Military chaplains share stress, fears of wartime with troops in Iraq

Published: 2006-11-02

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- It may be a cliche, but there's one thing on which Catholic chaplains serving in or recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan would agree: War is hell. Military chaplains share in that heart-pounding anxiety every soldier feels in a war zone -- the constant fear of being killed on the ground by gunfire, mortar fire or a roadside bomb or in the air by anti-aircraft fire. But they also specialize in helping military personnel find the peace they need to risk their lives in battle. "In war, you must be at peace with God," said Father Joseph Orlandi, a U.S. Army colonel who recently returned to his post as pastor of St. Michael Parish in Paterson, N.J. "You don't know if you are going to come back alive," he told The Beacon, newspaper of the Paterson Diocese. During the past year at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan and Camp Victory in Iraq, Father Orlandi found that the fears and stresses of battle -- or just the threat of conflict -- often gave way to a tremendous faith. In northern Afghanistan, the priest traveled far and wide to 15 remote "forward operation bases," where he saw men and women in uniform hungry for the spiritual nourishment of Mass.

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