Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for April 16, 2010

Good thing chaplains are bound to confidentiality, just like doctors and shrinks. But it’s all coming from a good place, and we could all use a friend like Roz.

Florea I agree.

It’s been a risk to have blind faith in the clergy since Rome, Jones and Falwell, but she seems like a good chap.

I dunno, I still think Roz’s notion of making that rapist officer eat a grenade is a good one. Fragging means never having to say you’re sorry.

Oh goody, we get to play flag the spammer again today.

Yes, boba44 like always. Let’s begin flagging, shall we?

So far all the people in this thread have been women except for Seabrook. Considering the ratio of men to women tends to be about eight to one in the US military, especially in theater, that’s not very realistic. The odds of finding a female Christian chaplain are about as high as finding a female Christian priest. Episcopalians are considered as “flaky” and left wing in the general military mindset as Wiccans, although these days there’s certainly more acceptance than there was when I was in 20 years ago. However, if it helps Trudeau make the story more accessible to non military peeps, let it ride.

One of the problems associated with a command rape situation is that usually all the guys in a unit know, and there are guys everywhere, and the culture in general is very sexist toward women. There aren’t very many women in authority to turn to for help, and in the mind of the person being abused, no guy is safe.

If that had been what had happened to me while I was in, the absolute LAST person I’d be going to would be a military chaplain, who would have an 85-90% chance of turning out to be a right wing Christian fundamentalist ready to tell me that it was my own fault for not being a Christian and that I was doomed to hellfire and damnation. Ironically, places where this type of Christianity is allowed to dominate military culture tend to also be where a lot of the rape takes place. See repeated stories about the US Air Force Academy for an example that is available to the general public.

randgrithr, I’m trying to figure out where you’re coming from. I think I’m sympathetic to it, but I’m just not quite getting it. I know some military chaplains (and prison chaplains and hospital chaplains… guess what I do for a living), and like with everything else, there are so good ones and some bad ones. There are in fact female chaplains out there. And the Episcopal chaplains I know would be anything but flaky. You have a valid point that you have to be careful who you go to – I would never go to any chaplain with a serious issue until I knew them well enough to feel I could trust them. Sounds like Roz, in this arc, knows the chaplain well enough.

As to why there are so many women - Roz and Mel are roomies. That is realistic. Only other woman is the chaplain - and I don’t think Roz would be going to the chaplain if it weren’t a woman. (just guessing)

I have known only one chaplain outside of normal civilian life and he was the chaplain at a corrections facility in Massachusetts. I was not an offender but someone who was looking for a job asked me to talk to him. Chaplain had been military and on his recommendation I hired this man. I never reegretted it.

“LAST person I’d be going to would be a military chaplain, who would have an 85-90% chance of turning out to be a right wing Christian fundamentalist ready to tell me that it was my own fault for not being a Christian and that I was doomed to hellfire and damnation.”

“Ready to tell you” - I doubt like hell any one of them actually told you that.

The Air Force is super-Jesusy but the other branches don’t have a bad rep in that regard.

Ronebofh, I do remember the stories of fundie agendas in the Air Force!

For the record, I was in the sandtrap and asked the chaplains assitant in my unit about Hannukah, he looked at me with a blank stare and didn’t even know what I was talking about!

@randgrithr

Not to dispute your claim that

”the odds of finding a female Christian chaplain are about as high as finding a female Christian priest.”

But I will point out there was at least one female Christian chaplain serving in Afghanistan a few years ago (Army Reserves), and she was a Lutheran pastor (she presumably still is, but has gone on to serve another “call”) in civilian life. Strictly speaking, she is not a “priest,” but serves in the Lutheran equivalent role of “pastor.”

Just FYI. ;-)

Word of suggestion. Read the WHOLE comment before posting and maybe the comments that start threads.

If you want to be angry at anyone jack75287 it should be randgrithr. Hizzonner was quoting from this poster thus the quote marks. ” ”

jack75287:

Are you sure it’s hizzonner that’s a bigot? The bulk of his post was a quote of randgrithr’s comments.

randgrithr, I don’t think GT is putting more women in this story line than an 8:1 ratio to make it more accessible to non-military peeps. I think sometimes he has to stretch the odds as a matter convenience to the story. I mean, what are the odds of Alex stumbling upon Toggle? There is a certain point in reading fiction that you have to suspend your disbelief. In this case Mel needed a woman in a position of authority that made sense to could go to, so GT created one.

