Corps bases in the United States and Japan. I worked specifically with military families, in one three year tour as the Chaplain for the Navy-Marine Corps Family Service Center in Okinawa, Japan. I retired from the Navy following service overseas with the Marines during the Persian Gulf War.

Most recently, as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), I served from 2007-2009 as a Military Family Life Consultant (MFLC) for a mental health contractor serving the Minnesota National Guard. As a MFLC, I providing counseling, deployment & reintegration workshops, and outreach efforts to over 6,000 deploying and returning soldiers and family members of the National Guard and Reserves in Minnesota.

I have always had a heart for men and women in uniform. My dad was a WW I veteran, my uncles served in WW II, a cousin in the Korean War. I started my military service in the Marines in 1965 during the Vietnam War and lost many fellow Marines in that war. My career as a Navy chaplain, through multiple deployments away from my family in times of war and peace, gave me a deep appreciation for the sacrifices military families make to serve our country.

I presently have a son who is an Army officer deployed overseas in harm's way and I am a grandfather to his two sons living near us in Minnesota who wait for his return.

All the above factors contributed to my writing the book, Beyond the Yellow Ribbon: Ministering to Returning Combat Veterans (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009) to help churches understand the challenges facing veterans and military families and mobilize them to reach out and minister to deploying and returning service personnel and their families.

2. What do you mean when you call the current returning veterans the "next Greatest Generation"?

The "greatest generation" was a term that was coined by NBC Newsman Tom Brokaw to describe the veterans who returned from WW II and with the help of the GI bill, contributed greatly to the success of America in the 20th Century. The most recent veterans, since 9/11, also return home with armed with very similar GI Bill benefits, having the potential to make a great contribution to our society after their wartime service in the 21st Century. This GI Bill benefit includes, with three years of active duty service, four years of free college education for returning veterans, plus a living stipend equal to Sergeant's E-5 pay, while attending school, insuring an opportunity for upward mobility and increased contribution to society.

3. What special challenges or issues do returning veterans face?

Presently we have approximately 1.5 million service personnel serving on active duty. Of those, about 260,000 are deployed in political hotspots or war zones around the world at any given time.

One of the biggest challenges facing returning wartime veterans is to face bravely the trauma of combat and then not allow those experiences to scar them permanently. Many soldiers find it hard to adjust to life, work and relationships on the home front after the combat has stopped. When the veterans come home, many feel they have lost their place in civilian life, where jobs no longer fit them, family relationships feel strained and conflicted, and they sense only their fellow soldiers really understand them.

Hanging up your uniform after war is not easy. How can you emotionally switch from being in combat, living with daily threats to your life and seeing the chaos and carnage of war to adjusting to a peaceful civilian world with normal family life and regular work routines? It takes time and patience from everyone to help our returning soldiers make this transition successfully.

Some soldiers are like Staff Sergeant James in the Academy Award winning 2010 Picture of the Year, The Hurt Locker, who cannot make this adjustment to life back home and volunteer to go back to war. A war-zone is a place where life makes sense to these soldiers, where they feel they fit in and can make a difference. They again experience the addictive, emotional rush of doing a dangerous and important job well, rather than being bored by civilian routines, with little sense of purpose or meaning. Once again they feel the camaraderie of a band of brothers & sisters that is found in combat, and not in civilian workplaces and in everyday communities.

Many service personnel (close to 80%) return home from the war and within a year make a good readjustment back to their families and civilian life and work. Their biggest challenge is to find meaningful well paying jobs to stabilize their lives economically in this recession when unemployment is running 18% for returning war veterans. Without the stability of a good job, marriages become stressed and fall apart and many veterans turn to drugs or alcohol to blunt the pain of losing their place in the world of work. The cascading effect upon their lives of failing to find good work is probably one of the biggest challenges they face after risking their lives in war. For churches sponsoring job support groups, this is an alert to a hidden population in need of the outreach of their ministry.

For those in the active duty, reserve, or National Guard forces, who face repeated combat deployments (which chips away at marriage and family relationships and cumulatively builds up to chronic life adjustment problems), continued military service can however become more challenging. In Beyond the Yellow Ribbon we mention that of the 1.5 million troops that have been deployed since 9/11, one third have served at least 2 tours in a combat zone, 70,000 of them deployed 3 times, and 20,000 have been deployed as many as 5 times. For part-time warriors in the National guard and reserves who endure such repeated deployment cycles, they have a hard time finding good work, or if they have a good job, advancing in the company becomes a problem, since they soon will be called away again for a year and become a liability to an employer.

