443. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 50 (G'Segner (b), pt. 1)

After my father passed away my brothers tried to lower mom's image of me.  I think one brother worked harder at it than the other - the one that was with her day in and day out - but when I was living with the other brother for a while he had opportunity to try his hand at it too.  It's generally a matter of perspective and blowing things way out of perspective. 

For one thing, there was the incident when I was living with the one brother after I lost my job after my surgery (eventually I was awarded disability insurance).  When my mom and other brother came out I had this rather over-done plan - in hindsight I should have toned it down some.  But that wasn't the whole issue, either though.

I told my brother that I wanted to host a dessert evening.  That's what I called it and that's what it was supposed to be.  I think that is very clear and I don't know how it can be misunderstood, but somehow it was, and they came over wanting dinner. 

I wanted it to be a kind of magical evening, but it ended out being a mess because they wanted dinner and then I wasn't ready because I'd actually planned too much.  Actually, I was ready enough that we could go with what I had done close to when I'd planned it, and just not have everything I planned.  And they boys could help decorate, which was part of it, too.

But then I wanted to send a lot home with my one brother and mom and I ended out cooking till the last minute when I should have dropped it and just spent time with mom I guess. 

She wanted me to help her with her medications list.  She knew I used to help dad with his.  But the thing was that all I did for dad was set up his Excel spreadsheet and teach him how to use it and then I think I helped him tweak it a couple times, but he kept it updated.

I couldn't really do that with mom because 1) she was a classic technophobe and wouldn't go anywhere near a computer, let alone an Excel spreadsheet, and 2) even if she had a paper worksheet she wasn't reliable enough to keep it up to date like dad did with the electronic version.  I'd tried to get updated information with her over the phone before and it wasn't reliable.  So then my brother out there would end out having to be the one having to take charge anyway.  Since I wasn't there and I didn't have direct access to her doctors or medical information there wasn't anything I could do.  But she didn't understand that.  So all she knew was that I used to help dad and I wasn't helping her.  That sounds terrible, like I didn't love her or something, but in reality, I didn't know how I could help her.  I mean other than calling her and encouraging her and things like that. 

This wasn't like in Vienna where I could just easily take down mom's meds as if it was going to make a difference in anything, knowing full well it wasn't it wasn't because how on earth was I ever going to find out if there were changes to the meds or doses. (That is, I couldn't I couldn't live a lie with my mom, as I did in Vienna, although I tried as much as possible to minimize the dissonance there.)  My brother out there never told me anything or talked to me about anything, so it's not like I was going to find out from him.  So it was going to have to come from mom, and I'm not sure I would have wanted to tell mom directly to her face, but she was not very reliable, and there were a lot of reasons for that, not all of which were really in her control. 

***

Back to the texts.  This next one is:

G'Segner, Ford F. (1986, Fall). A chaplain's perspective on the application of values.  Military Chaplains' Review, 55-60.

Ah, those pesky little things called values.  It seems it's hard to run away from them, hard as we may try.  We just saw into my family a bit how ethics has come to play.  And if you're a chaplain it seems that it may be even extra hard.  Let's take a look.

***

The Chief of Staff, Army "Values" White Paper uses these concepts and expands their application.

Our Oath of Commission, Oath of Enlistment, or Oath of Office requires that we live by the tenets of the professional Army ethic and those personal values that strengthen and enable us to execute the missions entrusted to us.  Values are what we, as a profession, judge to be right.  They are more than words - they are the moral, ethical, and professional attributes of character....

This is familiar language to chaplains.  We are charged by our churches and religious groups to represent these values to soldiers.  In addition, we are expected to apply the professional Army ethic with its individual values to our lives and to the lives of the soldiers we serve." (p. 55-56)

The main part of that that I wanted to discuss is the last paragraph, but it didn't make sense without bringing in some of the preceding text as well, even though understanding what the "familiar language" is might not be that crucial to my discussion.

 So, if I understand it correctly, churches charge chaplains to teach Army values.  At least that's how I understand the crux of this text.  I mean, I realize that churches don't ONLY charge chaplains to do this; that this isn't the only thing that chaplains are charged by their churches to do, but the thing here is that one of the things that churches charge chaplains to do is teach Army values.  Right?  Isn't that what this says? 

And it's written by a chaplain in the rank of Major who, according to the biographical blurb on the first page, "is a Personnel Staff Officer assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Human Resources Directorate, Leader Policy Division, Washington, D.C.  That sounds pretty impressive to me, like he probably knows what he is talking about and has some clout behind hime too, so that other chaplains might respect him.

So this was written in 1986, the year before I arrived in Vienna.  So I was doing deputation at the time this was published.  That means I was speaking at churches raising faith support so I could go to the mission field.  Interdenominational missions are generally faith missions, which means their missionaries aren't sent out from money from the denomination, but instead each missionary has to raise his own pledged support from churches and individuals.  So that's what I was doing when this article was published.

I don't know if either of the H.R. staff at the Vienna mission read this article, but they certainly could have.  Or maybe they were familiar with the concept before it even went to print, so that this concept is only news to me. 

However that may be, I find it very strange that churches should church chaplains to Army values.  The church would know that the chaplain has to fulfill certain Army tasks, but Army values could be oppositional to the church's and I don't think that churches should charge chaplains to teach Army values.  The church's job is spiritual and it needs to charge the chaplain to do the spiritual work.

***

I'm going to discuss this section.  It's unusual, because I didn't have it marked up from when I first read the text in the mid 1990s in Minneapolis.  But this section is just a horrible throwback on the way the H.R. director and maybe some other leaders even too used Scripture to mold people's thinking, for counseling, if you will.  In my opinion, it was a great misuse of Scripture.  I actually saw it among certain Protestants in Russia that had had a lot of Western contact too.

