Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. For more information, visit faith.yale.edu.
Thomas Solhjem: He was a special forces medic. He was shot five times. He had fragmentation wounds from a grenade. He went back out time after time after time to recover wounded people, putting himself at risk, and when I asked him, what was it that made you do what you did? And the driver was love and whether or not I ever came home again, love compelled me to do what needed to be done. And I think that translates well in civil society. I think even in their constraints, there's a compelling love. And I think love is the power that sustains us in difficult times like this.
Evan Rosa: This is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. The men and women of the armed forces volunteered to put their lives in danger. And these brave people have been on our minds this week, especially those heroes who didn't make it back home. The meaning and value of their sacrifice has been called into question: Who wins? Who loses? Who dies? For what cause? For what purpose? These questions have been front and center all this year. But far from being suckers or losers, and I quote, "no one has greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."
This time of global pandemic feels like war time. The human species is at war with this virus. And weary as we are at this point, we all are still called to sacrificial love and courage and perseverance and strength and wisdom to make this work. Reflecting on this made us think we ought to ask someone in the military about whatever transferable wisdom we might apply from arms conflict to our war with COVID-19. So we invited the US Army Chief of Chaplains: Major General Thomas Solhjem. He's the spiritual advisor to a truly enormous community. He leads over 6,000 army chaplains who serve 1.5 million soldiers and civilians, not to mention their families, which total almost 5 million. A little known fact about chaplains is that they enter combat zones with their squads. In Chief Solhjem's case, he spent almost six years of his life in combat zones, directly supporting the men and women of the army with spiritual care as they're deployed. So thank you for listening to this episode today and a special thank you to all the members of the armed forces. Thank you for your service. Here's Matt Crossman in conversation with Chief Chaplain: Tom Solhjem.
Matthew Croasmun: So, numerous heads of state from around the world have described the crisis posed by COVID-19 as a war against the virus. You have experienced war. In what ways do you think this comparison is apt? In what ways might it be misleading? Are we at war right now?
Thomas Solhjem: We define war as some type of threat, right? And often it's a physical threat. It's a human threat. This is not, but it is a threat and it's a life-taking threat. So in that sense, we are at war with something we can't see, unlike in combat or at war with someone who we can see. Recognizing that in the battle space, there could be things like artificial intelligence and other things that you're dealing with, but primarily it's a human against human. So, I think when we look at this, yeah, we're at war. We're at war with something that we can't see, and it causes a different reaction from us because we feel that we are less in control. When you do a military operation, you've gone into planning and you're reasonably confident that you're going to be successful in the end state, in the outcome. But this pandemic really challenges all of us, I think, to realize that we're not in control.
Matthew Croasmun: Yeah. That reminds me of the sociologist, Frank Ferretti, who has suggested that as moderns, when we're faced with danger, we tend to respond by trying to remove the source of danger, rather than as maybe many of our pre-modern forebearers did, cultivating courage in the face of dangers over which we have no control. But as you say, like in this moment, in this pandemic, we're suddenly confronted with precisely a danger that we can't control, and we need to activate courage that maybe many of us haven't cultivated. I wonder how do we cultivate the sort of courage that we need to weather dangers that we can't control.
I think on a couple of different levels. I would say, first of all, as a person of faith, if people are spiritually engaged and spiritually connected and spiritually aware, that's a strength. So, that foundation is really critical, and then if it's realized in some kind of religious belief or practice, and then even more cultivated in community. So I think the combination of those things really form a foundation of strength for all of us and they're available to all of us. Those things are resident in us. The spiritual dimension is resident in us. And those other things are what we cultivate.
Thomas Solhjem: In the military, we prepare for these things through arduous training. We also volunteer, right? So, we sign up for this and we're willing to go do these things. But in civil society today, we haven't signed up. We didn't volunteer for this. Nobody asked for this pandemic. This is an unscientific proposition, if you will-- there's a fragility in our culture. And, and we see it primarily, maybe in our younger population where they haven't had the difficulties that maybe the older generation has had to experience that's given them a different appreciation for things.
