Tears from battle are different

BALAD, IRAQ -- I've been at the Air Force Theatre Hospital at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, for the past month, and I still can't get used to people bringing their M-16's or M9 Berettas to chapel.

They can be a bit intimidating. After all, what might someone do if they didn't like my sermon?

However, it's not always their guns that intimidate me. Sometimes it's their tears.

They can be intimidating because I know life and death and war are very real for all of the soldiers here. I don't want to insult them by spouting superficial platitudes that don't address their reality.

Nearly each week, I notice a tear in the eye of a congregant.

When it happened this past week, the soldier's tears seemed contagious. I felt my singing voice crack, and I swallowed hard hoping to keep my podium look.

In this battle zone, I couldn't help but wonder what her tear meant.

Tears may mark time, mark the number of cuts to your heart, mark the space between the joys you once felt and the despair you feel in the moment.

The week was one in which the tears could have meant many things.

It was a week during which we'd said prayers over the body a 28-year-old American contractor who died from a rollover accident. His coworker's injuries were so extensive that he was brought directly to the morgue.

Or her tears may have been for the 22-year-old soldier who died three months after his wedding and only a week after his arrival. Or were they tears of relief for his three battle buddies who amazingly survived the same incident with such minimal injuries?

I'm not sure what her tears were about, but I know the tears I was holding back were similar to ones most of us shed as we know the hardship of separation from family.

Nighttime is the most difficult. I've slept with my bride nearly every night for 29 years. That makes it a bit difficult to crawl into a bunk bed under a scratchy wool blanket. Finally when I do sleep, my dreams trick me into thinking that I'm going to wake up beside her in Sacramento.

Sometimes, the tears are for joy.

Many folks are completing their rotation here and are headed home with their "ticket to ride." These brave young men and women will arrive home through airports all over this nation. They will be carrying backpacks that make them appear nearly as wide as they are tall.

Tears will baptize them at the gate as the aching arms of loved ones receive them. There will be tears shed in front yards, as well as countless more tears in nurseries and bedrooms.

As I stood thinking about what I might say during my sermon, I realized tears are the moment in which a person is in touch with an emotion, a place in their heart, a soul or memory, a place where there are no words. In these ineffable places, tears become God's language.

Jesus knew that, too. In the shortest verse in the Bible, we are told about the reaction Jesus had to the death of his friend Lazarus: "Jesus Wept."

Jesus wept with everyone who knew Lazarus, because tears are a language of the soul. Some griefs, even seemingly small griefs, may be too big for words and only expressible through the sacred language of tears.

I've received several e-mails from readers asking me how they might pray for me. Simple, really. Pray with me, as I did that day, "God, give me strength and clarity of vision. In fog of war, may I be a beacon from your heart."

Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain.Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit www.thechaplain.net.

Tears and near beer honor a fallen patriot

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

It's amazing how normal we try to make things on a base with more than 25,000 people.

Here at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, we have hot showers, movie theaters, swimming pools, vehicles and chapels, not to mention dining halls that make the local Hometown Buffet look like a soup line.

Many of our patients have the normal scope of medical issues: broken appendages, infections, flu and appendicitis.

It would be easy to cruise along on the surface of normal, until, as they say among first responders, "hours of boredom are interrupted by minutes of sheer terror."

It happened earlier this month when we received a soldier who was the victim of an IED blast. There's no way I would describe the carnage this bomb inflicted on the 20-year-old soldier. Suffice to say it was enough to cause some nonessential staff to leave the room for air.

Within five minutes of his arrival, our neurosurgeon, Dr. Carrie Schmitt, examined the trauma done to the soldier's brain and broke the difficult news to a hopeful staff that the soldier really had died before he arrived.

"We've done all we can do. We've lost him."

"Chaplain," called out Dr. Schmitt.

"Here, ma'am," I said as I slowly and reverently took my place among the staff surrounding the gurney.

As one staff member held the soldier's remaining hand, another stood with an arm on his brow. Two other staff members placed sympathetic hands on the soldier's thighs.

We stood watching, we stood crying, we stood praying. None of us had ever met this soldier, but we were determined to say that his friends would see him into eternity.

There's a lot of debate among world religions over when a person's soul leaves his body. I don't have any desire to weigh in on that argument, but there certainly have been enough near-death experiences to suggest a person has some awareness of his surroundings during those moments that exist between life and death.

It was in that belief that I stepped forward and addressed the soldier.

Calling him by name, I told him he was surrounded by people who cared. I assured him everyone tried their very best to save him. We desperately wanted to bring the normal out of the abnormal, but it wasn't to be.

Within 30 minutes, we assembled a Patriot Detail. This is a short ceremony resembling a graveside service in which I read a short Scripture and said a prayer.

Afterward, his body, draped in flag, was taken to our morgue.

Just outside the morgue, a Special Forces medic joined us, carrying cans of near beer, a product as close to alcohol as we can get in the combat theater.

"I want us to toast this young man's life," the medic declared as he distributed the near beer among us.

I'm not a beer drinker, but this wasn't the time to make that point. This was a time to create a sacred space.

As we simultaneously popped our can tops, I was reminded of the sacred sound made by the synchronized breaking of a Communion wafer during worship.

In Communion, we'll often take the wine and quote Jesus as saying, "This is my blood which was spilled for you."

In much the same spirit, the medic reminded us that the soldier's blood had been spilled for us as well.

Pouring a few ounces into the earth, the medic declared that the first sip was reserved for the fallen patriot who wasn't yet old enough to drink. Then we raised our cans in his honor and drank together.

Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit www.thechaplain.net.

