CHAPLAINS CORPS VICTIMIZES SOLDIERS LEAVING THEM VULNERABLE TO PTSD AND SUICIDE

You can skip to the article or click the post title for the link to it if you want because there is a huge rant from me right here right now. Excuse me!

I am a Chaplain. Not the type of Chaplain that pushes faith as has been sold. Aside from the fact I am a Greek Orthodox person by faith and Chaplain to all of God's Children, no matter what faith they have or even if they have no faith at all, I work for free. I'm flat broke and wish that I had a lot more donations, pray for the day when the grant I'm waiting for finally comes in, but aside from that, I do 16 hour days, seven days a week for free. Everything I do is for free and can be passed on freely. Why? Because I've been in the shoes of others and I remember all too well how it feels to believe you are alone or that you are facing the hardest times of your life and no one cares.

Christians have taken a bad rap because of some zealots out there who no more resemble Christ or practice what He preached than Sarah Palin resembles Senator Clinton. So here are some other facts on Chaplains.

I belong to one of the finest groups of Chaplains there is. The International Fellowship of Chaplains has people all over the country taking care of trauma victims, people in prison, police officers, firefighters, bikers, hospice patients, hospital patients, the elderly and anyone else in need. They work with veterans, like me, but while I do it on line or making appearances to provide education, they do it face to face everyday and no one ever hears of the kind of work they do unless they happened to have been in need themselves. These are dedicated people trying to live their lives much like Christ said we should treat all God's Children, with compassion, mercy and the way we ourselves would want to be treated. We are secular people just trying to meet people where they are in their time of need and do no "selling of religion" and no, we don't try to get them to pony up money for any kind of collection plate because we have no place to "live" in to do the work we do. The entire nation is where we work. If we see someone in need, we don't ask them if they are a certain denomination of Christian or if they are Christian at all. We only care about what they need us to do for them.

While there are some Chaplains out there pushing their faith instead of doing what they are supposed to be doing, most of us do not. I have a huge problem when they cannot live up to what they are supposed to be doing. It goes on in the military and it goes on in the VA. It goes on all over the place but you cannot lump all Chaplains under the same blanket. So that is in defense of those among us who honor what we agreed to do, take care of people and it's as simple as that. There is no evangelizing going on from the good Chaplains but there is a whole lot of God's love being spread around to remind people they are not alone and there are still people in this country who want nothing more than to help them in their times of need. Some of us are called to work with different people because that is what we have been "called" to do but believe me, most of us do not cross the line or we would not be doing what a Chaplain is supposed to be doing.



Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

NO ROOM ON PLANET 3 FOR RELIGIOUS NUTS AND BIGOTS

CHAPLAINS CORPS VICTIMIZES SOLDIERS LEAVING THEM VULNERABLE TO PTSD AND SUICIDE

By Gordon Duff

Earlier this year, I met with Christian and Islamic leaders in Iraq. Prettymuch everyone in Iraq is persecuted. Christians are on the bottom, then Sunni's followed by Shiites. They suggest an interesting solution. It is better to keep your personal beliefs to yourself rather than see your house burn down around you. Not everyone there sees things that way, but every intelligent and progressive Iraqi does, every patriot, everyone that loves that country the way so many Americans claim they love this one.

Too many blindly ignorant and genuinely asinine people miss the glaring point that folks who "talk" religion, especially when that talk includes pointing fingers or asking for money, are, at heart, not good people. With millions, perhaps billions, believing that bad people who talk about "faith" must be good and good people who don't are "bad", it isn't hard to see how trillions of dollars can disappear or the world can be dotted with unending wars.

"Believers" voted in the least Christian and least decent, least righteous government America has ever had. We have had more sex scandals, more corruption, more lying, more torture than any time since the Middle Ages, when Christianity ran everything. Oops.

The vast majority of people I live around and work with publicly espouse they are Christians but admit they only say that so people will leave them alone. I have a few, "I go to church in case it turns out there actually is a G-d," one "I believe in Christ but think religion is idiocy," and a couple real bible thumping church goers as friends.

The real point is, who do you trust more, someone who doesn't kill and steal because he is afriad of G-d punishing him or someone who does good because it is good? Since, for many many Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims and others, their version of god seems to only tell them to kill, steal, rape, pillage and vote funny, religion has become to anyone with eyes to see, the least reliable indicator on who you can afford to have watch your kids or take care of your money.