Article May 31, 2010 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

with contributions from Sharon Roznik, Chika Oduah

ARE GOVERNMENT RULES against proselytizing preventing military chaplains from praying in accordance with their faiths? Or are chaplains violating the Constitution, viewing troops as "low-hanging fruit," ripe for conversion? A new documentary, Chaplains Under Fire, goes behind the contradictory headlines to the heart of what chaplains do and the church-state tensions they face.

Filmmakers Lee Lawrence and Terry Nickelson spent three months with military units in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We selected stories illustrating the stresses that troops experience," Mr. Nickelson says, "from the boredom of routine duties to the rush of night patrols, and the guilt-laced grief over losing a buddy in combat or to suicide."

They also follow chaplains as they minister to wounded troops from battlefield medevacs to hospitals in theater, Germany, and the US; they visit families, including chaplains' families, to record the strains they cope with during their spouses' deployment. "And don't forget the toll chaplains' work takes on the chaplains themselves," Ms. Lawrence says.

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