Neither height nor depth shall separate
By Chaplain (Col.) Rev. Herm Keizer, Jr.

In 1969, I was ministering as a chaplain to American troops in Vietnam. One of the units under my care was mutilating the bodies of dead enemies.

I made my objections known to the unit commander, who denied that he had the power to stop this practice. He said that he had ordered it stopped several times. "That's how it is in war, chaplain. It's easier to kill the enemy when you de-humanize them."

On the battlefield, peace seems very far away. But, even there, peace still has to mean something—and part of my job as chaplain is to strengthen and uphold the meaning of shalom, no matter how fractured.

In formation the next day, I asked the soldiers to please give me the personal belongings of the enemy dead, so these could be returned to their families in North Vietnam. I watched the soldiers as they looked at the pictures and letters taken from the enemy dead. The humanity of the enemy took on new meaning when they saw pictures of families and children. In two weeks time, the soldiers stopped mutilating bodies and helped me collect personal items from enemy dead. I conducted a service before I brought a bag full of artifacts to the International Red Cross. I preached about loving our enemies, and I prayed for the families who would receive these personal belongings.

Almost the entire unit came for the service. It was a moment of shalom. The soldiers no longer dehumanized the enemy, but saw them as fellow creatures created by God.

Peace is never lost

God designed his creation and his creatures to live in peace, in shalom. It was to be characterized by a flourishing of love and obedience in all relationships, from the Creator to the creation to the human community.

What happened in the Garden of Eden fractured shalom, and we live under that painful burden, everywhere from our Canadian communities to Vietnamese battlefields.

And yet, we know that the prospect of shalom is not lost—it now is carried on the wings of a promise. Our Covenanting God promises that all things will flourish again and become new in Jesus. So we struggle, individually and corporately, to be agents of shalom in the concrete situations of conflict and injustice—in the already-not-yet of God's kingdom. The task of shalom is key to our call to obedience in life, work and worship.

It is the military chaplain's task to bring the possibility for shalom to an environment filled with the possibility for unrestrained violence. In my own career, I took that to mean that the chaplain does all he or she can do to keep the battlefield a place in which the human spirit is challenged to both restrain the use of force, and to minimize the de-humanization of war.

After successfully challenging my soldiers' behaviour, I began having conversations with them about what it takes to love one's enemies in a time of war. We were, I confessed to them, all learning together what this commandment meant. It's not an easy task in the middle of battles where your friends are killed by children throwing grenades, or enemies that attack by cunning and deception.

As a Chaplaincy leader I also have the opportunity to hear important stories. A reporter asked a Marine General why he had a good relationship with sheiks in his region. The General said, "I listened to my chaplain." He continued,

"Over a period of time, tensions had increased between the local population and our troops . . . I told my commanders to prepare the troops for an armed confrontation with the townspeople at a demonstration they planned for later in the week. After the staff meeting, Chaplain Bill Devine told me he had a plan that he thought would work without resorting to force. His plan was to have my Marines mingle with the demonstrators greeting them and giving them bottles of water. My immediate reaction was to dismiss the chaplain and his bizarre plan, which I did. But I called him back for more conversation and I asked for more of his reasoning."

"He told me that in Islamic traditions it was a friendly and hospitable gesture to offer someone water in the extreme heat, and a gesture like this might prove to be disarming to the crowd that came to demonstrate under the hot sun. I took his advice, with some apprehension—and it worked. There were embraces and cheers between my soldiers and the townspeople. Our friendly relations resumed on the spot and have remained healthy ever since."

Ministry of presence

There is no place where our covenanting God is not. He is on the hell of the battlefield as the bringer of peace, shalom. This underlines the importance of the Chaplain's ministry of presence—even in the fog of war.

Our ministry is part of God's grand strategy of reconciliation. God completes this work through humble servants who pick up a cross and follow. Graig Dykstra explains:

"At the heart of service lies . . . presence. Service, as presence, means being with another! . . . Presence is a service of vulnerability. To be present to another is to put oneself in the position of being vulnerable to what they are vulnerable to, and of being vulnerable with them. It means being willing to suffer what the other suffers, and to go with the sufferer in his or her own suffering. . . . We know the Cost of Discipleship, but we also know that nothing can separate us from His love for us in Christ Jesus."

One of my Vietnam unit commanders told me that I could not go beyond the firebase or go on patrol with the soldiers. I was concerned that this would limit the amount of time I could spend with soldiers. It turned out he was concerned for my safety, so I responded: "Sir, last night in Lai Khe four people died in a rocket and mortar attack. I am at as much risk on the base camp as I am out with the troops." Finally he relented. He became my biggest supporter and made every effort to help me do ministry.

When I was out with the soldiers they would ask me why I would do a crazy thing like go to war unarmed and risk being killed. So, I told them about a God who came into the world a vulnerable baby, and moved out on a journey that led to a cross. I told them that because of his obedience, God raised him from the dead. In him we do not fear death, because we have an abundant life.

I tried to be present, to create presence with the troops. I served Communion at every service I conducted in Vietnam, because the message of the sacrament is more powerful than any sermon I could preach. In the middle of the brokenness of combat, I could give them the broken body of the Resurrected Christ. In their hunger for some comfort from loss of friends and with a dry mouth brought on by fear, I offered the bread and the wine of something radically new—hope in Jesus Christ.

It is a timely ministry, chaplaincy. In the midst of war, of intense fear, and of acute brokenness, chaplains present God's faithfulness, remind young soldiers what it means to be created, and renew the promise—however distant—of the shalom to come.

© 2009 Committee for Contact with the Government. All rights reserved.

Mobile Justice is an instrument of justice dialogue for the Christian Reformed churches (CRC) in Canada.
Information and articles published on this site are not necessarily the official policies or positions of the
staff or members of CCG, nor of the Christian Reformed churches in Canada. We encourage your feedback.