So there is a very profound truth to the question that you're asking, and that fragility exists in our civil society. And this maybe a gift in the making that this pandemic. If there's a positive that can come out of a bad situation, it's that this can cultivate a deeper sense of strength within each and every one of us, depending on how we respond.
Matthew Croasmun: When you encounter a soldier who needs suddenly to cultivate courage that they didn't have, what do you tell them? What advice do you give them? How does soldiers become whatever the opposite of fragile is? How do they grow in courage?
Thomas Solhjem: So as a chaplain, I can validate that through how I act and behave right as a human being and treat other people. But I get a way into the life of the soldier by virtue of who I am cultivated by, daily relationship, sharing their hardships. If you look at my uniform, you'll see some badges and things there that say, "Hey, he did some things that soldiers do." So it's a common bond, sharing hardship together, sharing difficulty together. And I think it's that connection that's so important at a time like this.
When we use the term "social distancing," I know that the Center for Disease Control came out with that wonderful term, but I think it's given us a misunderstanding of what we're supposed to do. And I think when you use the phrase "physical distancing," I can still remain 6 to 10 feet apart from you, but we're talking to each other. We're connected. And so I'd template what's under normal circumstances a lot easier to do, even in these times, we can still do those things. So I like the term physical distancing and social connection--social and spiritual connection--are very powerful at a time like this.
And as the Chief of Chaplains, my number one priority in like kind is people. The army is a culture of people made up of a very diverse group of individuals from all walks of life, all races, all creeds, all religions, that do the business of defending our nation both at home and abroad. So I like to say as a chief of chaplains, we invest in people. We connect them in spirit and we cultivate them in community. That is our sacred mission and calling. And we help the army by enabling them to do their mission, by ensuring that they're whole in body, mind, and spirit.
Matthew Croasmun: In this moment of separation though, we've talked about two things so far, I suppose. We've talked about the fear or the orientation towards the reality of danger that we can't control, and then this act of isolation. My mother recently shared with me that her greatest worry in the midst of the pandemic is that because of social distancing, where something to happen to her or to my father or to one of us, she would already have seen us for the last time. And I know that that's a possibility that military families face regularly during deployment, not just the difficulty of separation, which is difficult enough, but the difficulty of a separation without a guarantee of a reunion. What have you learned over the years? How have you counseled soldiers?
Thomas Solhjem: You have to prepare yourself for it. I think that's the beginning, right? If I could, I'll go back to a story. Vice Admiral Stockdale was in the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War. He was a POW for eight years, one of the longest POWs. And he was a person of faith and he was a person who was very hopeful. But every time a prisoner was beaten, he was beaten because he was the leader. So he endured that hardship and he endured isolation for separation. They had to use Morse Code. They had to use signals when they would be allowed to go outside. They couldn't come near each other. So they had to find ways to communicate, to stay connected. And so he tells there's two kinds of people that he observed when he was asked years later what was it that got him through? And he says, "well, I'm going to answer that this way. There's two kinds of people in the Hanoi Hilton. There's the blind optimist, right? The person that comes in and says, 'yeah, we're going to be home by Christmas!' They're not dealing with reality. They didn't integrate. They didn't realize the importance of the other people. They isolated themselves and thought, 'yeah, I can make it through this. We're going to be home soon.' And then there was the realistic optimist who had hope and faith and confidence that they were going to make it through this. And if they didn't, it wasn't because they weren't understanding the 'why' behind it. So they accepted the reality that that could be a possibility. And then they began living. It freed them to live."
And I think that story that he tells is so powerful that accepting our reality--what you said about your mother, I share that. My mother-in-law is 93, almost 94 years old. We're deeply concerned about her and my mother is in her eighties. It's kind like a grief cycle, right? You ultimately want to get to the point of acceptance. So the sooner that we accept that that could in fact be a reality, then we prepare ourselves for it. And that's what we help our soldiers to do. We help the soldiers and their families to prepare for the reality that they may not come home. And when we accept those things and then we can begin to live and move forward.
