Chaplain, on leave, shares stories of Iraq

A few months ago, Rev. Donald Rutherford boarded a helicopter to return from an outpost to his home base in Baghdad, Iraq. He was reading a book to pass the time when "all of a sudden, I heard someone say, 'There's one to the right,' and the machine gun fire started."

Home on leave, Father Rutherford, a priest of the Albany Diocese, spoke to The Evangelist earlier this week about his time in Iraq as head of chaplains with the Multinational Corps in Baghdad, which oversees combat and stability operations in that nation.

"We scared them away," he continued, "but I'm not going to forget that very soon."

Busy schedule

Father Rutherford, a native of Kinderhook, has spent the last nine months in Iraq, where he supervises 278 chaplains, coordinates Catholic services and events for the military, and advises the Corps commander on such issues as faith, morale and re-deployment.

Much of his time is spent at the Corps headquarters in Baghdad. He regularly works 17-hour days, attending meetings, conducting classes on current happenings and on "what to expect" in certain situations, supervising pastoral ministries, and planning special events and religious opportunities for soldiers.

He also celebrates weekly Mass, conducts RCIA classes for eight soldiers, and coordinates efforts with other chaplains to serve troops of many denominations and faiths.

Getting around

As part of his work, the priest travels extensively to speak with chaplains in the field, offer Mass for soldiers, and make sure religious activities are available to soldiers throughout Iraq.

He also visits U.S. troops stationed near the Syrian and Iranian borders, and in northern Iraq, and drops by British, European and Korean troops stationed elsewhere.

"Because I'm the senior chaplain, I get to travel a lot," he explained. "I've been to some of the really tough places, where the troops haven't gotten many of the commodities [they have in Baghdad] yet, but they are very few."

Impressions

Father Rutherford usually travels by air, in helicopters or military airplanes. Fast-moving convoys take him to zones that are otherwise inaccessible over roads that are considered dangerous and sometimes mined.

"Rarely do you see vacant roads," he said. "The streets are full, all the time. There are people all over the place. [I saw] the marketplaces where people are selling things on the street. It's a country that is progressing but still has a lot of the old-world aspects to it. It's an interesting place."

He visited American soldiers in Mosul who are still "doing a lot of security work to make sure the people are safe. Insurgents are there, no doubt about it, and we have people working to stop the insurgents from coming in."

Colonel Father

For Father Rutherford, who is a colonel, working in Iraq is a mixture of comforts and privations.

The headquarters, he said, is a secure installation with "phenomenal" food available at all times. But, in some places he visited, soldiers get only one hot meal a day.

While traveling, he saw American doctors attempting to revive an Iraqi boy who had been caught in crossfire just outside the gates of the base where he was. He watched them "try to save this little guy's life. We didn't know if his father was a good guy or a bad guy." The boy did not survive.

Coming home

Some of his duties have to do with helping soldiers shift from the battlefield back to life in their own living rooms. It's difficult for many to immediately adapt to the radically different rhythms of the families they left behind, the priest said.

The change can be especially acute for soldiers with young families, he noted, citing one young soldier who went back to the U.S. for two weeks of leave to find that his three-year-old daughter did not remember him.

When he comes home for good, Father Rutherford won't miss the winter downpours, summer heat and mud as thick as peanut butter, but he said he will miss the people he has worked with and the work that he does.

"I'm not going to forget the great people I work with, the soldiers who go to Mass every day. I have no complaints about anything," he said. "I've got the best job in the Army. I could be sitting in an installation, seeing if the heat is right in rooms for religious education and going out of my mind. I get to do things with the troops, and that's the best part. That's what it's all about."

Due in January

Father Rutherford's re-integration will begin in January, when he is scheduled to return to Fort Bragg, where he is stationed. Until then, he's taking life day by day.

"I believe nothing until that plane lands in North Carolina, and I get off and hear the band playing," he said. "I'd like to go back and see Iraq over again, when it is secure and governing itself, and people have a handle on it and are working with one another. It's an absolutely beautiful country."

(This is Father Rutherford's fourth tour of duty in Iraq. He served as a chaplain in 1990 during the first Gulf War and was sent to the country twice in the mid-'90s during escalations of border tensions. He helped oversee the construction of a 350-seat chapel in a boathouse once owned by Saddam Hussein, and has witnessed the Iraqi elections and struggle to write a constitution. The people "want to have a government and a voice in what's going on," he said. "They want to do this. They want to elect people, and they're doing it.")

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