Did you hear the one about a woman, a Rabbi and a Chaplain

Did you hear the one about a woman, a Rabbi and a Chaplain walking into a room full of soldiers,,,,and then she began to preach?

Female rabbi, chaplain with 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan, has no regrets
The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer
By Drew Brooks
Published: April 18, 2014

Capt. Heather Borshof, the battalion chaplain of the 330th Joint Movement Control Battalion, 1st Sustainment Command (Theater), speaks at a service at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, on March 14, 2014. JARRED WOODS/U.S. ARMY

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Army Capt. Heather Borshof expects the questions.

"What's that on your uniform?" passers-by ask the chaplain for the Fort Bragg-based 330th Movement Control Battalion. It's the Ten Commandments topped with a Star of David, the symbol for Jewish chaplains.

"Women can be rabbis?" they ask. Yes, they have served in that role for decades.

Borshof, who deployed with her battalion — part of the 82nd Sustainment Brigade — in November, said she is used to the queries.

A female chaplain is a rare sight in the military. A female Jewish chaplain? There is only one other in the active-duty Army, she said. And Borshof was the first in a generation. She follows in the footsteps of Chana Timoner, who served at Fort Bragg in 1993 and died in 1998 from complications with a virus.

This week, Borshof has hosted two Passover seders at Bagram Airfield, where she is the only rabbi to be stationed long-term. But she said her chief role is to counsel soldiers, no matter their religion.

"I travel for our soldiers," she said, referring to the battalion's 19 movement control teams spread across Afghanistan. "I actually don't travel for the religious community."
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101st Airborne Currahees receive 1st female chaplain

Currahees receive 1st female chaplain
4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division
Story by Sgt. Kimberly Menzies
September 4, 2012

U.S. Army Capt. Delana I. Small, chaplain with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, and a native of Springfield, Miss., greets and shares literature with a soldier as part of her religious support duties at Fort Campbell, Ky. Small was assigned as the 101st Airborne Division’s first female chaplain in a combat arms unit as part of the Department of Defense initiative, Women in the Service Review.

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky.- Those who have been and are part of the U.S. Army will be the first to tell you that the great history of the organization and the units within, is a strong part of the esprit de corps for all soldiers. Those who serve are proud of the footprint they leave as part of the newer history but there are only a small few who can sit generations from now, open a history book and point themselves out by name.

U.S. Army Capt. Delana I. Small, chaplain with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, and a native of Springfield, Miss., arrived June 28, 2012 and was assigned as the 101st Airborne Division’s first female chaplain in a combat arms unit as part of the Department of Defense initiative, Women in the Service Review.
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One Soldier’s Road to God

"I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.”

If you think that an average person cannot be just as important in sharing faith with others, you haven't read the Bible lately.

The truth is, few in the Bible had a formal education, most were common, only a few knew how to write but what they all had in common was a connection to God. Perfect faith? Hardly. Read the struggles they all went through and how they questioned their own faith. Read how they made mistake after mistake and were forgiven over and over again. Read how they started out with no faith at all but had a hunger to make it grow than an even stronger hunger to share what they had gained.

Christ took common fishermen and turned them into being leaders. A need to know she was not alone, Spc. Kelly Lee prayed out of desperation for a sign that she should not take her own life and it came with Psalm 34.

Photo by Sgt. David Bryant
The chaplain's assistant for the 36th Infantry deputy division chaplain, Spc. Kelly L. Lee, grew up in a household of drugs, alcoholism and crime. She was on the brink of suicide when an answered prayer turned her life around. Always an individual, Lee tells teh story of her life before and after being saved through body arwork, with a full "sleeve" on her left arm and plans to complete another "sleeve" on her right. The tattoos on her lower arm were completed by Clint Cummings of Sparrows Tattoo, Mansfield, Texas, and those on her upper arm by John Chancy of Fineline Tattoo in Mesquite, Texas.

A Life Worth Saving: One Soldier’s Road to God
36th Infantry Division Public Affairs Office
Story by Sgt. David Bryant

BASRAH, Iraq – It was a clear, sunny February day. A breeze was blowing through the open window of her apartment; the closet had finally been cleaned earlier in the week and the small study Bible her best friend had given her when she was 12 was laying on the nightstand.

That was when Spc. Kelly L. Lee sat down on the floor next to her bed, placed the razor against her wrist and said, “God, if you’re there, you better let me know because I’m going to come meet you.”

“I was at such a point of self-loathing; that’s why I got out the razor blade,” the 27-year-old Dallas native said. “I had my own place, a good job and a wonderful fiancé at the time. All the pieces of the puzzle were there, but something was missing. That missing piece was the life I didn’t have.”

And life had not always been great for Lee, she said. A self-proclaimed Army brat, the fiery redhead grew up in an unstable home filled with drug and alcohol abuse. Her parents were divorced by the time she was 12 and her mother had been in and out of jail since Lee was 9 years old.

As she sat with the blade against her wrist, a breeze blew the small Bible onto the floor and opened to Psalm 34. As she began to read, a verse leapt out at her: “I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.”

“I didn’t get saved the ‘traditional’ way by being preached to or talking to a minister or anything like that,” Lee said. “You can’t deny a face-to-face meeting with God like that, though. I cried out and he heard me.”

Like most youth, Lee had been searching for an “identity” before she was saved. It was during her search that she first began to express herself through body art by getting her astrological sign, Leo, tattooed on each of her hands.

“I loved being able to express who I am through body artwork,” she said. “When I came to know Christ and his love for me, that translated into the tattoos I have now.”

