Welcome back to
The Liberty Insider.
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Before the break with
guest Commander Paul Anderson,
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we were deconstructing
and giving some history
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of the Military
Chaplaincy Program.
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And you said
something very important
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just before the break.
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It's worth remembering
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that the chaplains
are non-combatants.
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Yes.
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While they are
embedded that, you know,
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you're not part of
the killing machine
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that the military is
meant to be, people forget that.
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That is true.
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The purpose of the
military by and large is
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to effect diplomacy
when diplomacy fails.
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But the chaplain's role
is not to be a war fighter
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or a war planner,
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but to be of a spiritual,
moral and ethical support
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to the
commanders and to the troops
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who actually serve in combat.
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I think it's a very
responsible position
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because, you
know, if it's a wartime
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you're gonna be right
there where soldiers are dying
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or in great agony and...
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That's the side of war
that most people I think
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with the sanitized
stuff we're getting now,
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they forget about that.
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It's blood and
guts and tragedy and,
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and death and maiming and so on,
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and you're right
in the middle of that.
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One of the most
prolific pictures
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that I have a
copy of it in my office
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is in the movie
Saving Private Ryan.
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In that Omaha
Beach scene that long...
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There were a lot of chaplains
killed on that invasion
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or as I remember
reading about it.
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There were.
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But there's one scene
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and most people
probably missed it,
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where there's a chaplain
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who is actually
lying on a soldier,
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they're under fire,
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the soldier has
been hit and he's dying
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and this chaplain is there
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performing last rites
for this dying soldier.
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And there's a
moment when he looks up
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and you see the
cross on his helmet
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and they leave it
there for just a bit
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and then move on to
the rest of the battle.
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But for all of us who
have served as chaplains,
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some in harm's way,
some thankfully not,
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that's an icon, an
iconic image for us.
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So I had seen that.
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I mean I didn't see the movie,
but I've seen probably clips
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from where the
helmet was like that.
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Now there's other ways
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that a soldier could
tell you're a chaplain,
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it's not just the helmet, is it?
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No, it's not the helmet.
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There might be other epaulets,
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but the key way
that the soldiers know
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who the chaplain is, is because
the chaplain gets around.
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We call it in the
navy deck plating.
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Gets around and knows his crew
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from the youngest sailor
to the captain of the ship,
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from a private if
it's Marine Corps or army,
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all the way to the
colonel or generals.
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Yeah.
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Because it's not
as visually obvious
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because I'm sure on news reports
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we often see a
picture including a chaplain.
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But if you don't know the
cues, you wouldn't see it.
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But recently I saw with
the fighting again in Ukraine.
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A picture
actually in the newspaper
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and there were a
couple of the, the Russian.
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I'm trying to think
how to describe them.
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Separatists, the
Russian separatists
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and they were
standing next to a metropolitan
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of the Eastern Orthodox Church
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and I instantly, here the church
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and say what they're doing.
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And that's how it is
in some other countries,
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in other times.
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There's the clerics
in full garb and say,
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you know what's going on.
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But the chaplaincy is the U.S.
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runs it as a more
low key thing, isn't it?
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It is.
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We are not the directors
of any of the operations,
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but we are the people
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who provide the
spiritual underpinning
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and foundation while
they are serving the country.
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Okay. So how did you get
into military chaplaincy?
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Well, now that's an
interesting biography.
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We can take another
program if you like.
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I was a student
at Oakwood College
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and finished high
school and gone to college...
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You stayed in
Huntsville, Alabama.
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Down in Huntsville,
Alabama, now Oakwood University.
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And I was doing
well, dean's list
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but I stumbled
into a vocational crisis
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and existential
crisis at the same time.
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That's interesting.
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I had one of those
at about the same time.
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Really? Now I
think it's necessary.
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If you don't, you
don't become defined.
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And there might be
some warping later on,
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but for me I did
the unthinkable thing
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and followed prayerfully,
followed my wanderlust.
