One of the things that
is important to think about when you look at what chaplains are doing.
So it's boots on the ground.
You're there with everybody doing their job, but also
you stand slightly aside from the chain of command, although you wear a rank,
you don't have executive authority, until you become the chaplain in chief.
But so you see,
rank is there to get you into places that you need to get to.
So on a day to day basis, yes you've got the freedom of being everywhere with
all the people doing their ordinary work.
Go into offices in the hangars
where the flight line created rooms, whatever, you have that access,
but you also have direct access to the chain of command.
So the station commander, the detachment commander, whatever.
But also, you're often the only person that he can talk to
outside of the chain.
So you can find yourself on a late night wandering back to your tent or whatever
and notice that the boss is still in his office
and just a drop in to see what you're doing.
Why are you still here?
What's going on?
A colleague, a colleague of mine would tell a story of doing that one night
to get the answer "I'm choosing who might live or die tomorrow" and pondering
as they were going through the targets for the next day.
And he just sat with him
not making those decisions, but actually just having somebody else
there as he worked through his own mind before speaking to his chain of command
And those stories are repeated for all of us.
There's times when we have been the one that a commander has been able
to talk to about something or somebody
and sometimes it's really strange advice.
Like you're
I'm worried about Fred.
So in a surreptitious way, you have a wander down to where Fred was,
in his flight line, in the crew or whatever and have a chat
and sometimes go back and say, yeah, you need to be worried.
We need to get help.
In Vietnam.
What would happen when chaplains went there?
Vietnam, they found a sniper with his list of targets
and the chaplain was worth $1,000
because they knew that if they shot a chaplain,
and had a chaplain removed, the morale would sink
Not least, of course, in good squaddie humor, you,
if that bloke that speaks to God can get killed, what chance have I got?
But as a whole, morale issue there of what a chaplain brings.