The section is titled "The Challenge"

Chaplains must understand the role expected by our individual supervisors and commanders.  Are we good luck charms who ride in helicopters to keep them from crashing?  Are we the conveyors of good and bad weather wishers?  Are we staff officers who advise on religion, morals, and morale? Once we perceive our role, we can determine whether or not it promotes the ideals of the professional Army ethic.  We like to say ours is a sacred trust from God to promote the principles, commandments, and truths revealed in the Scriptures.  I believe we act naively and with benign ignorance when we do not heed such Scripture passages as: "The man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted also in great; and the man who is dishonest in little things is dishonest also in great things.  If, then, you have not proved trustworthy with the wealth of this world, who will trust you with the wealth what is real? And if you have proved untrustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?" (p. 57)

 The part here that I'm going to take issue with is when the author starts trying to apply Scripture.  For one thing I've had to read and reread it to make sure I understand what he's trying to say with this passage of Scripture.  At first reading it's easy to think it's a non sequitor as to why on earth he would be putting it there and what it might have to do with what he just said.  But I think he's trying to get chaplains to just sort of getting real and making sure they have their feet on the ground and can do the basic things that are given them and then after that they can think about other and maybe bigger or harder things. 

But the thing is that it's almost a syndrome or something to just throw these verses out like that as if that was the magic answer, with no thought about context of Scripture.  And incidently the context of this passage happens to be very interesting, by the way: (Luke 16)

¹⁰ “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹ So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹² And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?
¹³ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

And while we're expanding applications, some people expand the "no man can serve two masters" to go beyond just the God / mammon problem.  So there you come back to the being unequally yoked issue again.  And so we see why that author maybe didn't want to discuss the context of verse he was citing.  Serving in the military comes up as an unequally yoked issue.

But getting back to the verses in the text... It's these particular verses that they pull out of the hat (so to speak, I mean) that show the qualities they want, the single verses are just thrown at you, like here, where it seems out of place, like it was just pasted there last minute or something.  There's no lead-up to it to speak of and no discussion of it or break down of it.  It's just there.  And it describes what you're supposed to be like in that sphere of existence, just like at the mission.  This verse is the kind of thing the H.R. chaplain would say in Vienna.
  

***

 [This is a very brief little Canadian interlude.  I got a huge container of Bird's custard on Amazon.com some time ago and I just made some and I'm enjoying it.  I'm not feeling well, so that's the extent of my gourmet cooking of late.  It was very nice though.]

"Martin Luther's words are relevant

A man who would venture to govern an entire country of the world with Gospel would be like a shepherd who should place in one fold wolves, lions, eagles, and sheep together and let them freely mingle with one another and say, "help yourselves, and be good and peaceful among yourselves; the fold is open, there is plenty of good; have no fear of dogs and clubs." The sheep, forsooth, would keep the peace and would allow themselves to be fed and governed in peace, but they would no live long; nor would any beast keep from molesting another... For this reason these two kingdoms must be sharply distinguished, and both be permitted to remain; the one to produce piety, the other to bring external peace and prevent evil deeds; neither is sufficient in the world without the other." (p. 57)

I had the good fortune to be studying German in West Berling in the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's birth.  My friends at the Paulinum Seminar in E. Berlin took me to a history museum where there was a special Martin Luther exhibit.  Of course, they interpreted him as being an early radical, but the thing was that Luther didn't want to be associated with political upheavals.  I also bought a historical atlas of the world in East Germany, and there is a page where Luther is prominent on it too. 

But the thing is that, and I agree, that church and state should be separate.  Luther has a different logic here than I've used, but I think there is something to it too.  The thing is that how things are now is that we rely on law to make sure that everyone can mingle together without eating each other up, but then your trust, I guess has to be in the laws to work, and then, is that the way it is supposed to be anyway?  Is this the optimum way the church can work?  Is this the way the light can shine the brighest and the salt is saltiest?  I'm skeptical, because you have to make so many comprimises. 

So if the two kingdoms are together, then where is the church?  How can we distinguish the church?  Where is it? 

***

This section is "The Piety Perspective"

In a recent newspaper interview Chaplain Patrick J. Hessian, former Army Chief of Chaplains, put the piety and ethic relationship in this perspective.

... It's important to understand that we don't start with values.  We start with beliefs, and we build values on top of that.  It begins with primary beliefs, those you learned at your mother's knee.  Then you acquire beliefs just in the process of living.  It's on this belief structure that your values rest.  Once values are entrenched in your being, your attitudes and motivations in life flow from them, and from those attitutdes and motivations come behavior changes...

Contrary to a popular view, values can be changed -- if Chaplain Hessian is correct about values stemming from beliefs. (p. 58)

This sounds pretty formulaic, and I think it is in actuality, because I think they research these things to find out what really works and psychological probability and things like that.  I mean the Army is interested in soldiers that come out well-adjusted, etc. 

If you go into the military, and here it's the Army in particular, you've got to know you're going to be in for this kind of thing, especially starting in boot camp where you know they'll put you through the wringer until you don't know which end's up.  Right?  I mean, they won't torture you, but it's going to be rough.

But when I went to Vienna, and I've said this before, so it's not new, I did not expect this kind of thing.  I had never gotten a hint from anyone in the ministry that this kind of thing ought to be expected.  I had short term experience with missions and had never experienced anything like it before.  And I had had some experience on my own in Eastern Europe. 

Nevertheless, it did appear that the mission in Vienna had a similar desire as the Army did.  So basically, if they were like the Army here, they wanted to change my values, attitudes, motivations, and behaviors.  According to this quote, I don't think that the Army wanted to change beliefs; however, I'm not sure whether or not I would say the same about the Vienna mission.

The thing is that the Vienna mission never found out about the areas in which I disagreed with them.  If they had discovered them, besides probably trying to arranged to confuse me and do damage control, they would have given me the boot post haste and sent me back home - really home, for good.

They did get me to change some behaviors, such as at the end when I gave in and started attending the English speaking church.  I never had an attitude problem, that I remember.  That was the thing, that I was always gracious no matter what they threw my way, and I never complained or anything.  So that wasn't an issue, except I really did have attitude issues; I was just hiding them, so they didn't know. 

As to motivations... I'm not sure.  They might have wanted to change my motivations because I didn't fit in the position they had for me if they were going to insist I hobnob with the secretaries.  I had nothing against the secretaries, as I've said before, but I wanted more people ministries, so I was going to be involved in the Austrian church.  I really couldn't relate to the secretaries that much.  So they would have had to really work on my motivation to get me to fit in well, and I don't know how they'd do it without doing like they did, just crushing my spirit to bits. 