I’m sorry you seem to have an overall negative view of chaplains, and I never heard that Episcopalians were considered flakey, but then I didn’t spend much time with chaplains of any particular bent. I know none tried to proselytize me or condemn me. I had a Mormon chaplain conduct our marriage, and didn’t even know his denomination until I asked him to do the service. Not all were particularly “holier than thou” either. My favorite chaplain was the one we had in Haiti – he’d buy Cuban cigars from the Haitians and smuggle them back to the states in the mail, packed in mints “to throw off the dogs.” Imagine that! A spiritual leader who ignores the law to indulge his vices! I wonder if the cigars ended up tasting minty fresh.

Randgrithr is good people; this person is not a bigot. Fundamentalists of all stripes tend to be pretty intolerant, though.

Sky pilot stories abound, I see. I would hope any Christian chaplain would be very Jesus-y since he’s the guy we’re supposed to model. I hardly call your cigar smuggler “a spiritual leader” more a misleader, Chris, and there are enough of those. I understand they can’t even use Jesus’ name any more in their public prayers for the troops. Might consider that a part of why we’re losing now, along with being in the wrong country for a few years. Women counseling women is a very good idea, even if it happens far too little in the corps.

Lots of good posts… A chaplain is supposed to be able to minister to the needs of all servicemen. I met good and bad. One on board ship returning to the States really PO’d me. He condemned every man on board at a required assembly saying how we had all cheated on our wives and were condemned to Perdition unless we converted to his religion immediately. A friend I met after my return brought up the same subject and how he was outraged at the same thing. Different ship. I guess it was a canned speech.

I still think it was a bad idea for Mel to confide in Roz. Roz has already broken her promise once.

Freeholder, when I called the cigar smuggling chaplain a ‘spiritual leader,” I as being sarcastic. Actually, he was a fun guy to just hang out with, but he was certainly lacking in both the spiritual and leadership categories.

fbjsr, In the Army, a chaplain’s assistant is an actual MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) that a soldier is trained for, not a duty that someone in the unit just volunteers for. Of course he’s not clergy, but a layperson trained to assist the chaplain.

Of course, people like your son can also volunteer to help the chaplain (And you are justified to be proud of him for it!), but I would call him a “volunteer to assist the chaplain.” rather than a “chaplain’s assistant”, just to make te difference clear.

“I still think it was a bad idea for Mel to confide in Roz.”

she likely was in so much pain she had to tell someone. and Roz so troubled by the confidence she had to confide in the Chaplain.

this is “truth will make you free/only as sick as your secrets” territory imho.

I spent a lot of time with the Chaplain and his Assistant on my deployment. As a HHC commander I had considerable venting to do. We were at Arifjail so there were many other Chaplains serving the “flock”.

I would say Military Chaplains are a “flaky” bunch. It takes a certain kind of person to choose both service to a church and the military.

As for the ability for the Chaplain to say Jesus, if they are addressing a formation of troops or in a generic public setting you are right. The prayer should be non denominational. However if they are holding a Christian Service they are absolutely allowed to talk of Christ.

Rereading the conversation of the ‘toon today, I think the Chaplain believes Roz is the one with the problem??????

@ Justice22,

That is a possibility, many times someone with a problem will talk to someone else about it as if it were a ‘friend’ who actually had the problem.

But then there is the, “she’d be mad if she knew I was talking to you” part of Roz’s speech. So it is also possible that the chaplain realizes that this is a real person, but not Roz herself.

Susan, I don’t believe he was the culprit. I look for this to continue in the near future. (Monday)

you all might want to take note of the fact that it’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and that this may not just be about the military.

http://www.nsvrc.org/saam

Seabrook hasn’t attacked Mel at all. He’s being profiled as a potential attacker because he’s not going through the proper channels to assign Mel to his office.

As Mel confides in Roz, Roz confides in the Chaplain.

What worries me now is…How will the Chaplain deal with this?

It’s been established for days that Seabrook hadn’t attacked Mel, and yet “double naught” can’t acknowledge it.

Innocent men rotted in jail today, because of that type of pig headedness. The stigma of a false conviction is as/more enduring as Mel’s PTSD.

I think we’ve all confirmed that Seabrook was not the culprit and I think GT made it clear somewhere along the way. I can certainly agree that there is nothing worse than doing time for something that you did not do (especially the ones on death row) – it is also horrific to acuse every woman of making it up when she reports being raped. In this case I don’t think there is any doubt that Mel was raped (tho not by Seabrook) – so the false accusation bit should be put to rest.