Holy Conversation with a Member of Congress

by Michael Cooper-White

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“Daddy, what would you like named after you when you die? A building perhaps—or maybe a plaza somewhere?” Answering his daughter’s question, Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, said, “No, if they want to do anything, I’d like to have a bridge named after me. It’s a symbol of connecting, helping people get together. That’s what my life has been about.”

At the conclusion of an awards luncheon during the annual gathering of Lutheran Services in America (itself a “bridge organization” which links together some 300+ Lutheran social ministry organizations around the country), Pastor John Spangler and I accepted a spur-of-the-moment invitation to join in conversation with the congressman in whose Baltimore district LSA was meeting. A roll call vote on the floor of the House of Representatives made Mr. Cummings too late to address the gathered assembly. So LSA president, Ms. Jill Schumann, hurriedly convened a half-dozen folks to join her and another LSA staffer for private conversation with the congressman. What we expected to be a 15-minute polite formality turned into an hour-long in-depth dialogue about our mutual commitments to live out callings of servanthood and public ministry.

A transparent person of faith, Congressman Cummings repeated several times that our calling is to “enable people to be all that God intends them to be.” This son of southern share-croppers who moved north so their yet-unborn children could get quality educations, shared his assessment that the gap continues to widen between rich and poor, the “haves” and the “have-nots.” Remaining a resident of Baltimore’s inner city while he serves in the halls of Congress, Cummings’ face showed obvious personal pain when he lamented, “Most of the fellows I grew up with right around here are either in prison or dead.”

Encouraging those who work in social ministry and are faith-based advocates for greater justice, Cummings said, “The things you’re doing are so important. And for the most part, you won’t be thanked. Most people won’t even know you are doing it. So I want to offer you a word of encouragement and appreciation.”

Interspersing stories of life in congress and personal vignettes with recommendations of several books that have influenced his thought recently, this Phi Beta Kappa congressman clearly has embraced a role as a “public theologian.” Anguished at the federal government’s slow response in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this contemporary Elijah did not shy away from a prophetic pronouncement to President Bush: “God would not be pleased, Mr. President, God would not be pleased.”

Summing up his sense of urgency and commitment to his calling, the congressman concluded, “Life is like a basketball game. You keep playing and the clock is always ticking. We don’t know when it will stop for us. While it’s still tickin’, let’s try to make the world a better place.”

“Where was the Chaplain?”

Chaplain CPT Glenn Palmer, a graduate of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and a distinguished pastor and Army chaplain, offers another perspective, with equally hard questions, on the health care offered by Walter Reed Hospital. This entry comes from one of his recent CHAPLAIN’S CORNER letters. Both this post and the previous one share some real energy that comes from a sense of biblical justice: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did to me”. Matthew 26:40

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“Where was the Chaplain?”

That is the question I have been asking myself as the situation at Walter Reed unfolds.
That was the question asked of me when the Abu-Ghraib scandal broke. Our little operating base during OIF I was located a couple of miles down the road from Abu-Ghraib prison. I share with folks who ask me that question that the Chaplain for the section of the prison where the “events” took place was a strong introvert whose 2nd language was English and who when told to stay in the office; did so. That Chaplain failed the soldiers, the inmates, the system and God.

A good, strong, confident Chaplain who loves Soldiers and who loves the Army and practices a random ministry of wandering around can be used by God to make all the difference in the world. A couple of quick examples: In the summer of 2003 when it was 125 degrees I could sense some of our soldier teetering towards the edge in their treatment of detainees during the nightly run to Abu-Ghraib prison. I made it a point to randomly ride on this detainee runs so as to remind our Soldiers of God’s light in a dark place and also to protect tired, angry, overworked young men, transporting IED makers RPG shooters, rapists, and killers; from their own worst instincts.

On one occasion in May of 2003, one of our nightly foot patrols was regularly stopping at a brothel in the neighborhood. The Iraqi prostitutes charged $5.00 a week and provided the condoms. One night before patrol, I showed up at the 1st SGT’s office and said “make this stop now, or I’ll take it higher”. He made it stop.

During our second tour to Iraq, a soldier came to me and shared with me that his platoon leader (2 Lt.) and platoon Sgt. (E-7) upon detaining suspected insurgents would beat detainee’s up until they got one to confess; then let the rest go rather than bring the detainee in for questioning. I approached the Company Commander with this issue. He wasted no time in taking the young platoon leader and the platoon Sgt. to task, threatening them with legal action and the ending of their careers. The Company Commander made the abuse stop. He did the right thing. My experience in Iraq was that the times when someone did the wrong thing was the exception rather than rule. There is no room for the exception however.

At the risk of sounding “holier than thou”, why do I share all this with you?

