Military Chaplains Find Help in Silver Spring

Helping the helper: Institute aids military chaplains suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder
Christianity Today
Andre Mitchell
June 7, 2016

"I thought I had a handle on suffering. I thought I had a handle on understanding the sovereignty of God. I didn't know crap," Williams shared in a report by The Washington Post.

Members of the U.S. Army Chaplains Corps take a moment of silence to pray for their fellow brothers in arms in harm's way.

For soldiers coming home from conflict areas, the military chaplain is the person who is there to listen to all their troubles and help them cope with the trauma they are experiencing.

But after absorbing the woes of soldiers, ministering to them, and seeing the battlefield scene themselves, some of these chaplains also suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and need assistance themselves.

The St. Luke's Institute, a Roman Catholic Center based in Silver Spring in Maryland, has made it part of its mission to help these military chaplains.

One such chaplain is Pastor Matthew Williams, who has already been deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Williams said he initially thought that he could take in everything he saw in the battlefield—from corpses in body bags to his "friends' faces all blown apart"—until he realised he could not take it anymore.
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