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Left Oakwood
and joined the navy.
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It was an interesting experience
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but it was there that I
sensed the call to ministry
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and having seen
and been mentored
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by several navy chaplains,
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I thought I want
to be a navy chaplain.
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But I got out of
the navy after six years
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and went to
Colombia Union College
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and then to Andrews,
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came back to Allegheny
East Conference and pastored
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but my dream was
still to be a navy chaplain.
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Then to Bethany Conference...
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So you had been in the military
before, that's interesting.
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I had. Yeah.
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I joined when I was 19
and was there until I was 25,
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married while I was in.
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Both my children were born.
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Well, my first child was
born while I was on active duty.
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The second just as
I started pastoring.
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But after 14 years the dream
of becoming a navy chaplain
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became a reality and
in 1995 I was commissioned
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as a lieutenant in
the Navy Chaplain Corps.
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Well, and then you just,
just recently come out, so...
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Just recently.
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Of 20 years.
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A total of 25 years
active service and...
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Yeah, with the first, yeah.
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Wouldn't trade it.
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I got to live my dream
and now God has allowed me
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to live beyond my dream.
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And I'll even throw
in a bit of my dream
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hopefully in the navy.
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You must have gone to Australia.
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I did. I got to...
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I'm an Australian.
Hope it's secret, I'm sure.
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Every time I open my mouth.
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I visited
Perth, Australia twice.
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That's right. You did
mention that to be probably...
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It was a great,
great experience.
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Yeah.
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Surprise you
didn't go to Sydney though
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because a lot of the
warships come into Sydney too,
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but Perth is a
traditional stopping out...
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Yeah, Perth, Fremantle.
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We wanted...
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I thought why can't we go
to Sydney, it's the big city?
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But we were coming
off of a long deployment
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and I guess that side...
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And there were
probably some economic
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and political
impetii for that as well.
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Yeah.
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So during your period as
a military navy chaplain,
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you know, what
sticks in your mind?
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Where there sort
of some hard moments
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when you thought
this is what I'm here for?
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Oh, many of them.
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My first assignment was
with the U.S. Marine Corps,
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third marine
division in Okinawa, Japan.
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And there were a
lot's of experiences
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where I just knew
that God sent me there
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for such a time as this.
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Came back to the U.S.
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I wanted to go to
Italy, but we were...
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I was pastoring in
the Washington D.C. area
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when I was commissioned
into the chaplain corps.
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When they sent me to
Okinawa, we sold the car,
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we sold the house,
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three years later
they sent me back to D.C...
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I thought that was interesting,
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but it afforded me some
incredible opportunities
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and exposure to see things
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that I might not
normally have done.
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I was the navy chaplain
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at Arlington
Cemetery for two years,
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buried over 900
people in Arlington Cemetery.
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I was the navy
chaplain there on 9/11.
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I did most the
planning for the sailors
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who were killed
aboard the U.S.S. Cole
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who were buried at
Arlington and the same...
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Was that before 9/11?
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That was before. Yes,
I thought it was, yeah.
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And so those were
pivotal experiences.
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There's was
quite a few, was it 30
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or something
sailors that were...
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I don't remember the number.
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All of them weren't
buried at Arlington, but...
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The visual scene
that I've taken away
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apart from the
human tragedy was,
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I think it was a
German operation,
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actually re-floated
or dry docked the boat
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and then carried it
at sea, dried docked.
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And brought it back
to the United States.
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That's a lot of
interesting technology
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of full destroyer, wasn't it?
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It was.
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Lifted out of the
water and carried in a cradle
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above water back to be repaired.
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That was an
interesting experience
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getting to talk to
some of the sailors
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who were aboard.
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Had that
happened 15 minutes later,
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it would have been even worse
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because it was the
time that they were,
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would have been
lining up to go to lunch.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Now these were big wake up calls
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and as the media is
telling us all the time.
