Air University Review, November-December 1969

Chaplain (Colonel) Ashley D. Jameson

For several years, the chaplain’s flight-line ministry has been stressed by commanders as that part of an Air Force chaplain’s work that contributes most to the morale and spiritual well-being of USAF personnel. In responding to the plea to get from behind their desks and out to where the action is, chaplains have found the key to a much better overall ministry. Airmen are much more likely to attend chapel if they know the chaplain, and the flight-line ministry affords a chaplain the opportunity to get acquainted with the airmen. The counseling opportunities of the chaplain increase in proportion to the time and effort he devotes to visiting with the people where they work. Anyone seeking advice or assistance with a problem feels much more at ease in asking assistance from a friend. An expressed concern for people and desire to befriend them results from an effective flight-line ministry.

Originally flight-line ministry was spending part of each day visiting with the men on the line. It meant mixing with the men who fly the planes, fix the planes, schedule the planes, and so on. It meant getting to know the people, giving them a chance to know their chaplain, and expressing a concern for the men and their mission. Now it has come to mean much more than that. It means a counseling session in a borrowed office, in a corner of a hangar, or at the snack bar. It means religious services, on Sunday or a weekday, in the training room, the alert room, a maintenance area, even on a bus. It means a word of encouragement, reassurance, or comfort according to the need, when and where the need is recognized. In short, it means practically all of the chaplain’s work being adjusted to the airman’s working area, but often it is only the beginning of a job that is later completed in the chaplain’s office. Yet it is a job that would not have begun if the chaplain had not first gone to the flight line.

The words "flight line" describe the ministry rather than designate its location. To the chaplain the flight-line ministry simply means visiting and serving the men where they work. "Flight line" was first used to identify this work primarily because the mission of any operational air base is accomplished on the line, where often men are working 24 hours a day. So, to the chaplain, the line is the heart of the base, and that is where he has to be. The needs of the men on the line are no different, however, from those of the airmen in the supply section, personnel section, or any other area of the base. The flight line has a definite priority in the chaplain’s work plan, but in reality the line includes every airman on the base. His concern is for the airman, and it does not matter whether he has an F-4, a typewriter, a wrench, or a computer card in hand.

The chaplain on the flight line is not trying to take the chapel to people who do not come to chapel. His effort is not to force a sermon on someone who is not attending the chapel services. The purpose is not to recruit a congregation. He is doing what the Air Force is paying him to do, being a pastor to Air Force people. The spiritual well-being of the people is the chaplain’s responsibility, and he cannot do much for them without spending a lot of time with them. He may go there to talk with a specific person, or persons, about a particular matter. Or he may just go visiting in the area, making himself available to the men, expressing a concern for them, trying to identify with them. The chaplain has learned from experience that his counseling opportunities are not so much dependent on how many problems the men have as upon how well he is known and trusted by the men. In order to know and be known by the men and to win their confidence, he is willing to engage in a lot of light chatter and drink many extra cups of coffee. The chatter and the coffee are not parts of his mission, but they are vital elements in accomplishing his mission. They open the door to many eyeball-to-eyeball preaching and counseling situations.

There are many different types of organizations on the flight lines of Southeast Asia. There are fighter squadrons, bomber squadrons, the Jolly Green Giants and other rescue groups, the psychological warfare units, the medevac organizations, Ranch Hand crews, forward air controllers, the cargo and passenger-hauling units, the reconnaissance pilots, maintenance people, refueling crews, armaments personnel, and others.

Each has its specific mission; it has its own lingo, its own spirit. As the flight-line chaplain moves from one organization to another, he is conscious of the differences in them. Each one thinks it is the greatest and that it has the most important job to do. The chaplain enters into the spirit of each group as if he felt the same way. Each one offers its own challenge to him, and if he meets it effectively, he is accepted as a member of the team. There are many opportunities for the chaplain’s services in all these groups-after he has won their friendship and confidence.

