Army Chaplain Finds Faith Again After War

An Army Chaplain, First Tested By War, Finds His Faith Renewed
NPR
John Burnett
JANUARY 06, 2015

As an Army chaplain in Iraq, David Peters administered last rites and grieved with survivors. When he came home, he says, he "fell apart emotionally and spiritually." Courtesy of Robert K. Chambers

David Peters' life was supposed to be one continuous arc of piety and service.

But for the U.S. Army chaplain, it's ended up a more circuitous route. Peters lost the very faith he was supposed to embody for his soldiers — but has also found his way back.

Peters grew up in a fundamentalist evangelical church in Pennsylvania, served as youth minister and then went to war in Baghdad as a chaplain in the U.S. Army in 2005.

At the age of 30, he was serving as a chaplain for the 62nd Engineer Combat Battalion, a unit that built guard towers and repaired roads. "So they were operating all around Baghdad, at night, in the streets, in the neighborhoods — and it really exposed [them] to an incredible amount of danger," he says.

Peters' duties included administering last rites, grieving with survivors and listening to soldiers lament their broken marriages back home.

After 12 months in a combat zone, it was time for Peters to go home. But when he arrived back in Texas, Peters realized that he had changed.

"I found that going to war was really pretty easy and it was kind of exciting, and there was a lot of energy around it," he says. "But when I came home, I really fell apart emotionally and spiritually."

He had symptoms of PTSD, and his own marriage had shattered while he was away at war.
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