For some veterans, returning home involves years of rehabilitation and therapy to recover from the wounds of war. Presently (as of 3/9/10), according to Department of Defense accounting, 36,906 service personnel have been wounded in action in Iraq and Afghanistan, many suffering terrible wounds to their bodies from improvised explosive devices (IED's) that destroy limbs and cause traumatic brain injury. Others bear the hidden mental health wounds of war; with a recent Rand Corporation study estimating 20% of all returning veterans (300,000) have difficulties with PTSD or depression. That is a one in five (1:5) ratio of returning veterans impacted by these hidden wounds of war. Only half of these sought treatment and the other half received minimally adequate treatment.

Some veterans get in trouble with the law upon returning home, ranging from robbery and theft to support drug addictions to anger management problems that cause spouse abuse and violent behavior. In a Department of Justice study, roughly 10% of veterans have criminal records and 1 in 100 presently are incarcerated. What does this say to Christians and churches involved in prison ministries or who minister to grief stricken families of incarcerated veterans?

Spiritually, there is a real need for recovery and healing from war: Especially for veterans who were exposed to serious combat action and saw horrific things. Some veterans did some things in war of which they are not proud, needing to seek God's grace and forgiveness and experience healing of the spirit to lay to rest memories too terrible to carry in everyday life. Very few, within the church or outside the church in professional clinical circles talk about the moral and spiritual issues we discuss in a chapter in Beyond the Yellow Ribbon. Yet war wounds many in spirit in ways that the Veterans Administration never measures or records.

Chris Hedges, in his book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, touches at the heart of the spiritual challenge war forces upon veterans. He speaks of an idolatry of seeking to find meaning and purpose in our lives outside of God, in the enterprise of war. He talks about how this idol fails to nourish the spirit, but rather depletes the participant and leaves them disillusioned in war's aftermath. He says, "I learned early on that war forms its own culture. The rush to battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years. The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent."

For Christians, both clergy and laity, it is important to find a teachable moment to speak to veterans the truths of the gospel of grace and share the hope of a purpose filled life in Christ as veterans struggle to find meaning and purpose in life after war. What we share of ourselves and the gospel that we proclaim can be the greatest homecoming gift we can give to a war weary veteran.

4. What special challenges or issues do their families face while they're gone?

Military families really need our help. They are whipsawed emotionally through a year- long deployment cycle: Saying goodbye well (or not so well); then enduing long months of separation, loneliness and fear; and finally trying to reconnect with the veteran upon homecoming and build a good life together after a war.

Single parenting, with all that entails, is probably one of the biggest challenges military families face during a deployment. The spouse left behind is suddenly single, like someone who has experienced the death or divorce of a spouse. Trying to balance work with child care, managing the home-front on a limited budget shared with the deployed spouse, and feeling isolated from family or friends to help with respite care when they become overwhelmed, are just a few of the challenges facing military spouses. Being the cheerleader in the family to keep up the spirits of children as well as those of a deployed spouse can also be exhausting. Where does the spouse go to replenish their spirit and energy?

In Beyond the Yellow Ribbon we spend a whole chapter just talking about how a church can minister to these above mentioned needs. In the book I recount how a church we belonged to in San Diego, CA ministered to my wife and three boys while I was deployed. They helped with home and auto repairs, provided my wife with respite care with a "mother's day out" program, giving her a chance for adult interaction (with childcare provided) for a morning once a month. The men of the church regularly took my boys weekly to play soccer or go to the beach with their kids, giving my boys opportunities to play with other kids and interact with male role models. And church members individually thought of her on holidays and her birthday and treated her and my boys with ice cream sundaes and took them on outings to encourage them and let them know they were not alone.

Communication and marital relationship concerns are also a critical issue for military families. In a world of improved communication via e-mail and Skype, military families can stay better connected than ever before. If a couple and family members communicate well, it is a real blessing...if they communicate poorly they have only increased the opportunity for misunderstanding and conflict. "The military mission always comes first" mantra can triangulate and conflict a couple "married to the military," with the military often trumping the needs and wishes of a military family "for the needs of the service." Living in a world where "the military comes first" is hard on many military couple and family relationships.
Challenges for a couple to remain faithful to one another can also emerge in deployments, both overseas and at home. Couples can just drift apart due to inattention to each other's emotional needs during the absence and not be able to find their way "back home" to the relationship when they come home. The family of a veteran demobilizing and leaving the service and all of its active duty resources, it is important for churches to reach out to them as they try to put life back together with limited social support or external resources.

For some couples, their marriage becomes a casualty of war. There are no memorial walls to commemorate this kind of sacrifice for service. In Beyond the Yellow Ribbon we note that 13,000 military marriages ended last year and that 62% of male combat veterans were more likely than civilian males to have at least one failed marriage. Contributing factors included being apart for long periods of time, poor communication skills, isolation from social networks, and financial issues.