The chaplains who work with the casualty staging units in Vietnam are well aware of the uniqueness of their opportunities. Few ministers ever have the opportunity to mean so much to so many men as these chaplains do. They deal with men who are in pain, men who are frightened, worried, and confused. These wounded men have just engaged the enemy in battle. They have been air-evacuated, to be airlifted to a hospital in Cam Ranh Bay, Japan, the Philippines, Hawaii, or back home. Wherever there is a casualty staging unit, the chaplain meets the patients at the flight line, visits them in the casualty assistance area, and accompanies them to the flight when they leave. Reassurance is give them regarding their flight and the continued care they will receive. The pastor comfort them, jokes with them, or prays with them according to their desires. They express their desires in various ways, and the trained ear gets the message. No chaplain has a more difficult task than this one, nor more rewarding.

There are many very small flight lines Vietnam, some with only a dirt or metal landing strip and a helicopter pad. These forward locations are visited regularly by a chaplain from the nearest Air Force base. He hitchhikes air transportation out to see the men and gets back to his base the same way. He may spend 4 hours or 34 hours at the site, but while he is there he conducts religious services, counsels those who seek his help, and visits the men. The chaplain always receives a warm welcome at these locations, and he considers his visits more than worth the time and trouble of getting out there and back.

Regular visits to the security guards who man the perimeter guard posts constitute a vital part of the flight-line chaplain’s ministry. Most of these men work alone at their posts for long hours. Time passes slowly as they look out across the rice paddies, fields, villages, and forests. A few words by radio with the central control room now and then are the only communication they have with anyone. Of course, quiet and a lack of excitement are just what the guards want. But the days and nights are long in this work, and the chaplain’s visit provides a welcome break. The pastor-in-uniform gets by to chat with these men at all hours of the day and night.  He answers many questions and provides much counsel.  He also does a lot of listening because lonely men like to talk.

A unique feature of the flight-line ministry is conducting religious services away from the chapel for men whose duties make it impossible for them to attend regularly scheduled services. Such services take on a variety of forms and places. The chaplains at Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, use a base bus equipped with an altar and appropriate literature. Originally begun during Lent of 1968, the chapel-bus has been so enthusiastically received as to require continuation of this ministry on a daily basis. Catholic and Protestant chaplains alternate the devotional services, which reach approximately a hundred men daily at six different stops.

Chaplains find an excitement in working with the tactical flying organizations on the flight line that is found nowhere else. Men here risk their lives day after day in their regular job performance. They go after the enemy, his supplies and his transportation. Each of them wants to fly as many missions as he can while in Vietnam, but he is also aware that every mission he flies could be his last. He cannot think about it much, but neither can be completely forget it. When the flight-line chaplain visits him just before a mission, there are usually no words spoken about prayer and faith. But there is a presence that conveys the thoughts very effectively—an expressed concern as the airman leaves and a joyous greeting when he returns. When a plane returns home with severe battle damage, among those men anxiously waiting and praying for its safe landing is the pilot’s pastor, the chaplain. Sometimes, of course, a plane is so badly damaged the pilot cannot possibly bring it home and has to eject. Soon thereafter, two chaplains visit the commander and crewmen in two organizations. One is with members of the downed pilot’s organization; the other is visiting with the crew and members of the rescue organization that will attempt to get the downed airman safely home. These are tense and anxious minutes—often hours--for the men in both these groups. The chaplain is with them. He is a member of the team and a reminder of the eternal concern of God, who is "not willing that any should perish."

Contributor

Chaplain (Colonel) Ashley D. Jameson (B.D., Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University) is Command Chaplain, Pacific Air Forces. After completion of the Chaplain School at Harvard University, 1943, he served as Bomb Group Chaplain, MacDill AFB, Florida. In 1946 he reverted to inactive status and was pastor of several civilian churches in Texas before being recalled in 1952. Subsequent assignments have been with Hq Tactical Air Command, Hq USAF, Hq Twelfth Air Force, and Hq PACAF. Chaplain Jameson served the Ice Islands in the Arctic, 1958-60. He has been an active private pilot since 1942.

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