I'm not even sure where they would best have begun if there was a chance to make it work.  The thing was that, with their parameters, as I found it, there really wasn't a way.  If they felt that I absolutely had to meld with the secretaries to the exclusion of everything else, then it wouldn't work and they should have told me that from the very beginning.  I wouldn't have accepted it, I know I wouldn't have, because I spefically said then that I'd want to be doing external ministry with Austrians and I was given the go ahead with that.  And so I went ahead with my deputation based on that.  Otherwise I would not have, I'm positive of that.  And the whole time I was there my going to the Austrian church was a point of contention until I finally gave in and started going to the English speaking church the last 6 months.

***

That's all.  I've got to get dinner and do my evening stimulator session.

428. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 45 (Gilbert, pt. 1; Fioramonti, pt. 1)

Yesterday was a bit of a long day for me, with the two medical appointments spaced a couple hours apart and geographically located so it wasn't worth it to come home between them.  And I hardly ever take naps and if I do just sort of collapse out of exhaustion on a couch or something and start to fall asleep I usually get up pretty quickly because I'm afraid I'll just sleep until the next morning, so I just keep going... sort of drag myself around the apartment exhausted (in the evenings especially).  I just don't have stamina.  I usually get 7 hours sleep, no matter what time I go to bed - 11:00 or 3:00.  But last night I got 10 hours sleep, which is practically unheard of for me, and it sure felt good!  I guess I'm glad it doesn't happen all the time though.

I think this is so, and this is how I explained it to the neurologist too, because I do still have fibromyalgia underlying all these other things and one of the major symptoms of fibromyalgia is fatigue.  Besides, the back conditions, the various aches and pains (rheumatoid arthritis, neuritis in the feet, fibromyalgia, migraine, spinal stenosis - for which I just had the epdural a couple weeks ago, etc),  and all these pain sources cause extra fatigue in themselves too. 

Altogether, I think I do pretty well, considering everything I'm dealing with. But I'm really pushing my limits and lately I've been thinking I need to find a housecleaning to help me out some because even though I designed this place to make it easier to clean, I'm finding it difficult to keep up.  Right now I'm doing my morning 45-minute stimulator session.  I took my pre-breakfast medicines & supplements and then when I'm done with the stimulator I'll have breakfast and then start getting washed up for the day. 

I have no appointments today, but the neurologist yesterday said to take it easy the next couple days and if I don't get better (for the dizziness) by the weekend to take the medrol dosepack script he gave me.  And I have to go over my meds to see if I need to get any refills for tomorrow when I will portion them out for the week.  And I really should make new portion bags because it's hard to read the ones I have now I've used them so much. They just need replacing.  I need to look at my financial things too.  And it's really important that I keep my stress down because that's the last thing I need with my fibromyalgia and migraine, so I'll have to pick the things to do today because realistically I won't be able to do all of these today, even if you might be able to, as a healthy person.  I just can't zip-zip-zip through things.  And then I have to take breaks from physically demanding things.  And then my day is broken up by when I have to take my meds and I have to make myself sit down and drink full glasses of water at meals because my g.i. system is such a mess.  I think taking the time also is a stress break too, though.

Anyway, I'm just saying, this is the kind of thing that I deal with day in and day out.  I just can't up and go and do things really easily, and I tire easily and my body can go out of whack so easily it can set me back for days or weeks.   I'm sort of a slave to my body, when you think about it. 

***

The next article is:

Gilbert, B. C. (1972). Value education. Military Chaplains' Review, 1(2), 49-51.

This article is from the very first year of this journal that so many of these articles have come from!

***

"Army chaplains have for years been involved in the work of value maintenance and formation.  Character Guidance, Moral Heritage and Human Self-Development programs are nominal testimony to the fact that we have taken seriously this function which amplifies the spirit of the chaplain's role as advisor to commanders in matters of morality and morals.  Some of us have justified this aspect of the ministry by calling it a kind of "tent making" which puts us in a position to go about our Father's real business.  Others have considered it a duty in which we as citizens have a special talent and a special training.  Still others have considered it an entrée with men and women who might not otherwise relate to us.  In any event we have been the Army's primary specialists in moral education." (p. 49)

So I guess individual chaplains develop or come into the work with metaphors or visions as to how they see themselves and their work.  Let's, consider each perspective, one by one.

1. Tent-making.

I've said a lot about tentmaking already, and even posted my unpublished article (post 214) on it.  There's a keyword "tentmaking" that you can check all the articles on it. 

I'll just summarize to say that Paul worked (made tents) in order not to be a burden on the believers.  It had absolutely nothing to do with his accessing or getting into various communities or whatever.  He just didn't want to be a burden or there be the potential for people thinking he was taking advantage of them.   This is where the idea of tentmaking comes from, but erroneously so, in my opinion.

2.  Citizen's duty with special talent.

I have also already said that I consider my citizenship to be primarily in heaven, that I am a pilgrim here on earth and that I am an ambassador for Christ.

With this in mind, it is true that I may be born into an earthly citizenship and that the government might exact certain rights and responsibilities from me, the earthly authority must in all cases be subject to the heavenly authority. 

But in this case the heavenly (chaplain) becomes subject to the earthly (military).  How backwards is that? 

3.  Entrée/way to relate to Army members.

Is this sort of like becoming a drug addict helps one minister to drug addicts?  Do you really absolutely have to become a soldier to minister to the soldiers?  Is it possible to minister to them without becoming one?  Have other people and groups successfully done so without becoming soldiers?  

***

I thought there was another passage to comment on, but I don't have anything to say about it, so I'll pick another text.

Fioramonti, Mary E. (1993, Spring). The Army chaplaincy and change. The Army Chaplaincy, 18-20.

This is, by the way, the first female author in this file.

***

This section of text falls within the contex of advising the chaplain as to how to gage the health and effectiveness of their ministry team.  This text suggest one aspect of that process:

"Every soldier goes through a formation stage.  The challenges to face include belonging and acceptance, settling personal family concerns, and learning about leaders and other soldiers.

The next stage is development.  A soldier learns to trust leaders and others, find close friends, decide who is in charge, accept the way things are done, adjust to feelings, and overcome family vs. unit conflict.

The final stage, sustainment, is where a soldier begins to assist and trust other team members, whare iteas and feelings freely, sustain trust and confidence, share mission and values, experience feelings of pride in the unit and cope with personal and family problems." (p. 20; bold in original)

In this particular situation we're talking about adjusting to working in a ministry team, but ministry teams could include somewhat diverse religious groupings in the military setting as the chaplaincy attempts to meet the needs of the various religious backgounds represented in the troup (or whatever size unit they're in).  So, while the team member might not have to make an adjustment to a secular setting, he will have to make the adjustment to a somewhat religiously diverse one and also the ramifications of being located inside the army.