This information should inform church leaders in working with this population: The need to focus on marriage enrichment and couples communication programs for deploying and recently returned veterans, with good networks for referral of veteran families to good marriage and family counselors, as well as programs that address grief and loss issues for those who lose their marriage to divorce as a result of service to their country.

5. Are these problems solved when the veteran returns home?

The ability to deal with the above mentioned problems depends on a veteran couple's communication and negotiation skills, their support system resources, and their willingness to work at their couple and family relationships upon their return. Absence does not necessarily make the heart grow fonder. If a soldier has a good relationship with his/her spouse and family going into a deployment, they usually will have the tools to be able to repair any damage or estrangement caused by the deployment and get back on track in these relationships. If the relationships have been conflicted and there has been poor communication going into the deployment, the mere passage of time in these circumstances usually do not make things better and outcomes are more problematic.

 

6. Would you say most churches today are well-equipped or ill-equipped to minister to returning veterans and their families? Please explain.

The most important factor in successful ministry to military families and veteran families is a loving heart and an outreach mentality that is willing to go outside the church doors to find these veterans and their families and learn about their needs and try to minister to them at their point of need.

Most churches at first glance may seem ill prepared to minister to this returning veteran population in that most of these 20-20 year old veterans are not sitting in our church pews on Sunday morning.

This is not "low hanging fruit evangelism" unless the veteran happens to have a family member in the church (sibling, parent, grand-parent) or has a previous connection to the church (baptism, confirmation, wedding, funeral, etc). They are a hidden population all around our churches (reservists and National Guard members in almost every one of our communities) or, if your church is situated near an active military base, they are found in surrounding off base communities. Many of these veterans slip back quietly into our communities after active duty, with no bands playing or yellow ribbons flying from trees. They just start showing up at our colleges to get retrained on the GI bill, or they show up at work, with new found skills from their military service to use in the company for which we work. Their kids show up at our children's schools and are seen at PTA meetings or at school ball games or concerts. It is on this turf that you will find them and can look for openings in soft evangelism to enter their lives, learn of their concerns, and seek to provide a bridge for them to walk across into the life of the church.

It is not necessarily starting a whole new program, like a veterans outreach program. Rarely are there a large number of veterans at one time to justify such a program in a church. It is merely refining existing congregational care systems to educate the congregation and lay care-givers to veterans needs (just like they become aware of other needs in the congregation such as job support groups, grief support groups, etc.) and then identify resources to share or existing programs that may fit needs of veteran families. Then you are ready for company that may come in uniform (or recently from wearing a uniform) or that members see in the community and invite to church programs. Once they come, you look for ways to connect with them, identify needs, and seek to meet those needs in the name of Christ.

Ask your veterans in the church to help minister to this next greatest generation of veterans. You may be surprised what a WW II veteran of the Normandy invasion, a Korean War veteran who fought on Pork Chop Hill, a Vietnam War veteran who fought in the Ia Drang Valley might have in common with Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans. In spite of their age differences, they have a mutual respect for each other and can quickly relate to each other because of their shared combat experience and challenges of coming home. Older vets in your church can offer a welcome home to younger vets in ways the latest veterans can understand and appreciate.

What may shock a lot of churches is the quality of people they will find among veterans. Just look at some of the WW II and Korean vets that helped build many of our churches. This generation can do that again. They are people who know about sacrifice and giving of themselves to a good cause better than most civilians who have not had to live self-sacrificially. They know how to persevere in difficult times and know something about leadership and courage under fire. They are great people to have with you in a foxhole when times are challenging. They are not quitters!

7. Is ministry to returning veterans and their families a task best left to experts, like the pastor, or can anybody in the church get involved?

Certainly the pastor has to lead in this outreach ministry, but does not need to do all the work. Most of the outreach to veterans is not about "experts," but everyday people "filled with the love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit" reaching out and touching others lives. Every church should have a pastoral care or congregational care system, by which they can identify people with needs and reach out to them and offer help in Christ's name. In some churches, this may initially fall to the pastor to connect with a veteran that a church member (whom maybe they met at work or school) would like to introduce to the church's ministry. In many cases it starts with laypersons connecting with veterans or military families in the community and then thinking what resources they could offer from their own lives or the ministry of the church that might help the deploying soldier or his/her family. Then they would seek to make introductions and connections to welcome a veteran or military family into some aspect of church ministry and build a caring relationship from there. What may surprise churches is the readiness of these military families to not only seek out ministry, but to become a contributing member of the faith community.

