Doing ministry "incognito"

The Mobile Oil Pegasus

Yesterday I was out running a few errands and the young man waiting on me at the auto parts store began to talk with me.  He told me he had just gotten out of the Army and had been all over the world including three tours to Iraq.  As he installed the new windshield wipers on my car, he stated that he knew the real reason for the war and us being over there....oil.  It's really all about oil.

Indeed.  When I was deployed to SW Asia a few years ago, many of the young people I served with held a similar sentiment.  His comments triggered a memory that was twenty three or so years old, "It ain't noble to die for Mobile".

Becoming an officer,  commissioning ceremony, July 1990

Twenty three or so years ago I was a brand new officer just two or three weeks out of Officer Candidate School (OCS), when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990.   Operation Desert Shield began and a few months later, Desert Storm.

Many of my friends in the Army and Air National Guard were activated fall of 1990 and soon thereafter deployed overseas.  Back then I was working full time for the Army National Guard, and I remember seeing military vehicles go from being green in color to being painted beige, and then they were shipped overseas.

A colonel I worked with told me to get my personal affairs in order and "be ready", my unit was next on the list to be activated and deployed.  I confess, I was terrified.  I was still pretty new to the military, a brand new "butter bar", and now the reality of going to war was no longer just something I read about in a textbook. 

I remember watching TV when the U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 1991.  It was surreal, as it looked like a video game with all the tracers lighting up the night sky of Baghdad.  But very real it was.  As it turned out, the ground war lasted 100 hours and we (my unit) were spared from being activated.  Within 4 to 6 months, many of my friends began coming home from Iraq, Arabia and Kuwait.

One of my friends who served over there told me the battle cry was "It ain't noble to die for Mobil".   

But back to the present.  It has now been twenty two / three years since Desert Shield / Storm.  Many bases we established back in 1990 in Arabia, Iraq, etc. are still there today.    The base I deployed to in 2009, to "an undisclosed location in SW Asia", was established in 1990!

Everyday, unbeknownst to most people here in America, large contracted jetliners called "rotators" fly back and forth from the other side of the world, bringing our people over there, and back here, home.  Everyday. 

And a young man who now works in an auto parts store, fresh out of the Army, like many others, (many, many others!) are home now from their military "adventures".  I did not tell the young man I too have served and deployed.  Or that I am a chaplain, or an officer.   Or that I have been in for twenty three + years.   I did not say anything.  I just listened.

If I had told him any of those things, he most likely would have clammed up.  

He talked, and I listened.

Yes, sometimes you can do more ministry by just being "incognito".