 In language learning, when we find words that are the same or very similar in different languages was call them "false friends" - they look the same, but they really mean something different.  For example, if you look at the Russian transliterated word mashina you probably automatically think "machine," right?  Wrong.  The Russian word mashina means car, so it is a false friend, it is not what you think it means even though it looks a lot like a word we have in English.   I think that life in the ministry team compared with life in a civilian church in a comparable position, say as a deacon or board member of some sort, would be a "false friend".  Maybe the new recruits to the ministry team might think they know what to expect with a lot of church or other religious background but the differences could catch them by surprise unless they have a very good (realistic) idea before hand about what to expect. 

But this blog isn't, ultimately, about the military, now is it?  So what tripped me up in Vienna?  Was it because I was my father's daughter and there wasn't a thing I could do about it, I was going to have problems no matter what happened?  Or did I really come all that naively, not knowing anything about what was going on?  Or did I know too much and stood my ground too ardently and rejected their tighthold too vigorously? 

So let's use these stages on me as pertains to the Vienna mission.

For me the formation stage was a matter of getting to know people and the ropes and all.  If formation meant being paranoid, however, I wasn't particularly interested.  There's a fine line between paranoia and being careful and discerning, and the mission didn't know the difference.  I'm selected in what I form to, and they made it difficult to really want to form to them.

As to development... I already discussed trust in some detail and how the mission didn't do anything to make me want to trust them.  My values remained unchanged, but where values wheren't an issue I had no problem accepting the way certain things were done.  Throughout all this I never really could adjust my feelings, which were basically a shipwreck and there was so much family and mission conflict I could have single-handedly started the third-world war, I think.

I never even came anywhere near sustainment, so I'm not even going to attempt that one.

This was a little different take on my experience with the mission, and each approach provides some more information, I think, to what happened.

425. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 42 (Kohl, pt.1)

I went to physical therapy today and I did about as expected with the new downturn in my health (again!).  It does seem to be the migrain.  So I have an appointment with the neurologist on Wednesday.  The physical therapist agreed that it seemed like that to her too.  It's affecting my pain level too though, such as from fibromyalgia.  So I'm wrapped in heat right now.  It's slowed me down a bit. 

It's really frustrating, because there's no way I could hope to go out West in July (to see family) if I'm going to keep having these kinds of health issues at every turn.  I just can't deal with it and I don't have anyone to help me if I have problems while I'm away.  So then I'm sort of stuck here.  If I'm staying here, though, then maybe I could finish a couple things on the condo.  It's really frustrating though.  But there's not much I can do about it (my health limitations), because I'm doing the best I can, really.

***

The next article is:

Kohl, John P. (1980, Winter). It's more than griping -- thoughts on counseling dissatisfied soldiers.  Military Chaplains' Review, 13-21.

***

"The Human Relations Movement, and its philosophy that satisfied workers will be more productive workers, dominated much of the management literature from the 1920's until the 1950's.  It is interesting to note that these concepts continue to dominate the thinking of many managers in industry, the government and the military.  As a result, all too often human relations training is seen as a cure-all for whatever ails a unit." (p. 15)

I have no idea what philosophy the human resources department in the Vienna mission operated under, but it didn't appear to me that satisfied workers was anything that they cared one iota about.  The thing that they care about was workers that towed the line and passed the socialization test of being completely trusting of the mission (no holds barred, etc.).  In the spirit of the Soviet Union, deviants were declared mentally touched or else were driven there.  This, to me, has nothing in the least to do with employee satisfaction.

***

"Studies have shown that dissatisfaction often leads to increased absences, turnover and other difficulties.  A unit with high morale is often a unit with high reenlistment rates and fewer people going on sick call.  So continue to do PET, and continue to show supervisors how to pay attention to people's needs.  But avoid the fallacious belief that high morale units are necessarily more productive units." (p. 15) 

I expect that the military has so many checks and balances, so many levels of oversight that productivity will happen even without excessively high morale, because it's enforced, if nothing else. 

In the Vienna mission virtually everyone had high morale because that was part of socialization and if you didn't have high morale than it would soon be found out and soeone would be on top of it to "express concern" to find out what's going on.  I think that's why I slipped under the radar till the very end - because I apparently had high morale (no matter what happened, no matter what they threw at me).  Really, you might think I was supremely stupid and didn't understand at all what was going on the way I was so cheerful no matter what they did to me.  But that was my external self, my yes-man playing alone.  After being sent to the States and then returning to Vienna I was scared to disagree with them, but I did internally anyway.

I have a feeling that most people, once they were really part of the organization, just decided to not think too much about these kinds of things that might become problematic.

***

"Much of the behavior modification literature of recent years has stressed the importance of using extrinsic rewards as a way of motivating workers." (p. 18)

They really didn't use this on my much.  Sometimes I was told various stories of this or that possible opportunity down the line, but I never knew if it was a real or phantom possibility, so I never really knew if I should hang my hat on it or not.  I ended out going the "not" route and just mainly ignoring these rumors.  So if we ignore these things as pipe dreams, then all I got was the stick (vs. the carrot).  So I more or less figured out what to run from, and I sort of guestimated as to what I was supposed to run to, but I wasn't interested, after all the sticks they threw my way.  I guess they didn't know about the "preferability of using extrinsic rewards as a way of motivating workers."

***

That's it for that article.

423. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 41 (Smith, pt. 1)

I got up early this morning (without an alarm!), maybe because I got to bed early last night (11:30!) because I was feeling crummy.  I want to go to my primary care doctor as a walk-in today.  She might not be able to do anything, but maybe she can say if she thinks its related to one of my conditions.  I think it might be my migraine, but I'm not really sure. 

More things like this, though, and any hopes I might have of visiting family out west seems less and less advisable.

***

This next article is:

Smith, Wilford E. (1977, Summer). Church and state in America in the twenty-first century A.D. Military Chaplaincy Review, 28-40. 