Matthew Croasmun: That's very helpful. How do you do that? How do you help prepare soldiers and families to come to that place of acceptance, to be able to deal with reality, but not get crushed by it?
I think one is we're going to go through that same reality with them. So not only am I talking to you as your chaplain, and then I'm going to say goodbye to you, I'm going to go with you. So the chaplains are embedded in their units and they go where their soldiers go and they go into harm's way with them. So there's that level. But I think how we actually prepare them, some of it is through programs that we do. We do family programs. We do single soldier programs. We have a program called "Strong Bonds." That's part of our training is the preparation relationally for the hardships of separation, for the realities that a loved one could lose their life, or they could be wounded or maimed. And their world could change. And so, those kinds of things, those realities have to be faced. And then how are we preparing ourselves for the separation, thinking through how will the spouse of the soldier--what's their life going to be like? Are they connected to other people? Do they have a support network? Do their children have a support network? How are we going to stay connected with our soldier when they're deployed? So you help them to get to, if you will, a rhythm to life, even in deployed times so that you can maintain that connection to the degree possible, that the soldier can experience what's happening at home.
Matthew Croasmun: That's great. Let's stay here. That's a really powerful image that says, "I'm not just sending you, I'm going with you. We're going together." And as you said, there's this--maybe one benefit of switching to the analogy of our present situation in the pandemic, we've all gone with one another. Now we're physically isolated, but we're also going through this together. I just wonder if you could speak more to that sort of the power that going together that the chaplains do with their soldiers.
Thomas Solhjem: You're part of a team. So at the lowest level, we call it in the military--there's a moniker we use: "This is my squad." In other words, these are the people that I'm closest to. Those are your people, and if I could use religious terminology, that's your flock. And it doesn't matter if they're people of faith or not, or if they're Muslim, Jew, Christian, they're your people. As a chaplain though, you're entrusted to care for their soul. And that is a sacred responsibility and duty. And so I think as we're incarnationally present with them wherever they are, and they look and they see the chaplains sharing the hardships with them, whether it's going out on patrolling or whatever it is that might be, or going from place to place, whatever they're doing in combat zone, they see their chaplain. They know that the chaplain projects a sense of confidence that, "Hey, if the chaplain can do this, I think I can do this." I think they draw strengths from your presence, but they draw strength from each other.
And the army is built on a foundation of leadership. And it's a wonderful thing to see as leaders take responsibility for their soldiers and they care for them. And the leaders know when something isn't right in their soldiers, whether they're at home, station or they're deployed. And when they talk to the chaplain, it's confidential. It stays between us, right? So they are the proprietor of the information. That's the beauty of it. And they feel a sense of trust and safety in talking to the chaplain.
Matthew Croasmun: I wonder if you might just share with us if you'd be willing to a story or two of what are some of your favorite or most inspiring moments of seeing--we use the word heroism or of courage. It's that every time you share one, I'm hanging on every word. So I'd just love to hear more if you have them.
Thomas Solhjem: I've seen a heroic acts too numerous. I've seen soldiers go into burning vehicles and pull people out at risk of their own life, say it was an improvised, explosive device. I've seen people take a round for a fellow comrade. I was privileged to serve with someone who is now a Medal of Honor-of-honor recipient, Leroy Petry, whose heroic actions saved the lives of several of his fellow rangers. So it's really hard to just hone in singularly on one person. I just think that when you face, when you go outside the wire, if you will so to speak, to use that vernacular, and you know that you're putting yourself and others at risk, and the willingness to do that in and of itself is a heroic act, and soldiers do those things naturally. It's part of their training. And when the circumstances are untenable, they step up and they deliver. And it just makes you so proud to be in their number and to serve with such heroic men and women.
