MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
War is morally complicated. That is part of why, back when George Washington began to lead the Continental Army back in 1775, he advocated for chaplains during wartime. Military chaplains provide spiritual, religious or moral guidance to service members or, as George Washington put it, a chaplain is there to support good morals and morale.
Well, this summer marks 250 years of the Army Chaplain Corps, and to mark the anniversary, we have called Doug Carver. He was chief of chaplains for the Army. He is now executive director of chaplaincy for the North American Mission Board. That's an agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. Chaplain Carver, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
DOUG CARVER: Mary Louise, thank you so very much. I'm honored to be here today.
KELLY: You ended up serving as an Army chaplain for more than 30 years. Give me a sense of how the job - the demands of the job differ from that of a priest or pastor in a civilian church.
CARVER: Yeah. They are a pastor, priest, rabbi, imam in uniform. You actually literally live, train, eat, sleep among your people, deploy in times of peace or war, training. So technically, you're - you have access to your people 24 hours a day.
KELLY: I'm also thinking about how many religions frown on violence. You know, in Christianity, which is how I was raised, we're taught turn the other cheek.
CARVER: Yeah.
KELLY: You are dealing with a world of war fighters. How did you go about reconciling that?
CARVER: Well, my reconciliation, I guess, would be, you know, defining the difference between an intent to murder someone versus the violent act of killing in war where you are perhaps trying to prevent violence from spreading.
I can tell you very quickly, you remind me of a story in Baghdad at our little chapel. I had a young man, and one day after the service, he came up to me, and he said, I sit here in chapel every Sunday. And then when I go - after the benediction, I go and look for bad guys, and I kill them. Does God forgive me? In the context of a sovereign God, and whom we all will answer to someday, God does use those who are peacemakers or peacekeepers, which sometimes will require some violent acts. And I'll never forget the smile on his face. He just needed to know that what he was doing was in the context of one way in which God disciplines folks who are not interested in the dignity of human beings or the rules in which we live our lives.
KELLY: And then what about for you, Chaplain Carver? I mentioned you did this job for 30 years. Those - that would be decades that included everything the United States did after 9/11...
CARVER: Yes.
KELLY: ...Decades that included Abu Ghraib...
CARVER: Yes.
KELLY: ...And prisoners being sent to Guantanamo Bay.
CARVER: Yes.
KELLY: How have you seen your role in moments where I'm wondering whether your faith felt at odds with military policy or practice?
CARVER: You know, George Washington's concept in 1775 while he was gathering the troops, there was two things he kept to emphasize 250 years ago. One was our need to trust in God, and secondly, to be - for our chaplains to be moral compasses and to be moral agents.
Yeah, I've been to both of those facilities - GITMO and also to Abu Ghraib. We had chaplains and - there at the time. And I've always told our commanders, your chaplains are so valuable, especially in the area of the moral and ethical context. They have the capacity to help you see things that you may not see in the context of all of your command responsibilities.
KELLY: May I just push you on this, though?
CARVER: Sure.
KELLY: We're describing places and events in this country's relatively recent history for which our political leaders have since said we made some bad decisions. As a spiritual leader in the Army, how do you look back on it now?
CARVER: I just continued to pray that God would give them great wisdom, knowledge, discernment as they made decisions. And the ones that perhaps that they made that they either felt they made a mistake or that the azimuth needed to correct, I prayed that God would use those as lessons learned. That's how I dealt with it.
KELLY: You are speaking to us from South Carolina. Would you share where exactly you are and why? What's happening tomorrow?
CARVER: Tomorrow, the Army Chaplain Corps will celebrate its 250th anniversary, which was July 29.
KELLY: Well, happy anniversary.
CARVER: Thank you, Mary Louise. It's an honor just to be a small part of this legacy. Those who founded this wonderful nation saw the importance of faith, trusting God and also maintaining the moral high ground at the very beginning of this great nation.
KELLY: Doug Carver, longtime Army chaplain, now executive director of chaplaincy at the North American Mission Board. Chaplain Carver, thank you.
CARVER: Thank you, Mary Louise. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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