Work Samples
U.S. Military's Elite Hacker Crew
The U.S. military has assembled the world's most formidable hacker posse: a super-secret, multimillion-dollar weapons program that may be ready to launch bloodless cyberwar against enemy networks -- from electric grids to telephone nets.
The group's existence was revealed during a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month. Military leaders from U.S. Strategic Command, or Stratcom, disclosed the existence of a unit called the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare, or JFCCNW.
In simple terms and sans any military jargon, the unit could best be described as the world's most formidable hacker posse. Ever.
The JFCCNW is charged with defending all Department of Defense networks. The unit is also responsible for the highly classified, evolving mission of Computer Network Attack, or as some military personnel refer to it, CNA.
But aside from that, little else is known. One expert on cyber warfare said considering the unit is a "joint command," it is most likely made up of personnel from the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI, the four military branches, a smattering of civilians and even military representatives from allied nations.
"They are a difficult nut to crack," said Dan Verton, a former U.S. Marine intelligence officer. "They're very reluctant to talk about operations." Verton is author of the book Black Ice, which investigates the threats cyber terrorism and vandalism could have on military and financial networks.
Verton said the Defense Department talks often about the millions it spends on defending its networks, which were targeted last year nearly 75,000 times with intrusion attempts. But the department has never admitted to launching a cyber attack -- frying a network or sabotaging radar -- against an enemy, he said.
Verton said the unit's capabilities are highly classified, but he believes they can destroy networks and penetrate enemy computers to steal or manipulate data. He said they may also be able to set loose a worm to take down command-and-control systems so the enemy is unable to communicate and direct ground forces, or fire surface-to-air missiles, for example.
Some of the U.S. military's most significant unified commands, such as Stratcom, are undergoing a considerable reorganization. Stratcom, based at the massive Offutt Air Force base in eastern Nebraska and responsible for much of the nation's nuclear arsenal, has been ordered by the Defense Department to take over the JFCCNW.
To better understand the secret program, several questions about the unit were submitted to Stratcom.
Capt. Damien Pickart, a Stratcom spokesman, issued a short statement in response: "The DOD is capable of mounting offensive CNA. For security and classification reasons, we cannot discuss any specifics. However, given the increasing dependence on computer networks, any offensive or defensive computer capability is highly desirable."
Nevertheless, Verton says military personnel have told him numerous "black programs" involving CNA capabilities are ongoing, while new polices and rules of engagement are now on the books.
The ground was prepared in the summer of 2002, when President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 16, which ordered the government to prepare national-level guidance on U.S. policies for launching cyber attacks against enemies.
"I've got to tell you we spend more time on the computer network attack business than we do on computer network defense because so many people at very high levels are interested," said former CNA commander, Air Force Maj. Gen. John Bradley, during a speech at a 2002 Association of Old Crows conference. The group is the leading think tank on information and electronic warfare.
Last summer, the internet-posted execution of American civilian Nicholas Berg sparked a debate about the offensive capabilities of the CNA program, said retired U.S. Army Col. Lawrence Dietz.
The Berg execution, a gruesome example of Netpolitiking (.pdf), sparked a back-room debate at the highest levels, involving the State Department, the Department of Justice and the Defense Department, said Dietz.
The debate focused on whether the United States should shut down a website as soon as it posts such brutality.
"There are some tremendous questions being raised about this," said Dietz. "On whether they (JFCCNW) have the legal mandate or the authority to shut these sites down with a defacement or a denial-of-service attack."
Dietz knows a thing or two about information warfare. He led NATO's "I-War" against Serbia in the mid-1990s -- a conflict that many believe was the occasion for the U.S. military to launch its first wave of cyber attacks against an enemy. One story widely reported, but never confirmed, described how a team of military ops was dropped into Serbia, and after cutting a wire leading to a major radar hub, planted a device that emitted phantom targets on Serb radar.
Rita Katz, an expert on Islamic terror sites and director of the Washington, D.C.-based Search for International Terrorist Entities, believes a website that posts an execution should be taken out immediately. No matter what the implications are for free speech or other nation's laws, she said.