Is there a place for experts? Yes. In the case of a veteran who may need help finding work, get medical attention, access mental health resources for PTSD symptoms, depression, or addiction, get help GI bill education, or seek help with a VA service connected disability claim, it is important for pastors to have key phone numbers of veteran service resources available to use to refer a needy veteran. The County Veterans Service Officer (CVSO) in every county in the country is a good resource to have on speed-dial for referrals, as well as a Veterans Resource Center (Vets Center) located in each state, which triages veteran concerns.

8. What are some practical ideas for this type of ministry?

Think for a moment, what would a single mom need, who was going to be caring for a family alone for an extended period of time? Obviously some respite care for the "single mom" during a deployment, some outrageous acts of kindness and attention (treats, meals, movie or sporting events tickets, dinner out invitations, spa/beauty treatments), and generally checking by phone, e-mail, or in person to show care and concern and to watch for signs of distress requiring intervention.

What would be your concerns if you were a returning veteran trying to readjust to civilian life and find your way after being away at war? The vet needs a job badly and may profit from a church job support group or networking assistance by church members. The vet needs time alone with his/her spouse to beginning the journey back into a post-war marriage relationship that is healthy and strong (give them a bed and breakfast weekend or retreat and maybe help them with childcare for the weekend). The vet may need to eventually talk about his/her experiences with other veterans or with the pastor, if they are struggling with the impact of war on their life. A big issue is just getting help with focusing on what to do and where to go next in a world that suddenly has gotten more complex from the simple daily combat routines that a soldier could almost do in their sleep. Helping a vet connect with his/her kids, after being apart for a long time, in a natural and fun setting, may be a great ministry to a vet estranged from his/her kids. Maybe several families (or a group of men in the church) going on a camping weekend with kids (or to a sporting event) and inviting a vets family affords the vet the opportunity to naturally bond again with his/her kids and get on track relationally again.

9. How does a church get started in reaching out to this kind of temporarily separated military family?

I've already commented on some things that could be done to reach out to the family on the home front during a deployment.

I will only expand on this by saying, "don't forget parents and grandparents of service personnel serving in harm's way. They live daily with low grade anxiety, watching the news for the latest battle or casualties coming out of a war zone. They fear the "knock at the door" by a casualty officer, notifying them that their son or daughter made the ultimate sacrifice.

The best you can do for them is to periodically check in on them by phone, e-mail, or in person and show interest in what their son or daughter or grandchild is doing and tell them that you are praying for them (the soldier) as well as the parent/grandparent. Let them talk and process their fears and anxiety, not acting as a therapist, but just as a friend in Christ.

For the soldier, sending care packages of treats, especially stuff they cannot get over in a combat zone, is a real winner. Our church sends care packages monthly to my deployed son, letting him know he is loved and prayed for by the church. The care ministries representative e-mails my son and keep up to date on what he is doing and what might be his concerns. Our pastor has stayed connected by e-mail. The church has a an e-mail link of Sunday sermons that he can download weekly on the other side of the world and still stay connected to the teaching/preaching ministry of the church. He can get on-line church newsletters and bulletins to stay connected to church ministries. Staying connected, while apart, is very important for soldiers. Sending current sports pages and local news items, favorite magazines or books is another way of saying: "We're thinking about you and praying for you."

I also think the pastor could really make a connection over time with a soldier, sailor, marine, airman, or coastguardsman using e-mail (or Skype, if you are really sophisticated and had a number of service personnel in the congregation). A great relationship might develop between the pastor and a soldier who has a lot of time to think and read in a combat zone. It might be surprising what might come of such a discipleship relationship, bearing fruit for the kingdom of God.

10. Are there some pitfalls to be aware of in attempting this kind of ministry?

Set expectations realistically in terms of what kind of response to expect. Most of the successful outreach ministries to veterans started slowly and build over time. This should be like a seed quietly growing in a field, evolving appropriately in keeping with the outreach efforts made into the community by church members looking for veterans and military families who have needs the church can fill. Under-promise and over-deliver! Don't wait for veterans to walk in the door, but rather reach out to them and as you do, the word will get around among vets and military families that your church seriously welcomes them.

As a sailor, I would say, "stow the politics." The military is a cross section of society and its members do not have a monolithic view of politics. To assume all service personnel agree with all the policies of their government or like all the orders they have to follow is naive. Soldiers know only too well they may bleed and die for mistakes made by national leaders. Many soldiers, since the founding of our nation, left home in celebratory spirits with bands playing martial music, only to come home from war wounded in body and disillusioned in spirit. Still others have felt great about their time in the service, even bearing wounds of battle, but seeing it as a defining moment of their lives. Assume nothing, listen carefully, and speak God's truth and healing words of love to those like you, as well as those who do not share your political views. They earned the right with blood, sweat, and tears to disagree with you agreeably on political issues following a war.