***

This next quote falls in the context of Milton Konvitz's arguments (from the book Religious Liberty and Conscience, Viking Press, 1969) demonstrating how conscience trumps everything else, including all kinds of external institutions, in moral force, and to disregard conscience in favor of an external force is to "forfeit dignity."

"The Nuremberg trials establish the principle in international law that the defense acted pursuant to orders of the government or a superior officer does not absolve a defendant from responsibility." (p. 31)

Now you can hardly deny that that, at least in many cases, those who participated in Nazi war crimes might have faced more difficult consequences for lack of cooperation with the Nazi Wehrmacht than the Vienna missionaries would have experienced for not cooperating with the mission leadership, although when the threat of making you go crazy was a very real possibility that might have been approaching Nazi terror.  But there had to even have been leaders who were willing to make such (usually tacit) threats.  And, I submit, that just like in the Nuremburg trials, and just like in a million other places where human rights is an issue, the enactors still bear responsibility for their actions, and you cannot put all the blame on the decreers and the planners.  Those who "simply obey orders" like so many stooges (as if they could just set aside any personal responsibility and conscience), are not really stooges. 

Who told them they were stooges?  Did God say they were stooges?  Did God say that they would be absolved of all responsibility for their actions in such a situation?  I don't think so.  Whatever gave them that idea?  Somehow to me, personally, it sounds rather suspiciously like something that Satan would say: 

Genesis 3:4-5

King James Version (KJV)

⁴ And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
⁵ For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

I don't agree with Konvitz, though.  I guess I see his point that the formal church can be wrong, although our church leaders should be there as guides for us.  They aren't infallible though, and also need to be held accountable.  And we all, as Christians, need to be accountable to Scripture and to God, as well as to one another.  God did create in us a conscience and we can educate it to be in tune with His will, and we as Christians have the Holy Spirit within us, so on these bases, to a certain extent we can look inward to make moral decisions, but that's not and shouldn't be, the only resource we have.  I'm talking as Christians here.  Missionaries working in the Vienna mission learned to rely on this a lot, though, because working in East Bloc countries meant you couldn't talk to a lot of people about your moral concerns.

And as to how I was treated and possibly how others might have been treated, even if it wasn't quite on the scale of my treatment, the individuals at the mission are all going to be held responsible for their part in it.  And if they remained silent when they could have spoken up or if they were just "an innocent bystander" but could have done something, they might even still be held responsible.  My life was really ruined because of how they treated me, although other things happened later, but I was broken in spirit from them and really a changed person because of them.

And the socialization process that makes people sort of take a blind leap of faith trusting all to the mission (i.e., not holding back) without it being reciprocal, you're going to be answerable fot that at some point too.  That is, is God going to agree with the Vienna mission administration that you should leave your free thinking and freedom of conscience at the door?  Might Good hold you responsible for things you participated in with the mission, even if you didn't understand them (because you agreed to check your free judgment in at the door and let the administration do all the heavy thinking for you)?

***

"If the time comes when the government takes over religion, it will be because churches have invited it into the tent, so to speak, by accepting piecemeal grants and subsities (and their inevitable controls)." (p. 40)

Can I paraphrase this? (The author is talking about the USA.)

If the time comes when the government takes over Christian missions, it will be because missions have invited it into the tent, so to speak, by accepting piecemeal grants and subsities (and their inevitable controls).

Now did I get your attention?  One of the member mission, arguably the most powerful mission in then East European missions was taking money from the CIA, although I don't know that my sending mission or the Vienna mission was.  But how about having military reserve chaplains staff your human resources department?  (That is, the whole department being consisted solely of chaplains.)  And relatedly, having our annual conference at a U.S. military conference center (Hitler's Crow's Nest)?  


I don't care how prestigious the mission was, that is wrong.  They can call me crazy till the cows come home, but I kept my values the whole time I was there and they couldn't get me to say what was wrong is right.  

 ***

 That's it for this article.

418. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 36 ( Ettershank, p.t 1)

I just went though my Military Chaplaincy file and moved a bunch of articles into the already-done side of the neon green divider sheet, but I still think we've just covered maybe 1/3 of the file.   This is one of the bigger ones.  There's at least one more big file like this; the others are smaller.

***

Yesterday was too much for me and I'm sort of wiped out and my delicate g.i. system also will have to recovered just because I had a regular full meal out and then the cheese cake I'd made, 3/4 of which I left with my friend and her son.

***

This next article is:

Ettershank, John P. (1983, Fall). The chaplains' allegiance to the military. Military Chaplains' Review, 12(4),41-.50)

***

"None of us has ever sworn or affirmed allegiance to the military per se.  As our oath of allegiance states, our promise is to bear true faith and allegiance to  the Constitution of the United States of America... Suffice it to say, I firmly believe as commissioned chaplains owe allegiance to the military." (p. 41)

At first glance it sounds good (at least from the standpoint of possible conflicts of interest with the military) that they haven't taken an oath of allegiance with the military, but when you consider it more in context I don't think it's nearly so meaningful.  Here's what I mean.

The thing is that, and I've already discussed this - you can see it in the posts in file by the author (Dept. of the Army, pt....), the chaplains' handbook provides all the rules that the chaplains have to work by (at least the Army chaplains, the chaplains in the military branches would have their own handbook).  And we've already just seen one case where the military was the one to punish a chaplain.  So the military is the one with the H.R. rules and clout, the brigs and all the related trappings that go with that military justice system.  So whether you took the oath to the military or not, the military is like the surrogate constitution, or the constitution in flesh and blood.  The only thing is, I guess that if the military really messed it up the chaplain would technically have the option of appealing to the constitution, but you can imagine how difficult that might be.  I'm not very good at legal processes, but I'm sure that any lawyer worth his or her salt would bring constitutional issues to light in the defense before it got to the point of having to actually make a full-blown constitutional appeal, though. 

So I'm not all that taken in by the "oath to the constitution but not to the military" argument.  Where the rubber meats the road they're going to have to please their bosses, the people over them in the day-in-day out, their commanders, and, then, of course, report to the sending church body.

***

"The U.S. Code prescribes that , "Each chaplain shall, when practicable, hold appropriate religious services at least on each Sunday for the Command to which he is assigned and shall perform appropriate religious burial service members of the Army who die while in the Command...

AR 165-20, Chapter 2, states that the chaplain's primary duty is  the religious needs of the military community...