Because, a good Chaplain, one who gets out of the office and goes with the soldiers and who knows the Soldiers, one who knows the leaders, one who knows what’s going on in the unit and one who practices “incarnational” ministry can be such a strong force for all that is right and good and true and moral; often intercepting, addressing and rectifying dangerous practices at the lowest level possible.

I have been following the scandal surrounding the conditions that some of our wounded Soldiers have been living in at Walter Reed hospital. The unit I went to war with twice suffered 13 KIA and 100 WIA (my Chaplain Assistant being among the WIA). It astounds me to think that any of them would have to live in such unsanitary conditions.

What astounds me even more is that I have not heard a word about the Chaplain in the midst of this situation. Why did it take a news organization breaking the story for something to be done? (I’m glad they did break the story). Why was there not a Chaplain willing to risk losing his or his career over the way these Soldiers were being treated? Why was there not a Chaplain standing on someone’s desk and falling on his or her sword to make sure these Soldiers received the treatment and conditions due someone wounded in the service of his or her country? I don’t know which is worse, that the Chaplain maybe didn’t know or that the Chaplain knew and neither did or said anything.

With one glaring exception I have never had a Commander shoot me, the messenger because he or she did not like the message. Most Commanders know that a good Chaplain and good Chaplain Assistant “on the ground” are moral multipliers and know what’s going on in the unit. Most Commanders want to know if something needs to be fixed. The Army expects the Chaplain to be the voice of reason and conscience and goodness and morality in the unit.

It can be gut wrenching to share serious morale, moral and ethical deficiencies within a unit to the Commander, but it is the “hard right thing to do” and any Chaplain worth his or her salt takes the call to be pastoral, priestly and prophetic seriously and holds them all, with fear and trembling, in delicate tension.

Any Chaplain worth his or her salt is called to love the Army and Soldiers and their families enough to speak the hard truth and to make sure the hard truth is heard and received; “even if the hearer and receiver of that truth has a clear preference for one and only one comfortable answer”. (Paraphrase from Bill Moyer in an address at West Point)

And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did to me”. Matthew 26:40

God be with you all.
Chaplain CPT Glenn Palmer

News Coming out of Walter Reed Hospital

The Rev. Henry Morris, New Haven, CT
takes a look at the Walter Reed health care injustices -- vents with some hard questions about our assumptions about public and private sector solutions. -ed.

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The news coming out of Walter Reed Hospital is so offensive it is hard to know where to begin denouncing it. Americans are outraged to learn that our wounded soldiers are treated so shabbily, and shocked that our leaders, who never tire of making pious speeches about “supporting our troops”, could allow this to go on undetected and unremedied.

Well, pardon me for saying so, but who are we trying to kid? Were we sleeping through 2003 when the soldiers were sent to Iraq without body armor and deployed in unarmored trucks? Did we not notice that folks in small towns and large cities across the country were taking up collections to buy used bullet proof vests to send to their loved ones in Iraq? Did we not care that our under supplied, under armored, under protected troops were deployed without any attempt by the government to raise the money to support them?

The horrible news coming from Walter Reed Hospital is not limited to that hospital. It is news about our entire system of health care for military personnel and veterans. I should say systems. There is one system of health care for military personnel and a separate system for veterans and they are not in sync. Navigating the military health care system is one thing, navigating the veteran health care system is quite another.

One would think that a soldier who had a traumatic brain injury would be able to count on careful and consistent health care, but one would be mistaken to assume so. The Congress, which until this week seemed largely undisturbed by the huge holes in health care for soldiers and vets, now is falling all over itself to “take action”. They will investigate. They will legislate. And then what?

Perhaps one good medical outcome of this scandal will be Congress having its spine restored. Don’t hold your breath.

Before this moment passes and all the outrage is assuaged by some band aids and a promise to reform the health care systems sometime real soon, let’s allow our anger to motivate us to rethink a few things.

There is a long list of things that need rethinking but I am starting with one that I think is causing us a lot of grief, including a lot of the grief we are hearing about at Walter Reed.

I refer to the assumption that public services are best provided by the private, for profit sector which is among this Administration’s most fervently held beliefs. This Administration want s to “privatize” everything starting with Social Security and public education and continuing through all the essential government functions, even including military services. Most people are not aware that the Army is not supplied by the Army but by Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation.

As the smoke clears over Walter Reed, it will become clear that the hell-hole housing we now know so much about was outsourced to a private company formed by a group of – I kid you not – former Halliburton executives. Through the miracle of privatization, we can provide essential services much more efficiently and at substantial savings to the tax payers. So goes the theory. Behold the results.

There is no problem this Administration will not address with a hearty transferal of public funds to private corporations. And look at how successful it has been! Behold Walter Reed, the latest poster boy for this insane approach to public service.

Henry E. Morris

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