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This war on
terrorism, it's violent,
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it's war in the old form true,
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but as well as that it has
the strong religious component,
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the antagonist after a
radical form of another religion
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and it invokes
us or it places us
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sort of as a Christian nation
which we are not structurally,
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but, you know, it brings out
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this religious
identity to a conflict
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which is in my view
sort of hacking back
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to the bad old days
of warfare when it was,
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you know, our God
versus your God type of thing.
00:09:42.48\00:09:45.71
And so this must make
it much more difficult
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for chaplains now a days.
00:09:47.95\00:09:49.58
And in the old days, you know,
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a lot of the
battles were fought on,
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what essentially was
the size of a football field
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or a little large,
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but now you
have global conflict.
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Yeah. It's not
really confined anywhere.
00:10:02.53\00:10:04.10
No. And the technology you
know bombs the turn corners
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and things like that.
00:10:08.57\00:10:11.04
The carnage of warfare
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is probably
greater now than before
00:10:12.81\00:10:16.71
and the impact upon society
certainly is devastating.
00:10:16.75\00:10:21.48
We don't have
very much like times,
00:10:21.52\00:10:22.95
but I just like
you to make a comment.
00:10:22.98\00:10:25.15
You probably
haven't seen this coming,
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a chaplain's
ministering to the serviceman,
00:10:27.26\00:10:30.23
but this global war
you're talking about
00:10:30.26\00:10:32.46
has shifted the
carnage to primarily civilians.
00:10:32.49\00:10:35.56
How do you think
military chaplains do
00:10:35.60\00:10:38.83
or need to relate to this
because it isn't the killing,
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it's mostly
collateral, to use that term.
00:10:41.57\00:10:47.08
That's a good question.
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The military chaplain
probably wouldn't be involved
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very heavily in
instances of domestic carnage.
00:10:51.71\00:10:57.69
We'd be there to support
based on our own experiences
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and our training in supporting
other first responders.
00:11:01.66\00:11:07.53
But the military chaplains
due to Posse Commentates
00:11:07.56\00:11:10.73
and some other restrictions
wouldn't be functioning
00:11:10.77\00:11:13.67
on the front of a
domestic terrorist situation.
00:11:13.70\00:11:19.77
It used to be said that
00:11:19.81\00:11:21.18
there are no
atheists in foxholes.
00:11:21.21\00:11:24.35
Not only are the
foxholes largely gone,
00:11:24.38\00:11:27.42
but I think
that dynamic with it.
00:11:27.45\00:11:29.68
It probably vanished
some where around the time
00:11:29.72\00:11:31.65
of the smell of
napalm in the morning.
00:11:31.69\00:11:36.02
But what is certain is
that in the environment of war
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which now a days carries with it
00:11:39.46\00:11:41.73
the context of
crucifixions, beheadings,
00:11:41.76\00:11:44.90
and the myriad atrocities
00:11:44.93\00:11:47.30
that only a satanic
cult could dream up.
00:11:47.34\00:11:50.64
There is a great need
for Christian witness.
00:11:50.67\00:11:53.74
I think it is a fact
that the chaplaincy service
00:11:53.78\00:11:59.28
of which the
Seventh-day Adventist Church
00:11:59.31\00:12:01.75
is a part through
its Adventist chaplains
00:12:01.78\00:12:05.12
is doing a great service.
00:12:05.15\00:12:07.32
We need to witness
to young men and women
00:12:07.36\00:12:10.19
who have been brutalized by war.
00:12:10.23\00:12:12.69
And perhaps will only
sense the presence of God
00:12:12.73\00:12:16.33
through the ministrations
of such a representative.
00:12:16.36\00:12:20.27
No, not napalm in the
morning, Christ in the morning
00:12:20.30\00:12:24.24
and Christ certainly can
function as the morning star
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and the harbinger of a new day,
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a new day of peace
and conflict forever over.
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For Liberty Insider
this is Lincoln Steed.
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