Sharing of yourself a priceless gift

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

I've had several instructors during my first week as the chaplain attached to the 332 Medical Group here at Joint Base Balad, Iraq. I wasn't expecting my first lesson, however, to be from a hospital housekeeper.

"Chaplain Burkes," said Chaplain Assistant Staff Sgt. Terry Mueth as he ushered in a young man of eastern descent, "You have a visitor requesting prayer."

I recognized our visitor to be one of the Third Country Nationals, who do the kind of labor that most folks don't like to do, mostly cooking and cleaning.

My chaplain assistant introduced the man as one of the many Christians who come here from India.

"They come in here frequently requesting a blessing," Mueth explained.

As the man came within a few feet of me, he dropped to his knees. I followed his example.

"No," he said upon realizing I didn't yet know his preferred stance for a blessing. He extended both hands and motioned me back to my feet. Then, as if guiding a blind person, he took my hand and laid it upon his head.

At 6-foot-2, I towered over his slight frame. At that height, the air seemed a bit thin and the man's humility robbed me of the breath I needed to form a sentence.

With an expectant look, he addressed me with broken English, "Blessing, please sir."

I attempted to kneel again, but he insisted I remain upright.

His request drew me to a common story from the Christian tradition recorded in the New Testament Book of Acts.

Not long after Jesus was crucified his followers Peter and John went to the temple where they saw a beggar. To borrow a hospital expression, the man was a frequent flyer. He set up his begging gig just outside the temple gate every day at 3 p.m.

When the beggar pulled his routine on the Jesus duo, Peter and John could have simply pulled their pockets inside out and replied, "You're barking up the wrong tree, sir."

Instead, they said, "We don't have any silver or gold, but we're going to give you all of what we possess."

That's when an amazing thing happened. Peter prompted the man to his feet and pronounced him healed in the "name of Jesus of Nazareth."

Together they started skipping and leaping their way down the sidewalk to the Temple entrance. Once inside the Temple, the story narrative describes nothing short of a hallelujah tent revival.

Why? Was it simply because he was healed?

This is the part where some people start arguing about whether this was a real healing or whether it was "intervention therapy," i.e. Peter confronting a healthy man who was scamming people.

I'd rather see the story as two destitute disciples who decided that they would give all they had to a fellow beggar. I call them fellow beggars, because Peter and John knew a time in their life when they were starving for a spiritual sustenance that could bring relevance.

They found that relevance in walking alongside Jesus, knowing not so much his teachings, but the person.

Now, in my office knelt a humble man who could have asked me for silver and gold, but he was simply asking for a blessing. My religious tradition doesn't practice the giving of blessings, so the whole event felt awkward in its beginning.

But as he knelt there, I realized he wasn't asking me to share my traditions or my teachings, he was asking me to share myself. And at the end of the day, that's the most valuable thing you have to share. Jesus knew that and had phenomenal results.

Burkes is stationed at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, through April. E-mail him at norris@thechaplain.net or write him at Chaplain Maj. Norris Burkes, 332 AEW/HC, APO AE 09315-9997.

Trash Talk

I've heard more than one person say that this economy is nearly trashed.

Well, I'm not usually one to talk trash, but I do have a trashy parable to tell.

It happens every time during the holidays.

Hysteria envelopes our quiet neighborhood whenever we get the postcard informing us that for the duration of the holidays, our regular trash day will move to accommodate a holiday schedule.

I call it – December's Great Disposal Debacle.

On the week before Christmas, folks are too busy buying junk on sale to think about disposing junk. But by New Year's our cans are filled with the carcasses of turkeys and old dollies. No one can remember exactly what that postcard said because it's also in the trash.

With so many postcards in the bottom of so many trashcans, people follow the herd mentality.

One cocky soul, confident he remembers the temporary trash day, will put his trash on the line. As he drags his cans curbside, doors creak for peeks, neighbors labor and phones buzz. More cans follow.

Joggers and mommies pushing strollers spread the fear via cell phones urging spouses to make the curbside push. That's when the dam breaks.

Herds of people make the dash for the curb praying it's not too late. It's that whole herd-to-the-curb mentality.

I remember a few years ago, just after New Year's Day, I woke up urging my wife to help me push the cans to curb. "Our cans are stuffed! Hurry or we'll miss the pickup," I warned in my repent-or-burn voice.

"I think we're back on the regular schedule."

"Then why are so many people putting their trash out?" I asked.

"One person did, so they all did," she said, yelling her social commentary as I rattled the cans to the street.

Determined to prove her wrong, I scouted for the sound of every delivery truck. Other neighbors joined my acoustical surveillance team as they cocked their ears out second-story windows.

People ran across the street consulting neighbors -- pulling out more cans -- doors were opening and slamming in search of that truck. Finally, when rumor found its saturation point, a hard-headed neighbor emerged brandishing the postcard she had dutifully posted on her refrigerator.

As she circulated her epistle, converts found the truth and returned their cans to the hidden place where respectable neighborhood CC&R's demand they be placed.

Still some who were unwilling to demonstrate Swagartlike shame for their sins kept their cans curbside all the while muttering, "They'll be sorry when the truck comes!"

I don't mean to trivialize this economic mess we find ourselves in, but last month when I came across a book called Financial Armageddon, I had to wonder if this crisis isn't inspiring new levels of hyperbole.

I'm trying to stick with facts as I know them because just as in the case of the garbage can debacle, facts remain our best ally against fear. It's true that many have lost homes and jobs. But it's more true to say that most people have their jobs and homes.

Before we start acting on our fear, I have to remember that the Bible has a promise that "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

Trusting in this promise and keeping a sound mind gets my vote every time. No matter what happens, the trash always gets picked up in the end, and God is always with us, even when the trash (or our economy!) is still in the can.