"There is no good, no value in those sites to exist anymore," said Katz. However, Katz promotes the theory that some terror sites, especially those whose servers are in the United States, should remain up and running for intelligence purposes.
Dietz believes it could only be a matter of time before a U.S. soldier faces a similar fate as Berg. Yet along with raising questions about free speech, he realizes shutting down a website has its limitations.
After discovering that al-ansar.net's servers, which hosted video of Berg's execution, were within its borders, the Malaysian government shut the site down. But it took the Malaysian government more than a day to act. By then, the Berg video was well on its way to becoming a global recruiting tool for terror groups. And even if a website were to be knocked offline, eventually such highly-charged political statements would find a way onto the internet, Dietz said.
Verton said the Berg debate is actually an extension of a cyber warfare debate started several years ago.
"The reality is, once you press that Enter button, you can't control it," he said. "If the government were to release a virus to take down an enemies' network, their radar, their electrical grid, you have no control what the virus might do after that."
Inside Africa's PlayStation War
In the rugged volcanic mountains of the Congo the conflict known as Africa's World War continues to smolder after ten grueling years. The conflict earned its name because at the height of the war eight African nations and over 25 militias were in the combatant mix. But more recently the conflict was given another name: The PlayStation War. The name came about because of a black metallic ore called coltan. Extensive evidence shows that during the war hundreds of millions of dollars worth of coltan was stolen from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The UN and several NGOs claim some of the most active thieves were the Rwandan military, several militias supported by the Rwandan government, and also a number of western-based mining companies, metal brokers, and metal processors that had allegedly partnered with these Rwandan factions.
After it is refined, coltan becomes a bluish-gray powder called tantalum, which is defined as a transition metal. For the most part, tantalum has one significant use: to satisfy the West's insatiable appetite for personal technology. Tantalum is used to make cell phones, laptops and other electronics made, for example, by SONY, a multi-billion dollar multinational based in Japan that manufactures the iconic PlayStation, a video game console. And while allegations of plundering coltan from a nation in desperate need of revenue seem bad enough, the UN also discovered that Rwandan troops and rebels were using prisoners-of-war and children to mine for the "black gold."
"Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms," said British politician Oona King, who was a Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2005.
Most of the fighting from Africa's World War ended in 2003 following a peace accord. But reports of troop tension, instability and rampant sexual violence against women continue to emerge from where the war was at its most intense: the eastern portion of the DRC, near the city of Goma and in the DRC province of North Kivu. This is a region where millions of Congolese live among active volcanoes and endangered Mountain Gorillas.
But even if many have put down their guns, a London-based non-government office called Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) continues to fight its own battle against scores of Western-based mining companies that continued to work in the DRC, or purchase minerals and metals allegedly stolen from the DRC, as the war raged on. These companies, such as Eagle Wings Resources International of Ohio, Cabot Corporation of Boston, Mass., and Chemie Pharmacie Holland of the Netherlands, were charged with having stolen millions of dollars worth of resources out of the DRC, or made millions processing stolen resources from the DRC, namely coltan.
When the war started in 1998, the UN and others believed that one area of the conflict was the product of tribal and ethnic rivalries. The Rwandan government, for instance, told the world they invaded the DRC, their neighbor to the West, to go after those who committed atrocities during the 1994 genocide that killed over 800,000 people.
Yet, according to the UN, the Rwandans were shedding blood for something far cheaper; they were shooting it out for the mines that pockmarked the volcanic mountains of DRC's eastern regions. These mines contained deposits of cobalt, uranium, gold and, of course, coltan.
A UN Panel of Experts investigation would expose the resource war in 2001, releasing several reports entitled "The Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the DRC". The reports made disturbing charges against scores of multinational mining companies, like Eagle Wings Resources International and Chemie Pharmacie Holland. The UN alleged the mining companies directly and indirectly fueled the war, paralyzing the DRC government, and using the conflict to keep the coltan flowing cheaply out of the Congo. Some companies were also accused by the UN of aligning with elements of the warring parties.