The artwork now covers her entire left arm in what is known as a “sleeve,” and Lee uses them as part of her “personal ministry.”

“When people ask what they mean, it gives me a chance to express myself and tell my story,” she said.

From the depths of despair, she looked to a razor blade for salvation and instead found a calling, Lee added. “It was all he said; to be prepared. About a year and a half later, he laid on my heart: ‘Army.’ I prayed about it for about eight months, asking, ‘Is this really what you want me to do?’”
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One Soldier’s Road to God

Psalm 34

Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.

1 I will extol the LORD at all times;

his praise will always be on my lips.

2 I will glory in the LORD;

let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

3 Glorify the LORD with me;

let us exalt his name together.

4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me;

he delivered me from all my fears.

5 Those who look to him are radiant;

their faces are never covered with shame.

6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;

he saved him out of all his troubles.

7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,

and he delivers them.

8 Taste and see that the LORD is good;

blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

9 Fear the LORD, you his holy people,

for those who fear him lack nothing.

10 The lions may grow weak and hungry,

but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

11 Come, my children, listen to me;

I will teach you the fear of the LORD.

12 Whoever of you loves life

and desires to see many good days,

13 keep your tongue from evil

and your lips from telling lies.

14 Turn from evil and do good;

seek peace and pursue it.

15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous,

and his ears are attentive to their cry;

16 but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil,

to blot out their name from the earth.

17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;

he delivers them from all their troubles.

18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted

and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

19 The righteous person may have many troubles,

but the LORD delivers him from them all;

20 he protects all his bones,

not one of them will be broken.

21 Evil will slay the wicked;

the foes of the righteous will be condemned.

22 The LORD will rescue his servants;

no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.

PTSD Not God's Judgment

Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 10, 2009

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Iraq Veteran on her way of becoming an Army Chaplain

Photos by RON BASELICE/DMN
Doretta Fortenberry and fiance Joshua Remy (above) hope to have joint careers as Army chaplains. Fortenberry earned her master of divinity degree from the Perkins School of Theology on Saturday

With SMU divinity degree, Iraq veteran on way to becoming Army chaplain

09:12 AM CDT on Sunday, May 16, 2010
By SHERRY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News
sjacobson@dallasnews.com
Most soldiers do not go into a war zone and find a new career.


But Doretta Fortenberry did.

She was a recent graduate of Texas Tech University and headed toward a teaching career when she surprised her family and friends by joining the Texas National Guard in 2003.

When her unit deployed the following year, Fortenberry landed at an Army base in southern Iraq, working as a clerk for the brigade commander.

That's when soldiers began reaching out to her for spiritual guidance, and Fortenberry recognized her calling to become an Army chaplain.

"I felt such peace and contentment doing it," she said. "You just know it's the right thing."

On Saturday, she took an important step toward that goal when she was awarded a master of divinity degree, magna cum laude, from the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University.

"It feels wonderful," said Fortenberry, 32, as she joined her parents and other family members after commencement ceremonies at Highland Park United Methodist Church.
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Iraq veteran on way to becoming Army chaplain

Army Guardsman Named 'Chaplain of the Year'

Army Guardsman Named 'Chaplain of the Year'
National Guard Bureau
Story by Sgt. Patrick McCollum
Date: 07.09.2009
Posted: 07.09.2009 06:46

ARLINGTON, Va. – Chaplains have a myriad of reasons for serving their country, but recognition is usually not one of them.

"Chaplains are often in the position where we love to serve so much, it's always a surprise to be rewarded for it," said Army Capt. Rebekah Montgomery, who will receive the "Chaplain of the Year" award from the Military Chaplains' Association July 17.

A Unitarian Universalist chaplain serving at both the Army National Guard Readiness Center, Arlington, Va., and Maryland's 58th Troop Command, Montgomery, she has been a student of religion since high school.

She found that religion fascinated her. "I was always drawn to how people negotiate their daily lives with the experience of the spiritual," said Montgomery, who grew up in Bethesda, Md. "I got so much stimulation out of understanding other faith traditions and I still do."

After an 18-month tour in Afghanistan, Montgomery found herself back in Maryland with two jobs. One weekend a month, she is the brigade chaplain in the 58th TC, a job that she says keeps her grounded in the "M-Day" unit mentality.

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Army Guardsman Named Chaplain of the Year

Four female ministers - an Episcopalian, a Unitarian Universalist, a Southern Baptist and an African Methodist Episcopal

Female Chaplains Serve God and Country


Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Sherri Wheeler, the deputy chaplain for the Air National Guard.
It sounds like the start of a joke.
Four female ministers - an Episcopalian, a Unitarian Universalist, a Southern Baptist and an African Methodist Episcopal – all join the military ….
But there’s no punch line here, just four strong-willed pioneers working in a career field with few others of the female persuasion.
During women’s history month this year, these new chaplains at the National Guard Bureau are using their varied religious backgrounds to cater to the needs of Guard members.
Air Force Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Sherri Wheeler, Air Force Chap. (Maj.) Sarah Shirley, Air Force Chap. (1st Lt.) Janice Tubman-Pettigrew, and Army Chap. (Capt.) Rebekah Montgomery all have different stories on how they pinned on the chaplain’s badge.
Shirley, an Episcopalian minister, joined the military when she was 40 years old, the culmination of a lifelong dream that started, ironically enough, with her reaction to her fellow Vietnam War protestors.
“I was ashamed of how some of the antiwar activists had treated military members and treated veterans. It’s clear [service members] don’t make defense policy, we just carry it out.”
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