One year ago, Chaplain Roger Vanderwerken openly shared his weight of Chaplaincy when America goes to war. His Chapel was bursting at its seams the night before deployment. He expressed his deep emotions counseling men and women facing their mortality. As Chaplain, his role includes listening to soldiers discover feelings they fear they may never share again. He assists them with details, modern day warriors prefer to avoid, realizing they may be leaving loved ones behind, possibly for eternity.
Vanderwerken’s “job” is being there for all Marines returning home. Some Marines, honored by the MA, a unit largely unknown outside the military, already returned from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mortuary Affairs Company recovers, processes and ships fallen comrades back home, quickly. Even if all that is left is their dog tag, upholding Marine Corps philosophy “We take care of our own.”
One year later, Chaplain Roger Vanderwerken is celebrating. His Marines are beginning to return home, walking into joyous celebration. Family and friends, meet returning Marines, often, in the middle of the night. Huge crowds welcome them, Vanderwerken said, “Everyone is there.” Some are seeing children for the first time. Others return to parents, sibilings, extended family. Friends. Others, well, things can change.
Some Marine’s returned, suffering dramatic weight loss from heat, stress and food, said Vanderwerken. “They looked like skeletons, some of them. It was kind of scary.” Their diet consisted, for six months, of cold MRE’s, military food pre-packaged in plastic bags. Others only drank warm canteen water. These Marines returned 30 pounds thinner than before deployment. “A lot of them gained the weight back pretty quickly,” reassured Vanderwerken, “They were certainly welcomed home with big meals.”
Marines returning from war, face readjustment issues. Couples must work together redefining their roles, to each other and to their children. Wives can become stronger. One congregant, a pilot, deployed leaving a wife, and three children, ages 8, 5, 4 on home shores. Vanderwerken said “During the pilot’s time away, his wife did incredible things. She sold their home, bought and remodeled their new home. Her husband came home to a brand new place, you know and that was kind of interesting. She was pretty strong woman to do all that.” “Another couple, in the Chapel, before deploying, dropped their 1 year old child off, in Texas, with grandparents. It was a time of rejoicing when both parents returned.
The war has been hard on the Marine community at the base. Vanderwerken found himself counseling families to limit television viewing. “That was psychologically harmful to a lot of people.” “Eyes glued to the TV hoping to see a word, somehow, somewhere,” he is sure they were looking for loved ones. “Many wives and families were glued to CNN all day long. It wasn’t a healthy thing for them.” Interestingly, he noted, in an age of sophisticated technology, Vanderwerken said they keep in touch, with messages passed, the old fashioned way, “on little slips of paper.”
Vanderwerken was assigned to remain at Oceanside California’s Marine base Camp Pendleton. With congregants deploying, he worried service attendance, would drop. To his delight, it doubled. Wives, girlfriends, and child minding grandparents sought solace and refuge in the place Vanderwerken describes as a spiritual home.
“When the guys come back,” said Vanderwerken, “there is euphoria and tremendous amounts of attention from the public, family and friends.” “They don’t think too much about their experiences, too much. And then later, some of that reality sets in. And it is hard. And they need to talk about it.” Vanderwerken describes a returning warrior’s experience similar to Post Traumatic Distress Syndrome. The pilot whose wife moved his children and home, Vanderwerken said, “took really a couple of weeks before he knew that he was back.” Though, the pilot stayed at the local airfield for a while and just talked, most Marines return immediately, to their own homes.
Marines undergo significant debriefings , before leaving Iraq. Warrior Transition program Chaplains, are sent over to head up needed discussions. “There is quite a of care given to Marines before they get back here,” said Vanderwerken. The warriors are asked to describe their battlefield experiences. They are counseled to leave those experiences behind. “The Marines are told,” Vanderwerken said, “We are coming back to your home now.”
The war has been hard on, Roger Vanderwerken. He listens to a lot of issues from both sides, the wives, the children, the men, stresses some “men faced when they have gone and come back.” A man of faith, the time he takes to get in touch with God through personal devotion, reading the Scriptures, a lot, and community worship in the Chapel forces him to “It forces me to really look at the Scriptures and what God is saying and how does these ancient texts written thousands of years ago apply to our situation today and just the nature of the work I do.” And he makes sure he remembers to take a Sabbath. He takes a day off during the week, to “get away from it all.”
One role of the Chaplain to the military unit is to remind commanders of one great principle of the America is freedom of religion. Military engaged in the fray are encouraged to worship when they can. “Often,” he says. “there is no such thing as a day off in the field.” Worship is critically important to a marine or soldier. It gives them a chance to focus on eternal values,” Vanderwerken said.
Vietnam was a military precedent for Sabbath in war. Warriors were given a military respeth of a couple of weeks furlough, away from battle, with family or significant others before being called to go back in to fight. “It gets them away from battle and gets them charged up again.”
One question Chaplain Vanderwerken asks each of his returning Marines is, “What was the best thing you saw in Iraq?” His burly Marines, to a man, describe “scores of children running up to them, thanking them and hugging them.” A lot of older people do the same thing, said Vanderwerken, puzzling why the media barely reports on his military’s good deeds in Iraq.
The American military is gifting an indelible legacy of American know-how to Iraq. The Navy Seabees helped replace Kish, Iraq’s farming irrigation system; Kansas City, Mo’s Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 15, Air Detachment, helped install a 1.3-megawatt generator at Kish’s Water Lift Station, jettisoning water to about 50,000 farmland hectares. The 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, and Green Bay, Wis’ 432nd Civil Affairs Battalion trained fire personnel held modern American firefighting technique academies for senior Iraq firefighters. The 1st Battalion 7th Marine Regiment, re-opened the An NAhaf’s all girl school. The First Marine Division wanted to leave a future of freedom through education for the children. “Marines,” Vanderwerken decribed, “are a highly disciplined group. Everything is very regimented. Marines know what orders are and they carry them out. And without question. They are very fine troops. They know how to get a job done and they do it.” Vanderwerken doesn’t think Marines will coordinate their own grass roots promotion of their unreported positive realities in Iraq. “These guys are marines. They are not activists. They do what they are told. They really don’t start grass roots things.”
An Ordained American Baptist Church, USA, Vanderweken counsels Marines of all denominations. Asked about the Muslim Cleric accused of treason, Vanderwerken said, “There are Muslims in the Military and it is appropriate to have an equal number of muslim clerics. They should be able to freely exercise their religion.” Vanderwerken says the Chaplain Corps are bound together by a couple of words “devoted to God and to Country. And that is left up to the individual chaplain to determine what devotion to God means. Devotion to country,” Vanderwerken continues, “is pretty clear. No one should go into the chaplain corps with the purpose of being a spy for anyone. You go into the chaplain corps for being the presence of God for people who serve their country.” Vanderwerken addressed the clarity and wisdom of first amendment of the Constitution, “The first amendment to the Constitution,: he said, “allows for the free exercise of religion.” “Part of that is Congress shall make no law establishing religion in the land.”
Offering a personal thought, Vanderwerken said, “We hear a lot about American values and American way of life. Those values are not big cars. They are not gambling and lotteries and earning as much money as you can. The values are things like life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. The values are things spelled out in the Bill of Rights. It is good for all Americans to think about that.”
“The tendency with past wars,” Vaderwerken says, “is warriors return and fall away from religion.” That has not happened with Operation Iraq Freedom. Marines who discovered the Lord in the battlefield, are maintaining their commitment. His chapel is maintaining its flock since men have begun to return.
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