Fast forward to 2008, and RAID, which is funded by the Queen Elizabeth House, remains determined to convince several of the world's most powerful governments to investigate the UN's allegations. Stealing natural resources amidst the chaos of a war violates guidelines set-forth by the Organization for Economic Co-operation, which administers these ethical standards endorsed by over 30 nations, says RAID. The International Criminal Court has also started its own investigation, and RAID is calling on all named governments to cooperate with the court.
But there's one major problem: nearly all of the governments, including the US State Department, have essentially brushed RAID off. They're refusing to initiate an investigation despite the assurance, for example, of Richard S. Williamson, who was US Ambassador to the UN at the time. He told the UN Security Council "the United States government will look into the allegations against these companies and take appropriate measures [and] not turn a blind eye to these activities."
Not long after the report from the UN Panel of Experts went public, the UN exonerated all US companies. RAID says diplomatic pressure from the US and other governments made the UN cave. "The US government was one of the most determined to quash the UN Panel's reports but this is also true of Canada, the UK and Belgium," says Tricia Feeney, executive director of RAID. "All (US companies) were exonerated. The UN Panel said the cases had been resolved."
Feeney says just because the UN laid down, doesn't mean the companies are innocent. "Essentially the UN was forced to drop the case but as they explained (in their reports), 'resolved' didn't mean that the initial allegations were unsubstantiated," she says. "The (US) companies have tried to hide behind the technicality of 'resolved' but the UN itself made clear that this classification didn't mean that the companies had not behaved in the way described in the UN reports."
The UN said it stands by the report, but added it is up to the governments to make their own investigation and prosecute if need be. RAID says the UN has cowered because if Western-based mining companies are prosecuted out of Africa, China may step in. It is widely known the West grows more concerned by the day as China continues to sign more and more resource concessions with African nations, such as Sudan and Nigeria.
In interviews over the phone, several of the named companies insisted they were not involved with any wrongdoing in the Congo. The CEO of Eagle Wings Resources International, for instance, who did not offer his name for publication, swore "on the Bible" he was unaware his company may have been acting unethical.
Both a mining company and coltan broker, Eagle Wings was one of a handful of US companies accused of using child labor in one of their mines in eastern DRC. Eagle Wings was also an alleged business partners with an "elite network" of Rwandan military officers, politicos and businessmen. Accusations of child labor have bankrupted Eagle Wings, said the CEO. After finding out his company had been charged by the UN, his customers abandoned him.
But even if the mining companies take the brunt of the blame from RAID and the UN, some experts say there's a whole other dynamic when it comes to blame for the "The PlayStation War".
When the war began in 1998, the race for every adult in the West to have a cell phone was well past the starting line. A computer in every household was also becoming a reality. And by the end of 2000, millions of Americans were still waiting for a PlayStation 2, a second-generation video game console, which SONY says was having manufacturing issues.
To fulfill the personal-tech desires of hundreds of millions of consumers, SONY and other manufacturers needed electric capacitors. These capacitors were made with tantalum, which is able to withstand extreme heat. So as multiple technological revolutions occurred in unison at the end of the 1990s, the worldwide demand for tantalum began to boil.
Like today's demand for oil, this fever puts tremendous stress on tantalum's supply chain. From the beginning of 1999 to the beginning of 2001, the world price of tantalum went from US $49.00 a pound to $275.00 a pound. At the same time, the demand and price of coltan also began skyrocketing; coltan is needed to make tantalum.
By 1999, the Rwandan army and several closely linked militias had swarmed over the hills of eastern DRC and took many coltan mines by force, said the UN. The Rwandan army that year would eventually make at least $250 million by selling DRC coltan with the help of mining companies and metal brokers. The estimates of the war's dead range from hundreds of thousands to several million. A couple million Congolese are believed to have been displaced.
American-based Kemet, the world's largest maker of tantalum capacitors would eventually swear off coltan from the Congo because of human rights violations, making suppliers certify origins.
