Milwaukee Catholic Herald

Serving God and country

For Catholics in the military, faith provides support

By Karen Mahoney
Special to your Catholic Herald

Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, head of the Archdiocese for Military Services, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, and an unidentified priest pray at the tomb of Pope John Paul II during a recent pilgrimage to Rome. (Photo courtesy of Archbishop Dolan)

ST. FRANCIS — On any given day in the Middle East, amid echoing gunfire, small clusters of soldiers in combat gear kneel in dirt, their camouflaged faces bowed in prayer.

On Sundays, the chapel that services all faiths might transform into a Catholic Church — if the chaplain happens to be Roman Catholic. Often, the Mass or ecumenical service is overflowing with men and women searching for answers, a spiritual home and family.

A hauntingly quiet cry reaches the tuned ears of the military chaplain, as the stalwart soldier breaks down only to ask the most difficult question of all, “Why does God allow bad things to happen to innocent people?”

The answer is always the same, according to 48-year-old Chaplain Lieutenant Colonel Fr. Francis Malloy, United States Air Force, 378th Airlift Wing, Scott Air Force Base, Belleville, Ill.

“I tell them as honest as I can that I don’t know, and explain to them that you can see the evil that people can do to each other,” he said. “These soldiers have seen horrible things that no one would want to see.”

A constant duty for Fr. Malloy, pastor of St. Luke Parish in Brookfield who is in his 22nd year with the Air Force, is to boost the faith life of the Catholic and Protestant soldiers in his unit. Previously with Milwaukee’s 440th Air Lift Wing until the unit closed, Fr. Malloy ministers among some of the tensest situations, including those during non-wartimes.

“Many of the people on base have marriages that have gone bad and want to seek annulments, or they might have been in a bad marriage and want to get it blessed and come back to church,” he said. “For many I am their only contact to the Catholic Church and when I was living on an Air Force base, I’d get to know families just like in any other church. I was their pastor and performed baptisms, weddings and funerals just like any other civilian church — except that the church wasn’t really ours.”

Catholics represent 30 percent of military

Despite a presence of 30 percent Catholics in the U.S. Armed Forces, maintaining a Catholic presence in the chapel was often a challenge for Fr. Malloy. The customary Catholic settings needed to be stripped bare after each Mass, including candles, statues, and Stations of the Cross.

“They did give us a Blessed Sacrament chapel separate from the main chapel, and we could put up all of our Catholic stations, candles and other stuff to go with it,” he said, adding, “but that was easier when you had a Catholic commander.”

With the war in Iraq affecting so many lives, more than 375,000 Catholic men and women have selflessly opted to serve their country in the active duty forces. An additional 204,000 Catholics serve as reservists and with the National Guard, according to the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA. There are 737,500 active duty family members, 66,000 Catholics serving with oversees governments, and 29,000 Catholic residents in VA Medical Centers.

“The percentage of Catholics is a bit higher in the officer corps, maybe just over 30 percent, but even higher in the Marine Corps general population, perhaps in the 40 percentile,” said David Levite, vice chancellor of the Military Archdiocese. Within the miltary ranks are approximately 307 Roman Catholic chaplains.

Shortage of priest chaplains

“There are only about 800 chaplains and we are very short of priest chaplains in our military,” he explained during a phone interview while visiting troops on a military pilgrimage in Lourdes, France and six other European countries. “We have one who just flew in to Lourdes from Baghdad and said that there are civilians who are working with the troops in Iraq. The value of having a Catholic priest to listen to soldiers is outstanding,” he said describing how one soldier to whom he spoke said, “The word is out if you want someone to listen and not try to overwhelm you with persuasive arguments, talk to a priest.”

“I find that a lot of soldiers will listen and try to work things out and then return to the faith - we are so proud of the work our chaplains do out there,” said Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, head of the Archdiocese for Military Services.

While the war in Iraq causes serious moral concern for many Americans, and despite the debates on justification of the war, Archbishop O’Brien said the U.S. needs its soldiers.

“We need men and women to take up the cause when terrorists are threatening people in the free world,” he said. “People see this as a generous and selfless act.”

Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan agreed, “Families speak of patriotism as a virtue, as taking seriously our Lord’s teaching, ‘Greater love than this no man has, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’”

Chaplains are challenged to balance their military profession with Christ’s teachings on peace and love.

“Jesus said, ‘Peace I give to you,’” said Archbishop O’Brien, adding, “Our soldiers are assisting in a step to peace and order in a just society, and we are constantly reminding them of this. I will often remind them when they are worried about justifying themselves as a soldier and pulling a trigger, that in order to stop the bad guys, a policeman on a corner might have to pull a trigger. We have to make this comparison because they are having to be the police to bring about a just world order.”

‘No atheists in foxholes’

The old saying that there are no atheists in foxholes is more than just a saying, said Fr. Malloy, who, while in the most horrifying of situations, has seen many servicemen and women, and even family members, turn their lives over to Christ.

