Distinguished Alumnus for 2011

Church Pastor and Navy Chaplain: The Social and Theological Complexity of God’s Call

by the Reverend Dr. Dana Reed, M.Div., '86

"Join the Navy and See the World!"

It was January 1986. I was about to graduate with my Master of Divinity degree when a Navy Chaplain Corps brochure in the BTS student mailroom caught my eye. I wasn't exactly a natural for the Armed Services. During the waning days of the Viet Nam War in 1972, I did my duty and registered with the Selective Service, but as a Conscientious Objector.

Yet since my earliest childhood memory I'd been aware of the U.S. Coast Guard and "Coasties" patrolling the waterways of Mount Desert Island where I'd grown up, although I hadn't felt any particular pull toward service.

Years later, after graduation from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, I put in an application to enlist in the Navy and be part of one of its many bands, but never even got an interview, not realizing at the time that all the services bands are comprised of some of the finest musicians to be found anywhere.

A Call to Naval Chaplaincy

If I had been a stronger player I might have been accepted into the Navy and its prestigious music program. But as I finished up my studies at BTS that mailroom brochure seemed to suggest an alternative route of seeing the world and having those new experiences I longed for. This time the call was a definite pull toward military service and chaplaincy. I strongly believed I could bring the pastoral skills I'd learned in seminary to bear upon the men and women serving our country. This time when I applied I was accepted to the Navy Chaplain School and entered basic training for chaplains between semesters during my senior year.

Now, almost 25 years later, I'm still a Navy reservist and have attained the rank of Captain. The places I've been able to see and experience as a result of multiple mobilizations and reserve duty have tremendously enriched my life, but not without personal and professional cost. Despite the price that any call may exact, my proudest tour occurred during my last mobilization to active duty in 2008. During that year I supervised 33 chaplains at Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, in California, as the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force Chaplain. In addition to supervision and direction of all religious programs at Camp Pendleton, I answered to the 3-Star Commanding General of over one-third of the entire Marine Corps.

Often I'm asked what I'm doing with Marines. At those times I proudly explain the special connection Navy sailors and the Marines have shared since 1775. Today, as during those early days of the Continental Navy, chaplains have ministered to Marines and sailors serving in all our country's wars. With the heavy and prolonged involvement of Marine forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the spiritual companionship, prayer and pastoral care chaplains provide is critical.

Another Life

For nearly 25 years the life of a parish pastor and military chaplain has been a delicate balancing act with one other life. That life is with my wife, Katherine, and our two sons, Asa and Gardner. For the past 10 years I have also been blessed to have a spiritual life and ministry with the North Windham Union Church, United Church of Christ, in the beautiful Sebago Lake region of southern Maine. I've grown to appreciate the spiritual strength of my family and church community over those years as a result of my two mobilizations and constant demands of a drilling reservist. I deeply appreciate the support they have given me pursuing two different, but complementary, callings. Being recalled to active duty, or even away on routine reserve duty, is always trying for both the congregation and my family. But most would acknowledge the dual roles of pastor and chaplain enhance each other. People will often acknowledge I'm a better pastor because of the professional training and diversity of religious experience I've encountered in my naval career and conversely I'm a better chaplain being ecclesiastically grounded in the life of a community of faith.

A Complex Ministry

It's not always easy to live in two different worlds. Since 9-11, I've experienced two mobilizations lasting slightly longer than a year. But what I've known is far less stressful than the multiple deployments Marines, sailors, and their families, have had to endure. Their worlds have been literally turned upside down and inside out over the past 10 years.

As a result of multiple deployments to war zones, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is on an alarming rise among Marine Corps personnel. Even with all the professional psychological and spiritual help available, it's almost impossible for those of us who work with service members to grasp what they've been through. It has caused me to reflect deeply, and pray upon, what it might mean to them to contemplate the presence of God in their lives, even in the midst of war. The theological and pastoral training I received at BTS stressed the paradoxical nature of the gospel. In a military setting, and with those scarred by war, that paradoxical nature always seeks a literal and practical application for the healing of body and soul.

I have a sense of pride about what I do when I am in a military setting and although I am often questioning, I do not regret my calling. While I did not at first realize the demands of this dual pastor and chaplain role, nor anticipate how the events of 9-11 would transform life as many of us know it, I have learned to value the social and theological complexity of this specialized calling to ministry.

To use a musical metaphor, I am blessed to have heard the calling of God in a "different" key, in which my life has been augmented and not diminished. In a few short years I will need to step down from my naval career, richer for it and deeply grateful for my unique experiences. Now I can truly say that I "joined the Navy and saw the world," and as a result am firmly convinced that God's deepest desire is for that world I've seen and experienced is to live in peace. May that day quickly come when, "swords are turned into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks" and in the words of the African-American spiritual we "study war no more."

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