"But it may be a case of too little, too late," stated the UN Panel of Experts. "Much of the coltan illegally stolen from Congo is already in laptops, cell phones and electronics all over the world."
David Barouski, a researcher and journalist from Wisconsin, says it is certain that the coltan from this conflict is also in SONY video game consoles across the world. "SONY's PlayStation 2 launch (spring of 2000) was a big part of the huge increase in demand for coltan that began in early 1999," said Barouski, who has witnessed the chaos of eastern DRC firsthand.
"SONY and other companies like it, have the benefit of plausible deniability," he said, "because the coltan ore trades hands so many times from when it is mined to when SONY gets a processed product, that a company often has no idea where the original coltan ore came from, and frankly don't care to know." He adds, "But statistical analysis shows it to be nearly inconceivable that SONY made all its PlayStations without using Congolese coltan."
SONY still uses tantalum in some of its parts, Satoshi Fukuoka, a spokesperson SONY from Japan, said in an e-mail. He said they are satisfied with responses from suppliers the tantalum they use is not "illegally mined Congo coltan".
This also goes for past purchases of tantalum parts as well, he said, but he did not specify how far back they began demanding parts without Congo coltan. Fukuoka said the PlayStation 2, PSP and PlayStation 3, "are manufactured mostly from independent parts and components that manufacturers procured externally."
"The material suppliers source their original material from multiple mines in various countries. It is therefore hard for us to know what the supply chain mix is," he said. "I am happy to state to you that to the best of our knowledge, (SONY) is not using the material about which you have expressed concern."
Like the war in the Congo itself, the price of coltan has since cooled and is being priced at levels pre-1999, as the demand for the "black gold" declines. Nevertheless, experts such as Barouski say another Congo resource will take its place as the next "hot commodity", and the emergence of another African resource war will not be far behind.
Originally from Buffalo, NY, John Lasker is a freelance journalist who resides in central Ohio.
Links related to this story:
RAID's website: http://www.raid-uk.org/
RAID's report titled, "Unanswered Questions: Companies, conflict and The Democratic Republic of Congo": http://www.raid-uk.org/docs/UN_Panel_DRC/Unanswered_Questions_Full.pdf
The Report of the United Nations Panel of Expert on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo: http://www.un.org/News/dh/latest/drcongo.htm
Produced by the Pulitzer Center, "Congo's Bloody Coltan" is a quick glimpse at coltan's role in Congo's civil war: http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=177
'Blood Minerals' in the Kivu Provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a report by David Barouski: http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/2007/2106.html
Top photo from http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=529
In the service: Priests in the military
The U.S. armed forces are looking for a few good men-priests-to serve Catholics in uniform. But some question whether Father should rank among military officers.
For much of the previous year, Father Joe Porpiglia had a grueling routine-and he wasn't even running his parish in Buffalo. He was in Afghanistan as a U.S. chaplain, racing across a rugged and war-torn landscape in massive helicopters and transport planes. He served Mass and the sacraments to thousands of soldiers, but also offered counsel and comfort to anyone who sought him out.
What makes Porpiglia's tour stand out is that he was one of only 10 Catholic chaplains in Afghanistan during the last 18 months.
That hardly meets the needs of the huge population of Catholics serving in the U.S. military. According to CatholicMil.org, a website for chaplains and military personnel, out of 1.2 million active-duty soldiers, 375,000 are Catholic. And don't forget to add their 800,000 dependents. Yet just 300 priests are currently ministering to them. During World War II there were 3,200 Catholic chaplains, accounting for 1 out of every 10 U.S. priests at the time.
Today's numbers have triggered the Pentagon to aggressively recruit Catholic priests to serve as chaplains. The campaign includes advertising in Catholic publications, including U.S. Catholic.
High-level officers speak with bishops and visit seminaries with the message that the U.S. Army alone needs 400 priests. In 2007 the Air Force invited thousands of priests to spend several days at Peterson and Schriever Air Force Bases in Colorado and fly in military aircraft. Six priests ended up joining the Air Force Reserve, and 11 became active duty.