“I have a letter that I have kept for a long time,” he said. “There was a woman in her mid-20s who was injured and in a hospital in Germany during the beginning of the Iraqi war. She suffered a brain injury from getting hit with an exploding device and they were ready to pull the plug on her and send her home to Walter Reed because her family would have been there. They wanted me to anoint her before they sent her; I did, and then I wrote the condolence letter to her mother. Six to eight months later, I got a letter from her mother and in it, she told me that her daughter was alive and well at a VA hospital and walking, talking and feeding herself. She said she herself was not a churchgoer, but now she thinks she will go.”

Faith helps sergeant

Praying Psalm 91 and reading from his Bible each night helped U.S. Army Operations Sergeant First Class James Huff get through the tough times during his overseas tours. Stationed in Newport, Rhode Island, Huff recently returned from a lengthy tour in Iraq and will be leaving for another one-year tour to Afghanistan in September. He supports the work of the U.S. military in Iraq, but admitted his faith is tested every day.

“My faith was always strong, but as I have gotten older, it has gotten much stronger,” he said. “I have always struggled with the ‘what ifs’ and those get forced out when I have to come up with back-up plans, contingent plans and now I don’t ‘what if’ any longer. While I was over there, I had no choice but to surrender my thoughts, and turn my life over and let God handle it. I don’t know how people manage without their faith.”

Archbishops Dolan and O’Brien and Fr. Malloy have offered funeral Masses for fallen soldiers, but emerging through the tears and the loss is the overwhelming awareness of the family’s sense of nobility.

“There is a striking and tremendous sadness that youth is ‘wasted’ at an early age, but also a sense that it isn’t wasted, but is good and necessary, and while struck with sadness and loss, it is still a sense that someone had to do it and they are proud,” said Archbishop O’Brien, “And most families tell me that they are proud of their son, daughter, husband or wife and say that they wanted to do it and give their lives that way. They would not want us to think differently for them.”

Decision sealed after Sept. 11

Since boyhood, Christopher Neese of Staten Island, N.Y. dreamed of being a soldier, but the morning the horrified teen looked out of his high school classroom window and watched the World Trade Center towers fall, he made the decision to join the Air Force immediately upon graduation.

Only 17, Neese’s decision to join required his mother Maggie Arlotta’s signature, which was the toughest day of her life.

“It was the toughest one I ever had to make,” she admitted, “But knowing his 18th birthday was only a few months away, I knew he’d enlist no matter what, so I signed. Even though he received the Congressional nominations for both West Point and the Air Force Academy, he gave them up in order to enlist immediately.”

At 22, Neese is a Senior Airman, Avionics Specialist and maintains the F16 and F17 fighter jet computer systems. With one four-month tour to Iraq behind him, he will leave in August for another six-month tour.

A strong proponent of freedom, Neese saw the need to defend what he believed, and while worried, Arlotta supports his decision 100 percent.

“I have no problem with his decision, aside from my selfish worrying, but I do wish that there were no war — period. Silly me, is that even possible?” she said, adding,

“Unfortunately, we will always need to have strong military presence in today’s world. I have a slip of paper on my wall which I read often. Attributed to George Orwell, it states: ‘We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do us harm.’”

Arlotta is familiar with the military life and ravages of war; her father served in Korea and was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. While growing up, she recalled hearing many war stories and admitted that good or bad, those stories will never go away.

“I cry for every lost soldier, every mother who loses a child or has one in harm’s way,” she said. “The sights that are embedded in their mind’s eye after witnessing the war first hand worries me a lot. The loss of the friends and comrades ... does that ever heal? I don’t think so.”

Wartime demands sacrifices

Married 34 years, Gary and Sally Olson of Mosinee looked forward to spending carefree days with their three grandchildren. Long retired from the U.S. Army, Gary, a Sergeant First Class, retired after 17 years and assumed his service to the country was over.

Then the mail came.

“He had retired early with the stipulation that he would stay in the inactive reserve and knew that the only way he’d be called back was if the president declared a national time of war,” Sally said. “He did.”

Tearing open the envelope, Sally cried as she read that Gary had just 30 days to get his affairs in order before leaving for Iraq to serve in civil affairs.

“I cried and he was stunned,” she said, adding, “I couldn’t believe it was happening. Although it was unbearable, I knew our faith would get us through and that God would watch over him over there and give me the strength to carry on with things here.”

For six months Gary trained at Fort Bragg in North Carolina before serving his one-year tour to Iraq. While difficult, Sally admitted that the ordeal brought the couple closer together and increased their faith.

“My mom gave him her necklace with the Blessed Mother and many saints on it, and on the back, it said, ‘I am Catholic, please call a priest,’” she said. “That and the Bible given to him by his aunt and uncle really helped him get through it.”

Gary arrived home unharmed and, according to Sally, attributed his feelings of peace and safe return to the prayers from so many around the world.

“God, as always, will do what he thinks is best for us and will make us stronger and grow in life, and if we continue to believe, our faith will take care of us, and each other,” she said.