A Chaplain Says Good-bye

by Chaplin (CPT) Shlomo Schulman

My 15-month deployment to Iraq as a chaplain in the U.S. Army is coming to an end, and in a strange way, I'm a bit sad to go.

I'll miss the people I've met, the friends I've made, my job here, and of course, the action and adventure.

I signed up at the beginning of 2007 and reported to the U.S. Army Chaplain School at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. Upon graduation, I was assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division in Savannah, Georgia, just as President Bush's "surge" of troops was getting under way. By May 2007, I was on a plane to Iraq, where I've been serving ever since as battalion chaplain with a Blackhawk helicopter unit at Camp Striker, a small base next to Baghdad International Airport.

What a long, strange trip it's been.

I wore a yarmulke everywhere I went, a bit of a strange sight in a place like Iraq. I've eaten strictly kosher food the entire time I was here: lots of salad, cup 'o soups, dried salami, dehydrated camping meals, and more tuna than most people eat in a lifetime. I put on tefillin and prayed three times a day. I fasted on all the fast days and celebrated every holiday in the Jewish calendar -- some of them twice.

I was featured on CNN News, in the Boston Globe, the Jerusalem Post, various websites and other media. I lit the menorah on Chanukah with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in California on a live TV simulcast. I met Condoleezza Rice and shook hands with General Petreaus, ran frantically for cover during rocket attacks, inserted an IV needle into someone's vein, and sat on Saddam Hussein's throne.

I heard the Megillah -- the biblical scroll of Esther -- read on Purim on the porch of one of Saddam's vacation cottages; and on Passover, I hosted Seders for 65 people, using a Haggadah signed and inscribed with holiday wishes from President George W. Bush himself.

I looked after the spiritual and religious needs of 400 soldiers in my battalion, safeguarding their Constitutional right to freedom of religion. I performed Jewish services at Camp Striker. And once a month, I'd take a ride in a Blackhawk to visit Jewish soldiers at other bases around the country, giving them a taste of Yiddishkeit, if only for a day or two. For the first six months that I was here, I was the only Jewish chaplain in all of Iraq.

I managed to get a mezuzah hung on one of the last Jewish homes in Baghdad. And when Rosh Hashana came along, I taught myself how to blow a shofar.

I talked a platoon of Arkansas National Guard engineers into building a sukkah, and for roofing material, I hacked off palm fronds from the date trees that grow on the base.

I answered hundreds of emails from schoolchildren, reporters, long-retired veterans, American diplomats concerned about the status of the synagogues left in Baghdad, and countless Jewish mothers asking me to look after their sons, "who seemed a little sad the last time we spoke on the phone." One sent a photo of her daughter who was on the way to Iraq, and asked if I knew any nice Jewish boys... in Fallujah.

One woman wrote to say she found a Jewish sailor's profile on JDate. It mentioned he was headed to Iraq, and now that she had some time to think about it, she wondered if I could track him down for her.

I answered the call when one of our Blackhawks was sprayed with AK-47 rounds from a lone gunman behind a house as it approached to land. The young sergeant behind the machine gun that hangs out the side of the helicopter had the attacker in his sights, but the weapon jammed before the enemy managed to kill one of the infantry soldiers in the back of the aircraft. The battalion commander thought it would be a good idea if I rehashed the event with the crew later that day, and afterward they told me how much better they felt just talking about it.

And I coached more than a few broken-hearted guys through tears when they found out their wives had betrayed them.


I even wrote love letters to unhappy women whose husbands wanted to win back their hearts... but didn't know how to say it.

I served close to 650 kosher meals for Shabbat and holidays -- with Army-supplied wine for Kiddush; challah loaves that Mrs. Debbie Lowsky sent each week from Columbia, South Carolina; canned gefilte fish, matzah ball soup, olives, pickles, hummus, dried salami and usually a main course of chicken or beef MREs (dry rations called "Meals, Ready to Eat") all using an electric burner I bought at Walmart before I left -- without a kitchen, sink, or even running water.

I spent Shabbat at a U.S. airbase next to the towering ziggurat of ancient Ur, a giant pyramid-like platform that is the oldest man-made structure in the world, built 4,100 years ago as part of a huge pagan temple complex. According to Jewish tradition, this is where Abraham came to the realization that there was only one God.

I gazed for long hours at that structure, thinking how Abraham and Sarah must have seen it each time they left their house... until the Almighty sent them on a journey that would change the face of civilization.

Read the rest at aish.com


From Monkey in the Middle:

When I read this article at Aish.com I knew I had to share it with you my readers. Regardless of the faith you follow, this story will lift you up.

A chaplain provides spiritual and pastoral support for service personnel, including the conduct of religious services at sea or in the field. U.S. Army Chaplains serve both God and country by bringing their unique gifts with which they are endowed by God, to the Soldiers of our nation in the broad, challenging, diverse, and ever changing environment of the Army.

The Chaplain is the one person in the military a serviceman or woman can turn to for advice, help, understanding, or even a shoulder to cry on. It is an awesome responsibility for a person to endure, but through their faith they find the strength to not only face the adversary that they are fighting and the men who need their spiritual aid and comfort.

When you say your prayers today and everyday, remembering our men and women in uniform, say an extra prayer for the chaplains. They are there celebrating G-d and bringing hope and comfort to all around them.