Where do you go when the war comes home with you? For Chaplain Roger Benimoff, refuge from the war inside his mind could only be found through faith and trust in God.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a mental condition resulting from an individual experiencing extremely stressful or terrifying events. Symptoms can include flashbacks, anxiety, nightmares, and negative thoughts. Nearly 30% of American service members suffer from PTSD from the things they saw, experienced, or did during their service. When they return home from the field, PTSD makes it extremely difficult for them to leave those experiences behind them and transition into civilian life.
While chaplains do not actively fight like other service members, that does not mean that they are safe from the effects of PTSD. Many, like Chaplain Benimoff, develop secondary PTSD through the countless counseling sessions they conduct with service members suffering from PTSD. They may not have been there, but helping these people cope with the trauma leaves its mark on chaplains anyway. After serving two tours of duty in Iraq, Chaplain Benimoff came to work as a hospital chaplain at Walter Reed National Medical Center. He recalls, “What I needed, I realized, was a mission, more immersion in heart-pounding work, something to keep my mind totally focused. I could handle PTSD. I was handling PTSD, wasn’t I?”
Although he worked hard to help his fellow service members cope with their own PTSD, he could not find the way out on his own. It was only through a renewal of his faith and admitting to God that he needed help that Chaplain Benimoff was able to start the healing process. In his memoir, Faith Under Fire, he recalls, “Running away from God doesn’t work. I had tried.”
Today, on National PTSD Awareness Day, we thank our military chaplains for their perseverance in aiding those who are suffering, and we remember that they need someone to care for them as well.
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!["In the presence of death, religion gives hope and strength. The Christian soldier realizes that his power comes from the 'God of battles,' not from man." These words, penned by Father William Corby as he remembered his service during the Civil War, perfectly capture the importance of military chaplains on the battlefield.
As a young man, Corby studied at the University of Notre Dame, where he was ordained as a priest in the Catholic Church in 1860. The next year, he volunteered to join the Union Army as a chaplain with the 88th New York Infantry, a regiment in the Irish Brigade. In Memoirs of Chaplain Life, he writes that he was filled with “zeal for the salvation of those destined to fall in the pending stupendous contest between two powerful opposing armies.” Corby served with the New York 88th throughout the war, proudly asserting that the regiment never had to go without the support of a chaplain.
Though he was consistent in his ministry, Chaplain Corby’s most distinguishing moment came during the famed Battle of Gettysburg. As his battered unit prepared to go into combat, Corby proposed that he be allowed to perform a rite of general absolution. A Catholic ritual more commonly practiced in Europe, it was meant to absolve soldiers before battle, in the event that they were to die without the chance to give a final confession. His commanding officer approved, and Corby recalled that all soldiers, whether Catholic or Protestant, observed the moment with a sense of reverence. His actions are immortalized in "Absolution Under Fire," a painting by Paul Wood. Remembering that day later, Corby wrote, "That general absolution was intended for all [...] not only for our brigade, but for all, North or South, who were susceptible of it and who were about to appear before their Judge."
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