... All of our churches have adequately prepared us theologically to perform the religious services, rites, sacraments, and ordinances required by the U.S. Code.  The Chaplains' School has assistenus in making the transition from a civilian to a military mnistry.  But what is our obligation? I feel that we, because of our ce to the military, must become soldiers/clerics." (p. 42)

In you're reading this, maybe from another country, and aren't aware of this, the U.S. Code are federal laws.  I guess they would all be enacted by the U.S. Congress (Senate/House). However, the different departments of government can have their own internal rules of functioning, so "AR" would mean "Army Regulation".  This only has internal juristiction and is not a las, only a regulation. 

This last is interesting.  Do you agree with it? Well, if you agree with war and killing, I guess you might not have a problem with it.  How about this one. 

A group opens a halfway for drug addicts and ego propter hoc (does it follow then) that to better reach their target audience to themselves become drug addicts? 

A mission working in East Europe is very afraid of the communist leadership in those countries ego propter hoc (does it follow then) that it should use some of their tactics?

These aren't maybe exactly comparable cases, but I hope you understand what I'm getting at. 

Principle one (in the spirit of Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)

==>Be salt and do not lose your saltiness<==

To do this you must NOT become like the rest of the world.  Where in the Bible is your inspiration for doing otherwise? I am not convinced that you can become a "soldier/cleric" without learning more than just the skills. 

Principle two (also in the spirit of Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)

==>Be a light and to night hide it under a bushel<==

By taking on the "soldier/cleric" role in addition to your clerical one, I think you are watering down your testimony and making the image of God less clear, more muddied.  I'm sure the military probably expects this of you or at the very least appreciates it, but I don't think it's in the best interest of your ministry.

Those who think that the military is just like any other profession will not agree with me, I know and they will say I'm over-reacting.  But I don't think so.  I know first had what total institutions are like, and the military is clearly and unanimously accepted as , so  automatically by that indicator alone puts it in a different league, for example, from being a nurse or manager or whatever. 

***

"The chaplain must not ony possess and apply theological teaching, but also be skilled in  the military arts...

... We are thought of as sodiers and respected as treated as chaplains." (p. 42-43)

This does absolutely nothing to convince me, in fact, the author, in this section describes a priest who got all this training and even took Infantry Brigade courses (to match his unit).  So that made him more buddy buddy with his soldiers, but what did this do to his salt and light? (It doesn't really say in the article, only that the author was so enamored by his infantry coursework, and how he speculated it must have benefited his ministry.)

As to the "thought of as soldiers and respected as chaplains" line, I'd really like to see some concrete research on this kind of issue.  For all those military chaplains-in-training (in seminary) out in the U.S. now, do they see themselves as wanting to be soldiers, too?  Since information is so readily available any more they most know that that's inevitable.

***

"Within the military, we sometimes find conflicts about our allegiance.  Our immediate Commander is the focal point for our allegiance...

But what allegiance do we owe to supervisory chaplains who by law have no command authority?...

I feel it is incumbent upon all chaplains to educate Commanders about the necessity for area coverage... While primary allegiance, by law, is directed through the chain of command to the Commander, it is important for us to remember our relationship to supervisory chaplains.  We have a moral if  not a legal obligation to assist/cooprate with supervisory chaplains." (p. 43-44)

From what we've read so far I understood that the Commander, of course, was the primary, boss.  But I thought that the supervisory chaplains had some authority.  We saw already how they go around reviewing and helping with the Character Guidance program especially, which is something the Army wanted, their program.

Now for my Master's Adult Education I did classroom observations analyses of various teaching objects and the classroom itself, as well as interviews and the usual literature review and it was to determine where on a spectrum of communicative language teaching to grammar-translation, and there are all these variables and different issues to consider.  For example, if the teaching is largely communicative, but the final exam is grammar-translation, that tells you something. 

So here you have that kind of on paper, yeah, it's all about the religious stuff of the chaplaincy, but then supervisory chaplains have no authority?  You'd think at the very least they'd have a formal advisory capacity or something.  So then it looks like they aren't really supervisory at all, and it's a misnomer, and they're actually just a resource or something.

***

"Honesty in dealing with Commanders and supervisory chaplains is the only professional way in which to reduce the arise from differing and contrasting allegiances." (p. 45)

This section describes some "office politicking" that I think would mak more sense to those more knowledgeable about the Army chaplaincy, because the author uses single sentences that chaplains might use in their politicking, without otherwise providing a lot of background.  I guess this is the same everywhere, but it doesn't make it right.  I don't know about you, but I can't stand working in such atmospheres.  I'm sure not all bases would be equally bad, though in this, also just like anywhere.

***

"I the system, especially the Initial Entry Training (IET), de-personalizes individuals...

Once the system, through t receptiontion, gets trainees to look alike, the training battalion begins its work to make them act alike. Conformity here becomes the norm-order drill, mar, movement in formati, perform-oriented sk with pucoach methodology.  Closely inter-twi with act-alikesubtle approach towards thinking alike: unanimity, united in opinion.

 And what is the trainees [sic] perception of this process?ear it said: "cares about me; only my attitude and my performance matter!"

This is a stressful time for train.  They have no appreciation of what  this de-personalization process seeks to accomplish.  ts purpose is to surordinate personal interest for the wrlfar group the squad or the platoon, and to  concern for the welfare of others. to create interdependence instead of independence." (p. 45-46)

This section could, at least in part, be an apologetic for why the H.R. department of the Vienna mission was comprised solely of two US military chaplains.  After all, personnel development, including socialization, does fall within the sphere of  an H.R. department does.  And in the unique situation of the Vienna mission, where the missionaries came through other member missions, most of the usual human resources responsibilities would be handled externally, so that left mainly personnel development, and maybe a few other things like scheduling (for vacations and deputation and the like). 

As such, then, it appears that this text may well have  the model they started with for socialization in the Vienna mission.  They would have had to make some modifications, of course, to fit the new context, but I think it's fair to say that the end result may have been more or less what they were looking for  They didn't have a big cohort, so they had to work with individuals, so those are the kinds of changes they had to make.