As far as an event that really stands out in my mind clearly, one of our non-commissioned officers-- this was in a rescue. So we were we were at,, our element had gone in, I was separated from the element. The element had gone into essentially recover and rescue a group of people who were basically being overrun. Realized that in order to take out an enemy position, he needed to put himself-- and not putting his own men at risk, put himself in the line of fire, drawing the attention away from those who were being suppressed by that fire, and making himself for all practical purposes a human target. They were able to successfully accomplish their mission and get those wounded and those people out, and he was seriously wounded. He did recover from his wounds, but that's just embedded in my mind when I saw in an instant, that training kicked in and he knew what he had to do. And he knew that he was the person that had to do it, and he wasn't going to put his own people at risk. And in an instant, in this snap second, came up with a plan, executed that plan without fear of his own life.
When I hear Medal of Honor recipients tell their story, one comes in clearly in my mind, and it was a medic. And he was a special forces medic. And I was privileged to be at his Medal of Honor ceremony and to do the invocation, the prayer--both at the White House and the Pentagon. And when I asked him, what was it that made you do what you did? Hardened soldiers, maybe, won't say this, but they know it's true. He didn't skip a beat. He said, "I love them. Love is what catapulted me to go under enemy fire time and time again, to recover the wounded." He was shot five times. He had fragmentation wounds from a grenade. He went back out time after time, after time to recover wounded people, putting himself at risk. And the driver was love and whether or not I ever came home again, love compelled me to do what needed to be done.
Here's a Medal of Honor recipient, the highest award for heroism in our nation, and he boiled it all down to one four-letter word called "love" because he said, "I knew if it was me, they would come from me." And I think there's that bond with soldiers. And I think that translates well in civil society. I think even in their constraints, there's a compelling love. And I think love is the power that sustains us in difficult times like this. Love for our family, even though we're separated, even though we're restrained or constrained, love is a powerful thing. And I think using that example or that story, I think, really drives it home.
Matthew Croasmun: Yeah,I agree, thank you for sharing that with us. And it makes me think about our situation. We've talked about some of the challenges that we share, or some of the analogies that we could draw with the soldiers that you've served alongside with in terms of facing high levels of uncertainty, long periods of isolation, threats to one's life. That's part of our experience. And yet also at the same time, I think another analogy we can look at that your story speaks to is we also have, I think, pervasive opportunities to act for the sake of collective wellbeing of the group, to engage in sacrificial acts of love. So it strikes me that one of the things right now is that the people that we're proximate to aren't necessarily our family or our loved ones-- maybe our immediate families. But here's a moment when all of a sudden the person I may be have the best chance to love is my literal neighbor, which sometimes in a city like where I live, that's someone whose last name you don't know. I wonder if you have any sort of advice for us, like in a moment like this, to help us take those steps to--what does sacrifice look like right now? What does love look like?
Thomas Solhjem: That is a loaded question Dr. Croasmun and I'm going to give it my best shot. Okay? I think the pandemic just shows us that we're not in control. I talked to these two Sergeant Majors, a couple of the senior most in our army about, and the other Sergeant major said to me, "you know what, chaplain? I realized I'm not in control and being resigned to that and recognizing that my life is in God's hands, then helps me to see the focus of the light of the people around me differently, that these are people that God is now entrusted in my care, and it changes my focus." And I see now these, what I call, divine appointments, and they're all around us and they're divine opportunities as well as an appointment. And I'm finding that I am being blessed by the forcing function of the desire to want to stay connected with other people and the hunger to do so, to have opportunities to speak to so many people across the army, so we can be consumed with worry or we can make a willful decision to have realistic optimism and begin to move forward with our lives and then care for those around us. Great opportunities. Great question.
Matthew Croasmun: Realistic optimism, I think that's something I think many of us are looking for.
Thomas Solhjem: Can I ask you a question?
Matthew Croasmun: Sure.
Thomas Solhjem: Let's turn this a little bit. Let the interviewee be interviewed. So, where do you draw your strength from personally? What gives you meaning and purpose in life?