Still, serving as a chaplain is a grueling job, taken on by men and women often much older than their physically fit soldiers. Nobody denies the need for military chaplains, but both chaplains themselves and other Catholics debate how they can serve God and the army at the same time.
Capt. Father Gregory Caiazzo is a recruitment officer and spokesperson for the U.S. Navy's Chief of Chaplains Office, which oversees all chaplains for the Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard. He says some Catholic priests have been deployed multiple times. "It is really inspiring to see the [priests] that do it over and over again," he says.
One of those priests is Porpiglia. The lieutenant commander has been a reservist with the Coast Guard for 17 years and recently returned home from his second tour, which was extended several weeks. Six years ago he took part in the beginning of the Iraq War.
His most challenging missions involved moving from one forward operating base (FOB) to another so he could celebrate Mass and hear Confessions. Some of these FOBs are small outposts where there's no running water or kitchen; others are huge complexes complete with gyms and a Pizza Hut.
"I don't like focusing on me," he wrote recently from an air-hub while waiting for a plane back to his home base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. "I like to focus on what our men and women are doing and the great job they are doing."
Nevertheless, Porpiglia, who is physically unassuming, quips, "Did I tell you the flak jacket with plates weighs 70 pounds?"
Faith at the front
Father Marian Gardocki has also donned the flak jacket in 120 degrees of stifling Afghan heat-weapons free, as all chaplains do. In May of last year he went out on a patrol searching for Taliban. It is not something he likes to do, but it's not easy turning down your fellow soldiers who ask, "Padre, come with us on patrol, because we will be safe then."
Gardocki is pushing 60, yet he's still in the Navy reserve, trains with Marines on weekends in Baltimore, and works during the week as a counselor at the VA medical center in Buffalo.
Looking back on two tours, the last in 2008 in Afghanistan, Gardocki is most satisfied that he had become to the troops a shield of sorts from the demons of a war zone, a source of energy, and a confidant.
"Most of the soldiers are so very young," he says. "When they come to me, they tell me they miss home. They tell me they are scared to die. They are just 18, 19 years old. And it is their first deployment. Their first experience away from home."
Deeply philosophical answers to a soldier's questions of death aren't suited for the battlefield, says Gardocki.
"I tell them, you have to open your eyes. Listen to your staff sergeant and follow orders. Take the orders seriously and you will be safe. Follow orders and don't ignore anything."
Perhaps his most vivid experience with the troops occurred in May 2008, in a sparse and isolated province called Farah, near the Iranian border in western Afghanistan. Early one morning intelligence identified Taliban not far from the base. Marines were dispatched to set up an ambush.
A few hours later, radios began to crackle with action-medivacs with injured Marines were coming in.
Even before the helicopters could be heard, anxiety began to spread, hearts began to pound. Gardocki had been here before-in Iraq. "I was very familiar" with dealing with the injured, he says. He began telling anyone he could to "calm down, do your job."
Seven wounded Marines were soon rushed into emergency rooms.
"The surgeon told me to come quick," Gardocki says. "He said to me, ‘I have to do my job, now you have to do yours.' He wanted me to pray [near the Marines]. I went where he was doing the surgery and prayed. For three hours."
The day ended better than expected. The Marines were stabilized and transfered to better facilities. All survived. Many at the base told Gardocki that his presence had helped all involved make it through.
"I was happy to be able to serve these people, to enrich their lives, and bring them the sacraments."
Trouble on the home front
The U.S. military's recruitment of priests has not gone unnoticed by civilian Catholics. Several Catholic publications, including U.S. Catholic, have heard from a significant number of readers complaining about the military's advertisements for chaplains.
Some have questioned whether Catholic clergy should be participating in war, period. Others have criticized the number of tax-payer dollars spent on recruiting priests when many dioceses nationwide are shuttering parishes due to their own lack of clergy.
Caiazzo of the Navy's Chief of Chaplains Office, who served on the USS America aircraft carrier during the first Gulf War, bristled when told some Catholics don't want Catholic publications to advertise for something they don't believe in. He's surprised some Catholics have misgivings about priests serving troops.
