My interest in the work of military chaplains goes back to my childhood. The pastor of the church my family attended was an Army chaplain in World War II, having served in the South Pacific.

Now and then he’d tell stories about it. Something (maybe many things) traumatic must have happened to him in the war, because eventually he became, in author Kurt Vonnegut’s apt term, unstuck in time. Although he was physically in the present, his mind was back in the South Pacific in the war, and he could speak of nothing else. He had to be sent to a mental institution. Eventually he left the ministry, emotionally and mentally wounded.

Despite (or maybe because of) this odd exposure to military chaplaincy, I have long admired the people who risk doing this work. I have never served in the military (which, even in the Vietnam era, didn’t want someone with my severe near-sightedness and my diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis), but I know that the men and women who put on our nation’s uniform need all the emotional and spiritual help they can get, especially on the battlefield.

I liked the way an article in the December issue of Christianity Today described the work such people do: “Chaplains are preachers, teachers and counselors, counted as vital players who quietly help hold the military together.”

As much as I’m a stickler for separating church and state, I avoid the argument over whether government pay for chaplains is an unconstitutional breach of that wall. Military people, no matter what religion they follow (and sometimes even if they follow none), need chaplains to help them do their often-terrible work. And if there’s a fair system for choosing chaplains of different faiths, I’m happy for the military to pay for that.

But I’ve always been curious about whether chaplains sometimes feel part of a killing machine. And, if so, how they live with themselves.

Not long ago, John W. Kiser, who grew up in my Kansas City church and now is an Army chaplain, was invited to Princeton Theological Seminary, the Presbyterian institution from which he got his theological degree, to preach on “Chaplains Day.” In that sermon, John answered my question directly and well:

“I do not see myself as an advocate of war but as a missionary of the gospel of peace. I am an advocate of soldiers to God, and for God to soldiers, even in the midst of warfare.

“I see war as a sign of a fallen, sinful world, but unfortunately necessary at times.”

Chaplains, John said, “seek to be an ethical and moral voice in the midst of chaos and confusion. Usually our congregation consists of units of 500 to 700 soldiers as well as 300 to 400 family members. … As a chaplain, I minister to them as any civilian minister would. But if the soldiers go to war, I go with them. I go into combat, though never carrying a weapon, only the written Word of God.”

John has served in such hot spots as Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait and Iraq. In fact, he was in Iraq the day Saddam Hussein was captured, and we shared e-mail that day about the joy the U.S. military personnel there were feeling.

“This is how the GIs (in World War II) must have felt when they knew Hitler was dead but even better,” he wrote me. “We got him alive.”

Over the years, the military chaplaincy has broadened to represent the growing spectrum of religions represented among our military. Even chaplaincy insignia have changed to acknowledge the reality that not all soldiers are Christian. Official insignia at one point added Judaic and then Islamic symbols, but now the move is not to single out any particular faith. In a country in which Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, neo-pagans, atheists, agnostics and others are increasingly prominent, that makes sense.

It’s intriguing to look at the military chaplains selected to receive this year’s Distinguished Service Awards. They’re not all older white guys. The Air Force winner, for instance, is a black man ordained by the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. The Coast Guard winner is a native of Korea, and the Army chaplain is a young woman who began active duty in 1997.

I don’t know whether there are atheists in foxholes, but I know chaplains are there. And I’m grateful for their service.

Bill Tammeus is a columnist for The Kansas City Star.

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