Related links:

• Richard Stewart on listening to war news
• John Hugus '78 ministers to soldiers in transit (external link)

Wandering in the Iraq wilderness:
An alum and chaplain’s Iraq experience

Michael Lozano with Professor Richard Stewart during a recent convocation about media coverage of Iraq: "My seminary education absolutely prepared me for my experience in Iraq."

PHILADELPHIA (March 9, 2004) -- "I found the scriptural texts preached themselves," Military Police Chaplain Michael Lozano, ’92 recalls. "The soldiers I served with in Iraq didn’t need to have it explained to them what it is like to wander in the wilderness or to experience nights lived in utter darkness." Prayer was a familiar discipline. The soldiers felt at times like they were in exile.

Lozano was recalling the intense images of months serving in the fast-paced, intensely serious and dangerous world of Iraq – the war and its aftermath. He knew the endless dust of the Fertile Crescent and the "Land of Abraham, but I never got to see Ur." Lozano was very busy.

"I can tell you that the adage is true that there are no atheists in foxholes," he said. Lozano brought about 100 Bibles, and also rosaries, prayer cards and beaded crosses with him to Iraq. The whole lot was quickly claimed. And the military police specialists he served as part of the 324^th Military Police Battalion had heavy-duty questions.

"What happens when I kill someone?" was one of the queries most often asked by the soldiers. "They were concerned about breaking the commandment not to kill," Lozano says. "I told them that what they were doing was not murder. It was not premeditated. They were doing it to defend themselves. But at the same time I told them they would have absolution, but they shouldn't take their actions lightly."

Lozano said soldiers he came to know in Iraq "were completely changed by their experience. They came to know they cannot take for granted what they have."

Lozano was serving with soldiers he had come to know on Army Rreserve duty in Chambersburg, PA since 1996. He is the pastor of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mt. Holly Springs, PA, a parish with about 150 members. In Iraq his immediate unit involved 120 soldiers, but he actually served about 400 men and women from time to time in the region. The Military Police Battalion was responsible for guarding hundreds of prisoners of war. They were involved in other kinds of soldiering duties too – searches of buildings, patrolling streets, overseeing checkpoints, re-establishing the authority of local civil police. The soldiers also supervised activity in a camp housing more than 3,000 dissident Iranians. After receiving training stateside, he arrived in Kuwait April 23, 2003 and the unit began its work in Iraq 17 days later.

What surprised Lozano most about the demands of being a chaplain was the amount of counseling required when soldiers learned of injuries or illness involving loved ones at home "usually two or three times a day," he says. Sometimes Lozano was an intercessor, advocating for soldiers who needed to leave Iraq to go home to deal with a family crisis. He also needed to deal with combat stress, and there was always a special combat stress team nearby to assist. Lozano felt fulfilled serving the Army Reserve colleagues he had known at home for years when all of them shipped out to Iraq. And thankfully, none of his soldier colleagues was killed during the tour.

Michael Lozano first thought about becoming a military chaplain while a student at LTSP. "I was watching television in the Pit (student lounge in the Old Dorm) during Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama. They were interviewing soldiers." He decided he needed to be involved in this kind of ministry. He served an internship year in the Bronx at St. John Lutheran Church, then during the summer received training at Fort Hood, TX. While serving in Mt. Holly Springs during September 11, the Army Reserve Unit he served was placed on active status and heightened alert. The unit guarded sensitive sites in the region. Lozano’s brother had served in the first Gulf War. Beginning November of 2002 Lozano and his Army Reserve colleagues realized they could be called to active duty momentarily. That mobilization took place in February 2003, followed by another round of training. Lozano served in Iraq from May until December. He was home in time for Christmas.

Toward the end of the Iraq tour, Lozano and his colleagues were able to take part in humanitarian relief work, distributing clothing, school supplies and other goods sent to the struggling nation by U.S. donors. "I got to see the other side of the story of that stateside generosity – from the receiving end as we helped to distribute so many gifts."

What’s it been like to be back home? "In some ways even the more important times seem trivial at home now," he says. "I find I have to struggle with my own patience when much is made of matters that seem inconsequential by comparison," Lozano said. "I spend less time wrestling with a decision about where to go out to eat. I don’t like to dilly dally."

And he has a message for LTSP scholars. "Don’t take your educational experience and opportunity at this seminary lightly," he says. "My education in Philadelphia absolutely prepared me for what I went through."