Today we continue our month-long series – “Cleveland Tough: Tales of Survival and Perseverance.” This week, we hear from a 62-year-old Shelia Wilson, a Cleveland military chaplain who was stationed in Iraq. While not dug into the trenches or caught in the thick of warfare, she counseled airmen and soldiers on grief, fear, and transitioning back to civilian life, while staying alive herself under enemy bombardment and gunfire.
My name is Shelia Wilson, I am a chaplain.
I am a pastor to the military, regardless of anyone’s particular faith or philosophical background.
My overseas deployment was in Iraq, in 2003. Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Wilson recalls her arrival via cargo plane
When we were coming into Iraq, the copilot or the navigator, can’t remember quite, they came back and said, “Okay, everyone put on your seatbelts” “Oh, okay, fine”. We put on our seatbelts and proceeded to go back to sleep.
Next thing I know, I’m feeling these dips, feeling like we were dropping 2-3, 6 feet at a time, and…so I’m like, “Oh! Air pockets!” and I went right back to sleep.
And…after we landed…. one of the flight crew came back and said, “Well, now you can phone back home, and let them know that you just survived anti-aircraft fire. And I went, “What?! Don’t they know that there is a chaplain on this plane? They are violating the Geneva convention!”
That was my flight into Iraq and into Kirkuk.
Wilson on enemy fire, casualties
We did have…missiles and mortars coming into the camp on occasion, Sometimes there would be bullets that’d fly overhead. Especially in the evening you’d hear the sound of the bullets, and then you’d see a tracer.
There’s Psalm 91, that says “A thousand will fall on one side, and ten thousand will fall on the other, it will not come nigh you.” As in near. And so it was an assurance.
We would have…memorial services where…. we would remember our fallen comrades, for the sake of those of us who were still alive. And for some folks, who unfortunately, had survivor’s guilt.
Survivor’s guilt is “Why is it I am I still alive, when my companion, my colleague, is not?
Wrapping your head around the sense of your own mortality is quite uncomfortable. And so you have to walk folks through that…if they let you.
Wilson on finding herself relapsing back to the war zone
Once I got back….the situation that happened, I was sitting at lunch talking to a few other folks. And a table away from me, there was a gentleman who was making a point about something. And generally speaking, men tend to kind of put a whistle out. Kinda, “Wheewww” when they’re making a point.
When they whistled, almost dove under the table. I had been trained up in Iraq -- we knew difference between incoming and outgoing mortar.
“I’m grateful my brain kicked in and said, “You are in Columbus, Ohio. Sit up!”
Wilson on change after the service
There’s no such thing as going back to normal or the way things used to be.
Everyone has to accept that there is a “new” normal. You have to figure out how to make use of -- or to interweave -- the threads that you have been exposed to.
Remember that springtime will eventually come.
Remember that clouds don’t stop the sun from shining. The shining may not come upon you, but know that the sun has not left.
The cloud’s in the way, but sooner or later, those clouds will dissolve.
WEB EXTRAS:
On helping airmen and soldiers cope with uncertainty
While we do not always understand, we do know that life does continue. There are times when things would happen that because it did not make human sense, folks would have a problem trying to make things align with how they would understand life, and situations, and happenings. But it’s like you do not see everything. When you’re looking at a jewel, let’s say for instance, you’re looking at a diamond…a well-cut diamond….there are facets all around the diamond. But you can only see those things that are in your own particular eye sight.
Wilson shares the most common topic brought up with her
Airmen would approach me about relationships. Be it a relationship at work, a relationship with their birth or marital family, it was always about relationships. How do I understand this person or these other persons, or the job that I’m doing? How do I function, how do I interact, or how do I interconnect….or how do I disconnect?
Understand, that war zones are not necessarily a foreign place. Because there are emotional, mental, spiritual war zones and conflict and terror and trauma, again it’s all about relationships.
On working with those not of her faith or beliefs
I came as a chaplain to military personnel and their families. I did not have to align with a person’s particular faith (or) understanding, but if you use the Golden Rule…which is to love another as yourself…pain is pain, it makes no never mind. I would try best I could to stand with someone in that place.
Now if something in particular is going on, yes, I would try to refer them to someone of their philosophical or theological background, but generally speaking, I would have people talk to me for advice. Some were atheist, there were Jewish personnel, there were persons of Hindu background. So because I try to have an open heart, to love all folks, they knew as far as I stood…. we had a mutual respect for one another. They knew I’d listen, they knew I’d do my best to counsel for their own good, and if there were subject areas we’d best not broach, that was okay.
Before anyone is deployed, we have cultural briefings. When you’re in an Islamic country, the relationships on how males and females interact…you have to be very alert. There was an event we had on our base over in Iraq, and we were going around shaking hands, and I went to extend my hand to this one gentlemen. And he slightly pulled back, and the look in his eye, it was not one of ugliness. It was, “I can’t do this”. So I looked at him and I just….nodded. Just slightly.
His whole body just relaxed, and there was a smile on his face that said, “Oh, you understand. Thank you so much”. And he nodded back to me. It did not violate my Christian understandings; it did not violate me as a woman, nor as an ordained minister. There was a mutual respect and understanding for one another.
You resolve things by paying attention, not trying impose how you think or how you see how things should be from your own particular understanding. If I can’t get along with you I don’t need to bully or bludgeon you, I leave you be. If we can’t agree to agreeably disagree, we need to part ways, we need to part company because for me, relationship is extremely important.