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165 chapter six Reflection and Reconciliation Though chaplain David Knight went to Vietnam with romantic visions of war, wishing for a “baptism by fire,” he returned with a more sober view of it: “I saw the horror, the brutality, and the sinfulness of a nation raped by [war]. I witnessed war as the ultimate breakdown of human morality.” Nevertheless, Knight concluded that his wartime experiences allowed him to return “home with a greater understanding of the Lord than ever before. . . . I discovered that, regardless of man’s sin and rebellion, we are not at the mercy of an impersonal God. We are not subject to chance or fate. Regardless of circumstances, despite the tragedy, He is very much in control.”1 Far from subordinating his religious identity to his military one or even compartmentalizing the two, Knight’s reflection on the war fundamentally linked his religious beliefs with his military experience. Knight’s interpretation of the war embodied both his religious self and his military self. He defined the war in hybrid terms because he worked and lived in the middle of a multitude of cultures and institutions with widely varied expectations. This in-the-middle position was significant not only during the war but after as well. Other chaplains also chose to cast their wartime experiences in a religious light. When chaplains reflected upon their experiences as chaplains and as servicemen in Vietnam, in memoirs, published diaries or letters, on websites, or in interviews, they did so in a way that brought the religious and moral conflicts of the war to the forefront. In the midst of chaos and combat, chaplains generally turned to pragmatic solutions to conflict and used their ambiguous identities to mediate between diverse groups of people. As we saw in Chapters 3 and 4, especially, chaplains only infrequently wrestled with complex theologies in the midst of war, instead optingforcasuisticanalysis ,minglingmilitaryandreligiousmeaning.Afterthe war, however, they became more reflective, and their published accounts of Vietnam can be read as acts of public reconciliation to explain their roles, identities, theologies, and behaviors in Vietnam. In their first-person accounts, chaplains provided—perhaps unconsciously—their audiences 166 | Reflection and Reconciliation with a counternarrative of redemption and fulfillment to the dominant narrative of despair and defeat that emerged from much first-person postwar writing about the Vietnam War. The pacifist critique of military chaplains dismisses these accounts as evidence of rationalization and cognitive dissonance—chaplains justifying otherwise inexplicable and inexcusable participation in war, but this analysis is simply dismissive and does not take chaplains’ postwar reflections seriously, either as first-person accounts or as contributions to the vast memoirist literature of the Vietnam War. Their accounts are thus ignored by scholars of both the military and religion. But if we acknowledge the presence of bias and the tendency toward positive self-representation in these accounts, and look for broader patterns as well as unique contributions , we find a more compelling and complex narrative. Again, it is one that is deeply informed by chaplains’ position in the middle of military, civilian, sacred, and secular communities. This small group of accounts actually offers an important and substantial revision to the traditional Vietnam first-person narrative. Analysis of these postwar writings helps explain how and why chaplains’ wartime positions and actions sometimes seemed so disconnected from their faith traditions. The process of reflection and reconciliation outlined here clarifies how chaplains dealt, after the fact, with the conflicting demands of their military duty, religious calling , and personal moral codes. The sort of theological interpretation, conflict resolution, and identity formation that began in Vietnam continued when chaplains returned home, as they began to make sense of the war and to share their experiences with others. While chaplains’ responses to the war varied widely, some patterns emerged. Overwhelmingly, chaplains spiritualized combat and their participation in it, often adhering to the conventions of religious autobiographical writing but generally deviating from patterns more common to the combat memoir or trauma writing.2 Furthermore, rather than revealing deep-seated role conflict leading to the militarization of the chaplaincy, chaplains’ memoirs suggest that chaplains, at least in retrospect , may have actually privileged their religious identities over their military identities. As they returned home, chaplains, as did other returning veterans, addressed new audiences and new questions, and writing gave them a way to reconcile conflicts that emerged from their experiences in Vietnam. When they told their stories publicly, chaplains related their experiences and interpreted combat using religious language, images, and ideas...

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