The thing with me is that they wanted to know if I could "runn with footmen" (Jer. 12:5, the verse the H.R. director gave me before sending me the States for counseling 5 months into my time with the mission), but in the end it became clear that that really was wrong question.  I was able to do just fine "in the thicket of Jordan" (also Jer. 12:5; I did go on trips into East Europe with and I'd been in East Europe before and after that as well), but the real issue was whether could put up with their half-baked  theological logic like the "symbolic" use Jer. 12:5 and their unbiblical practices and unethical ways and their use of worldly methods.  THOSE, were the correct questions that needed to be asked.  And the answer was NO, NO, and NO!

***

"The chaplain must also set a watch, through personal relationships, intententional visitation programs, counseling programs, to insure that de-personalization does not become de-humanizing...

...Richard Neuhaus it this way "Our job is not to make them better soldier; our job is to help them save their souls." Our ministry, accomplished because of our allegiance to the military, must never be mistaken a combat multiplier." (p. 46)

I must admit that Neuhaus' comment is refreshing.  Did Neuhaus go all in for the military training aspect of the chaplaincy?  This is somewhat rhetorical, because I don't know the answer to that question. Looking at the quote I like to think he didn't.  If you really have the vision that he speaks of there I don't think you have to all over in getting caught up in the military think.  I guess the chaplain wouldn't want to be completely ignorant to not understand the concerns, including ethical concerns of his parishioners, but I think you can have a meaningful minstry soldiers with this attitude.

The other thing is raising leaders from within the ranks.  So then, actually, you can have some mature lay leaders in the chapel who could be trained to bring their faith or maybe even some light counseling to their colleagues, so they would be ones, not the chaplain, who is maybe on the front line line  closer to the soldier end of things, because that's their work and that's where they are. 

I agree with Neuhaus that the chaplain should stay as close as possible to his ecclessiastical call, but be able to understand enough of the military issues to be able to understand his parishioners' concerns and be able talk with them in counseling and the like.

There was a saying that we used to have that's not biblical but sort of expresses the idea, and that's that his head shouldn't be so much in heaven that his feet don't touch the ground. He has to be able to talk with his unit members, but I don't think that means actually becoming a soldier.  Maybe I'm mincing my words, maybe it's a fine line, but I think the way I've presented it here is how prefer it.  I think that if the soldiers see that he is raising up "church" leaders from in their ranks, then that's empowering and respectful of them too and they will respect him for that too.  And these leaders will already know how to communicate with their fellow unit members.  Meanwhile, the chaplain can relate to the unit members, and maybe visits them in their various activities and is approachable, etc, but he's more of a chaplain than a soldier and they're not confused as to his identity. 

***

That's all for this article, and I think it's to get the care shop today.  Bummer.  Oh, well.  l'll have to get to it next week.  This is why I don't have a social life.  It really throws me off.  If I had a social life I would have to give this up, most normal (!) people would do that, but I really am committed to seeing this through.

416. Military Chaplaincy, Pt. 34 (Bickley & G'Segner, pt. 1)

This next article is going to be a less involved one.  Some of these in this file, when they get into a lot of theology or philosophy or emotionally-loaded (for me at least) subject area can take a lot of time and I can't deal with that today.  And I have to spread those out a bit because it does take a bit out of me to do those sometimes.  It's almost like reliving a bit of what happened when I was with the mission, especially when I hit upon someting that really validates my experience.

And then I realized this morning that I forgot that needed to portion out my meds and supplements for the week, so I'm scrambling to get that done now on top of the other things I had planned.  Yesterday got a bit messed up by unplanned things, which happens.

So this articles is:

Bickley, Hugh J. & G'Segner, Ford F. (1975, Fall). Games and values clarification: aids in human self-development. Military Chaplains' Review, 43-51.

 ***

"Throughout the last three decades chaplaincy has given serious attention to human self-development.  Though given different names -- Character Guidance, Our Moral Heritage, and the Human Self-De velopment Program -- the intent has been to involve soldiers in a process of moral and ethical self-development." (p. 43)

I just hope that it was a better program of self-development than what the Vienna mission had.  Since the Vienna mission was a total institutions and my experience of it, as explained elsewhere throughout this blog, was not totally unlike how Christians experienced their treatment at the hands of Communists, I'd like to suggest what it might have been like under the Vienna mission total institution:

"The lack of individual responsibility is a product of decades of living under limited freedom. People get used to oppression. This has always happened with totalitarian regimes. I remember, I was greatly surprised to meet people with a similar mentality in East Germany, a country that has always been very different from Russia. This happened during the unification of the East and West Germany. I saw fright in the eyes of the East Germans, the same reaction as I see here in Russia – people do not know what to do. There is a psychological term for this – the acquired helplessness syndrome. The syndrome is usually manifested in social pessimism and lack of self-confidence. The acquired helplessness syndrome is the main feature of Soviet mentality and unfortunately it is prevalent among senior citizens."

This describes the acquired helplessness syndrome of the "Soviet man".  And lest you think I'm over-exaggerating, just remember that the whole time I was with the mission they continually took away one by one a whole chunk of my external supports and relations until I was more and more cornered in and reliant on them... helpless, if you please.

Fortunately for me, however, I had an easier way out than the hapless Soviet citizens and my commitment to the mission was limited to 2 years of my life so that there remained a remnant of my former self that wasn't helpless and I did retain some external connections that helped me buoy above the tragedy and find a way to rise again.  But I could very easily have vanished only to have never been heard of again... a mere shell of my former self, broken by the mission and it's treatment of me.  And no one would have ever believed me that it was their fault at all; they would have assumed I was just emotionally weak.

Actually, though, I think the opposite is true and it was amazing that I was able to do what I did because no one ever was able to do what I did, and that alone is testament enough to the strength of my character.  Everyone else was to weak or scared or didn't have enough knowledge early on, which is when it would have been needed, to even attempt what I did.  So, yes, on one level I was weak, but on another level I was incredibly strong and clever and did what no one else was able to do.

***

"Educational journals, management magazines, adult education reports, continuing education briefs, sociological and psychological articls, and religious writings and books tell us that contemporary persons share the following characteristis.  They (we) are non-authoritarian, dialogical, interdependent, and participative. (p. 44)

Did I tell you that I have an M.A. in Adult Education and 60 credits towards a doctorate in the same and that I've published articles and given numerous conference presentations on adult education related subjects? So I'm sort of in my league here.