"U.S. service members deserve the best we can give them," he says. "They need as much spiritual care as medical care. We're not toting guns-we're ministering to the People of God."
Catholic chaplains, he says, believe in the same principles as the warriors they serve: protecting freedom, standing up for the underdog, and fending off those who have nothing to offer but oppression and violence, the same principles the Catholic Church has always embraced, he says.
But not all share Caiazzo's view that the church and the U.S. military share the same principles. Indeed, Pope John Paul II said the invasion of Iraq did not meet the criteria of a just war, and U.S. bishops made similiar statements. This rift raises complex questions for chaplains and the church.
How do Catholic chaplains do their job while acknowledging the enormous moral complications of serving in a war that has been condemned by their own church? What's more, how do they model a loving, merciful God in a combat theater in the first place?
Father John Barkemeyer, a chaplain with the U.S. Army who is preparing for his third deployment, left his Chicago parish in 2003 to serve U.S. troops as they invaded Iraq. It was a war he didn't believe in, yet he heeded the call because he knew there was a need. And he partially agrees with Caiazzo: "We largely share the same values of the soldiers we serve, but it is much more than that.
"We need to be able to link our beliefs that life is a sacred gift from God, and, [that] sometimes, rarely, war is a moral necessity," says Barkemeyer, 45. "Our service men and women are focused on accomplishing the mission, whatever mission they are given. We need to view the military mission in light of our faith and be able to translate what this means to those we serve."
When their own church condemns the war they are fighting, Catholic troops "face a terrible paradox," says Barkemeyer.
"They try to hold onto a faith that says God is good and loving while they are surrounded by evil, suffering, extreme violence, and death," he says. "One thing I started doing was at every Mass I would include in the Prayers of the Faithful a prayer for our enemies.
"By praying for our enemies and explaining why we do it, I hope that all of us are transformed. I hope we are moved beyond our grief, anger, and suspicion to put our work in a war zone into a wider context, that we are all children of God and that our lives cannot be ruled by hate.
"I tell my troops if you can follow the command of Christ to ‘love your enemies and pray for your persecutors,' you are real Christians."
Serving in a war that the church has condemned is not an issue for Barkemeyer.
"For me as a Catholic priest and chaplain in the U.S. Army, my mission is to serve soldiers," he says. "The moral question of ‘should we be fighting this particular war' isn't at the heart of what I do. Soldiers don't get to pick and choose the wars they fight in; politicians do.
"I do end up teaching the just-war tradition to soldiers, and we have powerful discussions about which criteria seem to apply. [But] my job is not to convince soldiers of any particular position but to explain our faith and help them digest the implications."
Divided loyalties?
The debate over how Catholic priests should serve the troops is not a new one. Tom Cornell, a deacon from Marlboro, New York, was one of the first draft-resisters of the Vietnam War to publicly burn his draft card and defy a war he did not believe in. He ended up serving six months in prison for his crime. Forty years later he finds himself again promoting peace the best way he can.
The anti-war activist is a veteran of the Catholic Worker movement and co-founder of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, which supports conscientious objectors through education and advocacy.
Cornell is not surprised about the U.S. military's immediate need for priests. If you include their dependents, he says, the numbers of those in the U.S. military dealing with poverty, post-deployment disorders, and substance abuse is tremendous.
"They need Catholic priests. I am not against this," says Cornell, who mentions he lives in a state hit hard by its own priest shortage. He believes in absolute pacifism, but allows that a military force could be used for police action if absolutely necessary to protect the innocent.
What Catholic Peace Fellowship promotes is that priests should serve the military but not join as chaplains who automatically are awarded officer status when they finish training. Cornell wishes priests could serve simply as civilians, trained and paid for by the Catholic Church.
He says chaplains are trained to treat conscientious objectors with "good will." But he believes many priests-turned-officers are "socialized" to discourage any conscientious objector who seeks their counsel. He says the Catholic Peace Fellowship in recent years has documented evidence showing priests have turned their backs on soldiers wishing to object.
