Mitch Lewis

For those that are interested in the Army in Europe, the just released Quadrennial Defense Review says:

Working with allies and partners, the United States will therefore ensure a European defense posture network that advances U.S. interests and communicates its commitment to the security of NATO allies. Pending the review of NATO’s Strategic Concept and an accompanying U.S. assessment of our European defense posture network, the United States will retain four brigade combat teams and an Army Corps headquarters forward-stationed on the continent.  (2010 QDR, page 65)

That's pretty significant to those of us stationed here. I guess the key word, however, comes at the beginning of the sentence I've highlighted: "pending". Nothing's final until it's final.

The headquarters of V Corps is currently stationed in Europe. Brigade combat teams currently stationed in Europe include the 170th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, the 172nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team and the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment.

Related from Stars and Stripes.

U.S. military forces stationed overseas watch American TV shows on the Armed Forces Network. AFN isn’t quite like regular American TV. We don’t see most shows at the same time folks do in the US; we sometimes see a season of a show a year after it airs in the states. We also don’t have American networks like NBC or CBS; we have a sports channel, a news channel and a couple of general entertainment channels. Still, it beats the state of affairs during my first overseas tour in 1994; back then, there was only one channel of AFN content.

There are no reruns on AFN, so if you don’t catch a show the first time, you’re out of luck.

And there are no commercials, which is not as great as you think. We get “command messages” instead. Remember to eat a good breakfast. Make sure you keep your will in a fireproof box. A general-power-of-attorney grants broad powers; a special-power-of-attorney is usually the better choice. Feeling down? See your chaplain or behavioral health provider.

Anyway, I recently installed a Hauppage 1850 video tuner card in my 64-bit Windows 7 system so that I could record shows when I’m away. The card itself and its recording capabilities seem to work reasonably well, both under Windows Media Center and Hauppage’s Win7 TV application. Caveats: 1) my monitor’s high resolution reveals the limitations of standard analog NTSC signals and 2) the recordings are huge. I’ve got a good bit of spare hard drive space, so recording size isn’t a big issue. I don’t want to build a library; I just want to be able to watch the shows I miss when I’m traveling or busy in the evening.

I was also hoping to use Media Center’s channel guide to help me automate the process of recording the shows I want to see. Unfortunately, the Armed Forces Network and and overseas military cable providers create some obstacles to using the channel guide under Windows Media Center. It took quite a bit of experimentation to get the channel guide to correspond to the actual cable channels used on my system.

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The United States Southern Command is controlling military assistance to Haiti in the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake it suffered last week. News of U.S. military assistance to Haiti can be found at http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2010/0110_haiti/.

USSOUTHCOM is located in Miami, Florida and is one of the Department of Defense's ten unified Combatant Commands (COCOMs). It has responsibility for all military operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean.  As a joint command, SOUTHCOM commands and controls all the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard personnel assigned to it for operations in Haiti.

Many non-governmental agencies are also assisting with Haiti relief. Those related to InterAction are listed at http://www.interaction.org/crisis-list/earthquake-haiti.

It was once said that only President Nixon could go to China. Perhaps only President Obama could accept the Nobel Peace Prize by defending the just use of force.

Text of the president's speech at the presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize

Among the President's remarks:

For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower.

But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions -- not just treaties and declarations -- that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another -- that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier's courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.

So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions."

The president had more to say, of course. Read the whole speech for yourself.

In a recent United Methodist News Service article, Kathy Gilbert wrote:

As the world moves into Advent and Christmas, there is vigorous debate over whether President Obama’s decision to deploy more U.S. troops to Afghanistan will lead to greater peace on Earth. Even as they disagree on military strategy, however, the one area faithful United Methodists have no trouble reaching consensus on is that Obama, and the soldiers and their families, need prayers and support.

The article identifies retired United Methodist bishop Marshall Meadors as an opponent of the surge and United Methodist pastor Walter Fenton as a supporter.

Meadors was the author a letter opposing the surge circulated at a November meeting of the Council of Bishops . Seventy-seven bishops signed the letter. Fenton, on the other hand, is an officer with the Good News caucus, a conservative advocacy group for United Methodists.

Since the president has decided to send over 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, I hope Meadors is wrong. I take some comfort in the fact in that in 2007 the bishops adopted a similarly clichéd resolution just as the surge in Iraq was succeeding. The text of that resolution is here.

On the others side of the issue, Mr. Fenton said:

We recognize that faithful United Methodists and reasonable people can disagree on various military strategies, but in light of the drastic reduction in the number of military and civilian deaths after the surge in Iraq, we support President Obama's decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to defend the defenseless.

The entire Good News statement is here.

Fenton is right about one thing. Reasonable people certainly can and do disagree. My intent here, however, is not to debate either Fenton or Meadors. My point is that it their opinions on this issue are not terribly significant. I might agree with one more than the other, but I could really live without either statement.

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There are not enough military chapels or chaplains to provide separate, distinctive worship opportunities for every member of every Protestant denomination in existence. By one count, there are over 8000 Protestant denominations.

In general, most military installations offer a number of non-denominational Christian services - sometimes called General Protestant or Collective Protestant - in a variety of worship styles.  By non-denominational, I don't mean "independent non-denominational," which itself describes one particular stream within Christianity. Ecumenical or multi-denominational might be a better way of describing them. Baptists, Pentecostals, independents and so-called "Mainline" Christians worship side-by-side. Individual Protestant congregations usually get tagged with labels like "traditional," "gospel," "contemporary," "multicultural"  or "liturgical." The distinctions are more stylistic than strictly theological, although there is some correlation between the participants' theology and the services they choose to attend. Some smaller installations might only be able to offer one or two styles of Protestant services; larger installations can offer more choices. Larger installations may also have a Lutheran congregation (mabye LCMS, maybe ELCA), an Episcopalian congregation and a lay-led LDS group. In general, all the other non-Catholic and non-Orthodox Christians attend one of the "Protestant" congregations (if, that is, they attend worship on post).

Anyway, that's all background for sharing with you the mission statement of one Protestant congregation that I served as senior pastor:

The mission of the Soldier Memorial Chapel Protestant Congregation is to be the church of Jesus Christ. Our congregation serves as the temporary spiritual home for a wide variety of Christians brought together in this place by military service. We welcome the diverse gifts that our constituents bring to our congregation from their various Christian traditions.

We proclaim the good news of Christ crucified and risen for the salvation of the world. We expect to experience the grace and power of God in our common life. We challenge each other to live lives of deeply committed discipleship. We humbly covenant together to hear God’s word in Holy Scripture. We seek to grow in faith - and in Christian love for each other and for the community in which we live.