The thing is that the Vienna mission knew this stuff as far as how it taught its classes in Eastern Europe; it just sort of forgot it all it seems to me when it came to socialization of new members.  Oh sure, the mentoring process was on the surface like this, but in the end it was not because the mission was a total institution and it was not about dialogue with its members, at least not according to my experience.  Dialogue was not an option.  The only thing it wanted was obedience and childlike submission, like for the Soviet man above.  And better not to ask any questions, of course, because of the security issue.  Security could be an answer to everything, like a broken record.  Like, as soon as you raise your hand in class you don't even have to ask the question, the teacher will just automatically answer, "Security," and move on. So security quelched everything and trumped everything.

But at some point there has to be some accountability and the individual has to be treated like and adult and if there are unethical things going on behind the facade of "security" some members might like to know.

This is true with government, too, right?  Think of Washington, D.C. (my country's capital); there have been times when they classify documents that shouldn't be classified.  These are documents that pose absolutely no security risk to the country at all.  So some media outlet or nonprofit watchdog group gets a whiff of an incidence like this and exposes it and it turns out documents were classified only because they embarrassed the current administration - made them look bad and they didn't want people to know about it.  That's not why documents are supposed to be classified!  And when missionaries come to the Vienna mission and tacitly (or otherwise) agree to suspend judgement for the sake of security, they are most likely thinking of security issues involving logistics and the like.  But if the mission is hiding information like cooperation with a government, that's a whole other ball of wax and some missionaries might not feel so comfortable with that, especially if it's something like the military or CIA or something.  But then by the time they learn of such things they're already in the thick of things, so they really needed to know about this kind of thing up front or earlier on, but that's the psychology of the mission (the leadership) and they understand how that works.  They're not stupid.

So the mission leads a double life, where they know these truths, as given in this text, but they don't really live them internally inside the mission.  So this is a case of "Do as I say, not as I do."

***

"All persons -- young and old -- face some confusions about the important things in their lives.  They are surrounded by a glittering array of choices, like a child at a candy counter.  Youth feel this confusion intensely and reflect it readily.  Older people also tend to be confused; though their confusion is less noticeable, it is not less acute.

In almost every area of human endeavor and involvement one observes values and value conflicts operating:

... Within the milieu of modern living conflicts arise, problems emerbe, and values clash.  Chaplains -- as pastors, teachers, and leaders -- are aware of these conflicts." (p. 45)

Ever since my Vienna mission experience I have been very interested in the ethical issues for Christians in various fields.  Most professional level fields have ethical statements from their professional association they can turn to, but that isn't always adequate for the Christian.

Anyway, it's clear that Christians are going to experience these kinds of conflicts because the world's values don't mesh with the Bible's instructions for us.  So we should be masters of dealing with conflict and be able to readily recognize conflict, but we can't always, or for some reason we might be able to recognize it but we don't respond as we should.   It's not easy being the minority and standing out as being different.  I know because I feel like I've spend a lot of my life in that position, although it wasn't always that way.  The Vienna mission changed that, because after that I began taking stands that weren't even popular in Christian circles.  I've already paid a heavy price for taking stands for what I believe in, and while I didn't really necessarily want to, I felt I had to because there was no way I could give in in those situations.  So now I'm less willing to just go along with the flow if I really don't agree with something or think something is wrong enough to not be able to go along with it.

***

Next the author suggests 4 ways the chaplain can "provide guidance in values training:

1. MORALIZING: This direct approach assumes that the chaplain's experiences and resulting values system is right for those whom he teaches... moralizing usually influences only one's vocabulary and little else.

2. A LAISSEZ-FAIRE ATTITUDE: This approach says, "Think and do and be the way you want, and in the long run, everything will turn out okay."... In daily life... everything does not "turn out okay," regardless of the values one cherishes.

3. MODELING: ...The multiplication of models make it difficult, if not impossible, for one to know which is right for him or her.

4. VALUES CLARIFICATION: This is a process which allows persons to bild and to discover their own values systems... To use values clarification exercises, however, it is essential to recognize that process is far more important than content." (p. 45-46)

The thing here is that the values were taught especially during the socialization process at the Vienna mission, rather than in the seminary classes.  As I've said before, although it bears repeating here, socialization was a very individualistic affair in the mission for several reasons, I think.  For one thing, new missionaries came trickling in so you couldn't really have classes of cohorts training.  Also, the positions varied as did the personals and the issues they might have needed focusing on.  I think it may also have depending on who was doing the socializaing, because different socializers might have been more or less comfortable with different tactics of socilalization. So I'm going to go through these discussing them as things that might have been used with some people (or not).

Moralizing.  I think this was used some, but probably mostly in the guise of sharing one's testimony to the effect of "This worked for me, you should try it too."

Laissez-Faire.  I think this only would have been used if the mission wanted to watch the individual, but I think it would have been the rarest of them all, because the mission was basically more controlling.

Modeling.  They did use mentoring, probably pretty much across the board with most if not all new missionaries, so part of the mentoring process would have included modeling.  But I don't think that modeling would have been used as a stand alone method apart from mentoring.  However, the new missionary would have been watching to learn from others, but a lot of times the one they were watching might have been unaware that they were modeling.

Values Clarification.  I think this happened, but only by those who were well able to explain clearly what the mission's values were, so that would have been limited to just a select few members of the mission, very likely not the mentor of the mission.  If a person had to have a serious sit-down values clarification, I expect by that point that something seriously was wrong and the person might be in trouble, like I was.

***

"Values clarification exercises, whatever their form, are essentially connected to this process of valuing: choosing, prizing, and acting." (p. 47)

The Vienna mission uses a variety of means to try to make new missionaries choose their values, the values that don't show up on their annual report, in their brochures, etc.  The values that have to do with security and whatever else lies behind that veil of secrecy.  In fact, I learned that they'll pretty much do whatever they have to to get you to choose their values (and norms), such as:

1. trying to lure you in with their love and familial acceptance
2. threats of going crazy (backed by stressors, sending you for counseling, etc.), which I think is a kind of use of force
3. humiliation, such as demotions and shunning
4. cutting off outside relations 
5. etc.

I'm not sure what they'll do to make you prize it, because I never got that far.  Prizing it, I think might include actually internalizing it.  I think you can choose it, but not really internalize it, but I can't imagine prizing it and not at the same time also inernalizing it.  The mission wanted it's values and norms internalized, so it would have not been satisfied with just choosing.

***

So that's the end of that article.