commissioning and sending for Sam and me.
Relationships & resiliency Tere are many routes to serving a year in Afghanistan. For a Navy reservist, the tour begins with a day or two at the local reserve center, followed by a week at a mobiliza- tion processing site, three weeks at a weapons training facility, a few days of travel and then more processing in Afghanistan. One or two people might travel
ELCA military chaplain Jeff Jacobson (middle) stretches his legs with two other chaplains while their helicopter refuels in Mazar-i-Sharif, northern Afghanistan.
“
Military moves I
The church was there for my family and me By Jeff Jacobson
want to thank you in advance for taking care of my family while I’m gone,” I told the congregation aſter preaching at All Saints Lutheran, Bowie, Md., in Feb-
ruary 2013. Maybe that sounds a little selfish, but I was about to be deployed for one year as an ELCA military chaplain in Kabul, Afghanistan. I knew the congrega- tion’s day-to-day care would faithfully mitigate many negative factors of the separation my wife Alyson, our four children and I faced.
I knew people would pray for us. All Saints names its deployed service
personnel in the worship bulletin and in the prayers of the people at each worship service. My name would be remembered in prayer more than 100 times during the year. Not only did it honor my service and my family’s sacrifice, it kept the congregation mindful of our unique circumstance. I also knew our transitions would be noted. While I was preparing to
leave for the combat zone, our oldest son, Samuel, was getting ready for boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C. So just before I leſt, Gary Rhinesmith, pastor of All Saints, held a brief service of
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with you all the way through the process. But in most cases you repeatedly make and lose acquain- tances until arriving at your final destination as the “newbie,” where relationships must be formed again. Good relationships are vital for
the personal resiliency and emo- tional health of a Marine, sailor, Coast Guardsman, airman, soldier or civilian working in the combat zone. While we are deployed, our communication with friends and family is limited only by our online access (via hot spots, USO facilities or personal subscriptions that can cost $80 a month) and the nine to 12 hour difference in time zones. Of course, in our faith tradition the key relationship for resiliency is our relationship with God through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. As one of more than 150 mili-
tary chaplains in Afghanistan, I helped ensure that U.S. personnel of all faiths had access to religious services. During my year in Afghan- istan, the U.S. Navy presence went from more than 1,100 to somewhere around 500. Te corresponding drop for Navy chaplains was from 18 to seven. For the sailors remaining in the
theater, the reduction in force meant early departures or reassignments to other commands and projects in
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