The tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, are 21 years in our past. The consequences of that infamous day continue to bring suffering and pain. Today we remember those who perished and seek to live in such a way that the lives lost bring good amid ongoing division and mistrust.
Much has happened in and to our nation since our observance of this historic day last year. We pulled out of Afghanistan, endured the pandemic, remained divided by competing ideologies vying for ascendance in our political system, grieved the lives of countless innocents whose lives were taken in mass shootings and entered a time of financial instability that threatens many of the poorest among us.
When Operation Iraqi Freedom kicked off in 2003, I was an Army chaplain assigned to a battalion in the 3rd Infantry Division. We spent the first four days of the war in a convoy heading toward Baghdad.
The Rev. Amy Hunt is a minister of the Word and sacrament who serves in the United States Air Force as a chaplain. She began her service to the men and women of our nation as the world was confronted by a new era of war and suffering which continues to this day. The following is her recounting of how the events of 9/11 solidified God’s call in her life:
Should you visit the village of Belleau, France, today you will find in their cemetery one grave graced by an American flag. Ernest Stricker is buried among the villagers. Each year the staff of the local military cemetery ensure that his grave is decorated. Stricker is the last American soldier to die in the battle of Belleau Wood.
It was an honor like no other for Army Brig. Gen. Kenneth “Ed” Brandt. For the past 30 years, Brandt, an ordained PC(USA) pastor, has been serving as a military chaplain, providing enlisted men and women with a sacred space to make sense of out of a sometimes-senseless world.
The battle had begun just over a month before, on Feb. 19, 1945. In the intervening 29 days, combat had raged 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In one particularly bloody battle, the Meat Grinder, 850 Marines had lost their lives. On March 21, the time had come to commemorate the more than 6,800 who had given their lives on the American side. Nearly 20,000 Japanese draftees had defended the rough rock island of Iwo Jima. Most of them had perished.
When the Rev. Terilyn Lawson was installed on Sunday, October 23, as associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Great Falls, Montana—and concurrently as the first resident in the Chaplain Candidate Residency Program newly launched by the Presbyterian Council for Chaplains and Military Personnel (PCCMP)—she had to marvel at what God had done.