Observant Catholics, if they believe a war to be unjust, are encouraged to object, as stipulated by the Second Vatican Council, says Cornell.
"Without being inducted into the officer corps, they are free of any kind of dual loyalty," he says. "When he is inducted, [a priest] is torn between two loyalties: the gospel and the moral code of the officer corps, which looks upon conscientious objection as undermining the morale of the other men."
Judy McCloskey, director of CatholicMil.org, says, "It would be a logistical nightmare to [change] Catholic chaplaincy to civilian priests only."
She believes the U.S. military would not allow any civilian priest military clearance, thus denying sacraments to those on the front lines. The U.S. chaplaincy would become "Protestantized," she says, considering a majority of U.S. chaplains are already Protestant. And for a priest to minister to troops, he needs the proper training.
"Which untrained civilian priest is going to minister to military personnel in Qatar, Kuwait, Afghanistan, or Iraq-or the next military hot spots?" she asks. "Military personnel in general will find the priest less approachable if he's not wearing a uniform, especially if Catholics are singled out while every other denomination in the chaplain corps is in uniform."
"There's a lot more to being a chaplain than just counseling and guidance," says Father David Daigle, a U.S. Navy lieutenant colonel who blogs for CatholicMil.org. "Religious ministers will not and cannot be replaced by a psych corps or guidance corps or whatever. I'm here to take care of people who otherwise won't be taken care of or receive help with irregular marriages, and being confirmed, receiving First Holy Communion, Confessions. So, there is a definite and huge need for priests in the military."
"Take care of my men"
Debates aside, there can be no doubt that soldiers value the ministry of their priest-chaplains, especially because that service can come at a terrible cost.
Lt. Col. Father Timothy Vakoc died on June 20, 2009, five years after becoming the first severely injured Catholic chaplain since Vietnam. He was 49.
On May 29, 2004, Vakoc was unexpectedly ordered back to his base at Mosul in Iraq. Injured troops needed his attention. But on the way a bomb tore into his Humvee. Vakoc suffered a severe traumatic brain injury from the blast. Multiple lobes of his brain were damaged.
Earlier this year, defense department doctors estimated that 45,000 to 90,000 troops have suffered brain injuries. Many will never come close to being who they were before the war.
Indeed, the struggle back for Vakoc was more harrowing than the attack itself. Several different life-threatening bacterial infections had him in and out of comas for months at a time. A kidney stone caused more pain. But he fought on, inspiring many with his resiliency. A website documenting his progress has been visited more than 250,000 times. Thousands have left messages.
"Father Tim-I think about you often," wrote Dawn Shook, who served in 2004. "We were so shocked and upset when your convoy was attacked. Who can make reason out of so much hatred? I pray for those who attack us as well. I loved attending your Sunday Mass and hearing your weekly ‘lessons.' They helped maintain a sense of normalcy in so much sadness and chaos."
Anita Brand, Vakoc's sister, says parish work was never for him. He didn't care for arguing over the decorations for Mass. He lived for one thing.
"That was his first priority in life-serving his soldiers," she says. "He loved caring for them."
Brand says he would, when on base, sit on the steps at the commissary, read a book, and wait for his troops. "He would minister on the steps," she says. After the attack he ministered from his bed.
Before he died, Vakoc said he counseled and helped "many thousands of troops." Leaving the robes behind for the forest greens and desert hues of the U.S. military's camouflage uniforms was an easy decision. "I wanted to do God's will, and if it is in the line of fire that's where I'll be," he said.
When asked to reflect on the war that wounded him, he said it is "important." "I'd do it again in a heartbeat." He wanted to tell Washington the troops need "more support"-both "spiritually and financially."
His sister, Brand, has spoken to several soldiers and others who were near her brother as he was brought to the base in Mosul following the attack. There was pressure on his brain, and they had to induce him into a coma. "Before he went under-and I have heard this from several guys," she says, "he told another chaplain who was also there, ‘Take care of my men.' "
