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Military chaplains: An Army captain keeps tough soldiers in touch with their softer side
The divide between home front and front line is bridged by a chaplain's good ear and ever-present video camera.
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But, in deployment, she only gets one side of every story. "So I'm only going to deal with that one side. 'What can you do? What changes can you make? Let's not focus on your spouse. Let's focus on you,' " she tells soldiers.
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In the mess hall, in bunkers during a rocket attack, hanging out by the pool table, soldiers gripe about extended tours, and some deride decisions made in Washington. But it isn't despondency over the war or its prosecution that propels them to knock on a chaplain's door at 2 in the morning. It's the Dear John letter. It's news of infidelity. It's a wiped-out bank account because a girlfriend went on a spending spree to cheer herself up – "mall therapy" with the serviceman's checkbook.
The military has recognized this and, says Dennis Orthner, a professor at the University of North Carolina who researches military families, the Army in particular has "ramped up family support services, largely led by chaplains." Divorce among Army personnel – with the exception of female enlisted soldiers – has dropped since 2004, and he believes it's due in part to the Army's investment in families and "an enlightened chaplain corps."
The crucial area for couples, in his view, is communication. "Couple communication is what drives the relationship quality," says Professor Orthner.
This is where Oprah and military meet. A RAND Corporation report this year said the effect of marriage on performance and retention of service members "may have significant implications for national security." The key isn't whether service members are married, but whether their marriages are healthy.
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A self-diagnosed introvert, Fischer doesn't readily confide in people, and when she jokes with her paratroopers, there's an underlying calm – some chaplains approach soldiers with a slap on the back; Fischer greets them with a wave and a smile.
Fischer, who has never shed the childhood nickname of Pinkie, left her native Brooklyn, N.Y., to study architectural engineering in Oklahoma, where she fell in love with the idea of missionary work. So she switched to the Rhema Bible Training Center and prepared to leave for the Philippines as a missionary.
"But I just didn't have peace in my heart about making that move," she says. So she waited. She prayed. "And that's when the Lord put it in my heart to be a chaplain in the military."
Not exactly sure what that was, she researched it. At peace with what she learned, she enlisted in the National Guard and set about meeting the chaplaincy's requirements – a bachelor's degree followed by seminary, which she completed at Oral Roberts University. In 2005, she was deployed in Iraq. In early 2007, she once again packed up with her paratroopers, this time for Afghanistan.
She is part of a chaplaincy whose focus has expanded and evolved over its 232-year history. Concerned with the high rates of venereal disease among troops in World War II, chaplains zeroed in on personal morals. In Vietnam, they initiated drug counseling. And since 1974, when the country shifted to an all-volunteer military, chaplains took on family counseling.
