CRC Chaplain Appointed to Lead U.S. Coast Guard Chaplains

In a recent Chaplain of the Coast Guard Change of Watch ceremony in Washington, D.C., Christian Reformed Church chaplain Thomas J. Walcott, CAPT, USN, CHC, assumed duties as the 11th Chaplain of the Coast Guard.

In this role, Walcott advises Coast Guard leaders on matters of religious support and plays a key role in ensuring that pastoral care is available for Coast Guard personnel and their families through the more than 40 chaplains serving in duty stations along U.S. coastal waters.

“I’ve just come from serving in Bahrain, and I’m excited to be home with my family,” he said at the ceremony, adding that he was also excited to take on the new leadership role, though he suspects that of the four Coast Guard tours he’s had, “this will be the most challenging.”

Walcott served as a missionary in the Dominican Republic and as pastor of a CRC congregation in Jacksonville, Fla., in the early 1990s. Then a friend mentioned that the U.S. Navy needed chaplains.

As he considered that, Walcott realized that chaplaincy might be a good fit for him to in doing ministry. Especially, he said “I am from a tradition in which everything we do is done for God.”

Sharing the Reformed faith and the Lord’s compassion for service members of all faiths or none at all has taken him to some of the most volatile and troubled places at home and around the world, he said.

Having served as a U.S. Navy chaplain,  Walcott has been assigned to work with a range of Marine Corps and Coast Guard members.

“I was one of the first chaplains to respond to the World Trade Center attack on 9/11,” he said. “No one could fly that day, and I was in Virginia and was asked to drive there.”

He recalls how he could see smoke rising over New York City from more than 20 miles away. Arriving there, he saw complete devastation and was shocked “by how incredibly horrible it was.”

His role at Ground Zero was simply to be a presence, walking around and talking to fire and police personnel as well as those who were drawn there to watch or to help. He visited the mortuary also and spoke to grieving family members.

Walcott said that amid the rubble he was able to talk with people who were trying to figure out why such terrible things happen to innocent people.

“They were asking how God could let this happen,” he said. “What I tried to tell them is that God promises never to leave us or forsake us. In tragic times like this, that is when people turn to us the most.”

Also at Ground Zero, Walcott said, he was amazed to see the numbers of people who came to clear debris or to help in some other way. “There was a massive outpouring of support. So many people responded,” he said.

Among the CRC's military chaplains, Walcott is a recognized leader and the highest ranking officer among them, said Sarah Roelofs, director of the CRC's Chaplaincy and Care Ministry. "While most Navy chaplains have only one Coast Guard assignment in their careers," she said, "Chaplain Walcott has had three prior Coast Guard appointments. Chaplain Walcott has continuously gone above the call of duty, both in his embodiment of the Coast Guard mission and his well-grounded, thoughtful, and compassionate approach to pastoral care."

In January 2005, Walcott was serving aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln near Indonesia when it was called to help with relief efforts in response to the massive Dec. 26 tsunami, which caused major damage across the region and took thousands of lives.

Appointed to the leadership team that directed the response in Banda Aceh,  Walcott went ashore and served for more than 30 days at the airport there. Because the roads were destroyed, a fleet of helicopters from the aircraft carrier flew in and out, carrying supplies and shuttling injured survivors to receive medical care.

“There were many injured and sick people and people without food and water, so those helicopters made a difference,” said Walcott.

While serving as the U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area Chaplain in October 2015, Walcott oversaw religious ministry and pastoral care following the sinking of the S.S. El Faro, a cargo carrier with a 33-member merchant marine crew that had sailed into the heart of Hurricane Joaquin on the way to Puerto Rico. Everyone on board had died. No one knows yet why the captain of that ship sailed into the storm when other ships across the area took cover.

Walcott also oversaw the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area pastoral response to Hurricane Matthew, a category 5 storm that hit parts of Haiti before causing widespread damage in the southeastern U.S. in October 2016.

Walcott served a year in Iraq during the height of fighting in the early 2000s as well. And more recently, he served at the Manama, Bahrain, navy base, where he was deployed to the Arabian Gulf in the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. He was part of the Naval Forces Central Command keeping watch over one of the world's most volatile regions.

“I traveled through the area and met with many of our service members, some of whom are experiencing tremendous tension,” he said. “I talked to air crews involved in bombing, and they are struggling with what we call moral injury. They were brought up not to kill, but now they are in a job that requires them to kill people.”

Of all his assignments, Walcott said, he has appreciated serving in the Coast Guard most because its mission “is not to destroy things or go to war. We are more involved in humanitarian missions, and this fits well with my theology and personality.”

Saving people and keeping people safe is what the Coast Guard is all about and, said Walcott, “I’ve found a home in the Coast Guard.”

At the ceremony in which he was officially put in charge of Coast Guard chaplains — the 11th chaplain to fill that role since 1982 — Walcott said he will do his best to shepherd and care for all who are under his watch.

Years of experience speaking on behalf of God to people on flightlines and on battlefields, and sharing the message of Christ in the midst of death and destruction after natural disasters and such human-caused disasters as the 9/11 attacks on New York City have touched his heart and will guide his spirit in his new position, he said.

Speaking to his fellow chaplains, Walcott added: “You are blessed to serve in an organization that wants you to speak truth to power, and they will listen. . . . My prayer for you is to be the light in all of the places and situations in which you find yourselves and to serve God and God’s people in the Coast Guard.”

Watch a video of the ceremony that took place at the Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Thomas Walcott is one of more than 150 chaplains who are serving in a variety of settings around the world as part of the CRC’s Chaplaincy and Care Ministry.