Matthew Croasmun: Well, I teach this question at the university. I teach a course called "Life worth living." And, my students will often ask me because I make them write whole essays about their answers to this question, and they feel that's a bit unfair. So they also want to make the interviewer the interviewee. My faith is absolutely central to who I am. And, I tell my students that within the first five minutes of class--I tell them like, "look, we're going to have a very open conversation where I hope all sorts of different answers to this question of what makes life worth living. Where does meaning and purpose come from? I hope we have broad range of answers on the table to that question." But I also tell them that at the same time, "look, I can't pretend to be your neutral tour guide, and I'm going to try to facilitate a sort of open exchange here, but I can't pretend to be your neutral tour guide." I usually tell them, "look, I'm a Christian. Even worse than that, I'm a pastor pretending to neutrality. But yeah, at the end of the day, my sense is that God is real and active and at work in the world for the good of the whole world--not just for my good, but for the good of the world that God so loves. SometimesI almost blush when I lay that out because it's just so straightforward--the thought that alongside all the other powers that operate in the world, there is a God. Even more so, there's this person, Jesus, who's at work in the world, working to bring about this place of home and of connection between God and God's creation.
Thomas Solhjem: Yeah. We're whole beings. Thank you for sharing that. And, so I think when that is defined in your life, that's really a critical center of gravity, if you will, that if you live in ill-defined life, then you're going to be drawn; you're going to be pulled and you're not going to be centered, no matter what comes at you. And so we're whole beings, right? So, body, mind, emotions--it's the eternal aspect of who and what we are. I just think it really boils down to the simplicity that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and that whoever believes in him shall have everlasting life.
And so there's a hope and a promise. I have to understand what my life's purpose is, and who I'm serving. And when that is defined for you, then you can really face most anything. And so I think a message for people right now is it's maybe causing people in a good way to understand that their life's not properly centered and their moorings are maybe being tested and what really grounds them. And I think that is a good thing. It can be a good thing.
So I don't wish suffering on anyone. I certainly don't. Our calling is to minister healing, health and wholeness to people, so we don't certainly wish ill, but I do know in my personal life that suffering produces endurance and perseverance in us that without it, going back to your original question,the not being prepared, right? The fragility that exists in our world today, maybe generationally, if you will, is a large part because we've sheltered a generation of people from hardship. We've made everybody a winner, right? And we haven't allowed them to experience life because the reality of life is it's got disappointments. The reality of life is that it has hardships. And we do a disservice when we don't prepare people and equipped people with that reality. It's that realistic optimism. Hey, life's going to come at you. Life happens, right? And get the most from it, but be prepared for whatever it might bring your way.
Matthew Croasmun: That's fantastic. Chaplain Solhjem, thank you so much for this conversation today, for sharing your wisdom and your insights with us. And thank you, of course, for your service.
Thomas Solhjem: I know we're all focused on the immediate, but I think we have to be thinking, each of us, if you will, strategically. What about what happens after this? What's life look like as we return to what we would call normal? It may not be the same ever again. So what I'd leave you with and those that are listening to our conversation today: this is going to end and we should be praying for each other. We should be trusting and believing God for each other for His protecting hand in our lives. And we should be loving each other. But at the end of the day, this pandemic will end. And then what I would offer is what we've been able to gain through the struggle can make us better, stronger--that post-traumatic growth--vice tearing us down, making us better.
And so that is an option. That is a choice for every one of us. Will we allow our experiences, will we allow God to work in our lives? Will we allow our relationships with those who are most important to us, even though we might experience some distancing, at the end of the day to be better and for us to be stronger?
Matthew Croasmun: May we all experienced and find exactly that on the other side of this. Again, chaplain, thank you so much for this conversation, for joining us today.
Thomas Solhjem: Thank you. And I hope that this was helpful in some way.
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured Matt Croasmun and Army Chief of Chaplains: Major General Thomas Solhjem. Special thanks to the Army Chaplains Office for making this interview possible. I'm Evan Rosa and I edited and produced the show. For more information, visit us online at faith.yale.edu. New episodes drop every Saturday and you can subscribe through any podcast app. Thanks for listening. Thank you for your support. If you've been listening for a while and you're enjoying the show, we'd be grateful if you'd tell a friend. Specifically, you could text them a link to this show or any of your other recent favorites, because ultimately we hope this podcast will support truth-seeking conversations in your own life. So click that share button in your podcast app, make a connection with a friend. We'll be back next week with more.