11. How might the church itself benefit from doing this kind of ministry?

On a practical level, a church can really learn how to do friendship evangelism outside its doors by trying to reach this unique population. More importantly, it is the right thing to do for military families and deploying and returning veterans in our communities. A church can really feel good about itself and its ministry to veterans.

Additionally, by reaching out to veterans, you may be recruiting the church of the future! Veterans know how to lead and get things done on time and done right. They are great volunteers who know what it is like to lay it all on the line for a good cause. They know how to give of themselves and their means sacrificially and understand the cross better than most civilians I know. They are courageous and stand up for what they believe, willing to give their lives to achieve what they believe is right. They are goal orientated people who know how to work together on a team with very different people to achieve a goal. They have grit and guts, with the ability to march through the toughest circumstances and finish together leaving no one behind. What church would not want this kind of person in its membership, on its boards, and active in its ministries?

12. Are there any special needs or opportunity for ministry with veterans whose military service is long in the past?

They need to be honored and respected for what they did to defend our country in a time of war. They need to hear this from us before they pass on. During my time as a nursing home chaplain I met some of the finest veterans of WW I, WW II, and Korea who were pretty humble about their service.

I'd say a big thing would be to ask them to tell you their war story and listen to them for what they say and don't say. As they have aged they are preparing for death and they have had a lot of time on their hands to think about their wartime experiences and try to make sense of the story of their lives. Most of them just want to talk about "a funny thing happened to me during the war" and edit out the pain and suffering they saw and experienced.

Yet, if you can gain their confidence (especially if you have been a veteran yourself and they know you understand their war-time world), some of them will begin to share the tough stuff of war that they want to get off their chest before they die. You will see tears come from their eyes as they grieve over comrades lost long ago in their youth (they will talk about the Normandy invasion parachute jump they made with the 82nd Airborne Division in 1944 like it was yesterday). Some of these older veterans haven't darkened the door of a church for years because they felt they had committed unforgiveable sins in war. Yet in their twilight years you may hear a longing for God's grace and forgiveness...a searching for words of absolution...before they meet their Maker. As a pastor or a family friend, who knows about the grace of God, you might find yourself on hallowed ground, able to help an old soldier who has lost his way; find his way back to the Father's House. That would be a grace moment you would never forget!

13. Any other questions that you feel should have been asked here?

Let me share a word about casualties: Veterans who come home wounded from war and veterans who paid the ultimate price and are returning to their families to be laid to rest in a garden of stone. My co-author and I dedicated two chapters in our book, Beyond the Yellow Ribbon to addressing these special opportunities for ministry by the church.

Don't forget the wounded veterans and their families in ministry plans. Those who have been physically wounded face months and years of painful and difficult rehabilitation therapy with the VA to restore some function of life and limb to still enjoy life again. The untold hours spent and energy given by family caregivers to help these veterans would exhaust most of us.
Family members receive a veteran back from war broken in body and mind, to face in some cases, life-long care-giving chores of bathing, toileting, clothing, feeding, and exercising a seriously disabled veteran. They in essence give up their lives as long as the veteran lives, to be a helping presence in a veteran's life. Any respite care or simple kindnesses to make these caregivers lives a little better would be a cup of cold water in a thirsty land for them. They are paying a steep price for war that will never be recognized on a wall or talked about much in public.

Other veterans struggle with hidden wounds to the mind with PTSD or other forms of mental illness. Many of these veterans are often captured by addictions to drugs or alcohol to blunt the terrifying war-time memories that haunt their lives. These veterans need lots of patience and support as they seek help for these kinds of problems, something that churches can provide veterans while on this journey to recovery.

Don't forget the Gold Star Families, who have buried a spouse, son or daughter, dad or mom who has fallen in battle. They have entered into a life of grief for a future that will never be lived because of war. It is complicated mourning that one never gets over and which can impact a family for life in a way that few other kinds of death can. I have many times, as a military chaplain, taken the long walk up the sidewalk to the house of a serviceman's family assist in notifying a family that their loved one died in the line of duty and will not be coming home. I have never forgotten the looks on their faces as the bad news turned into the worst day of their lives. In officiating at military funerals, as TAPS are played and rifle volleys echoed across a cemetery, I have often wondered, what will happen to this grief stricken family after we all go home? I could only hope they had a good church to support them or that a church will discover them in outreach and comfort those who mourn.

 

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