WEBVTT 00:02.790 --> 00:04.470 - I'm Chaplain Andrew Brennan, 00:04.470 --> 00:07.410 Lieutenant Colonel with Task Force center West. 00:07.410 --> 00:08.630 Our primary jobs are, 00:08.630 --> 00:11.430 to perform and provide spiritual support 00:11.430 --> 00:14.400 and religious support for our service members. 00:14.400 --> 00:17.580 And so, that can include things like worship services, 00:17.580 --> 00:19.960 and prayer times, devotional times. 00:19.960 --> 00:22.650 It also includes a lot of pastoral care and counseling. 00:22.650 --> 00:27.034 And so, like a clinician or a psychiatrist or counselor, 00:27.034 --> 00:29.590 that does counseling with soldiers and service members, 00:29.590 --> 00:30.423 we do that as well. 00:30.423 --> 00:32.080 But we do it from a spiritual perspective. 00:32.080 --> 00:33.730 And so we look at issues that, 00:33.730 --> 00:35.680 that might concern people on their religious side 00:35.680 --> 00:36.740 or spiritual side. 00:36.740 --> 00:39.200 And then offer them pastoral care and counseling, 00:39.200 --> 00:42.000 to support them through difficult times. 00:42.000 --> 00:43.750 The religious support here is a bit different, 00:43.750 --> 00:45.260 than it would be in garrison, 00:45.260 --> 00:46.210 or for someone like me, 00:46.210 --> 00:47.480 that's in a National Guard unit 00:47.480 --> 00:48.754 with our home unit. 00:48.754 --> 00:51.820 There it's a lot more kind of religious programming, 00:51.820 --> 00:53.270 for larger groups. 00:53.270 --> 00:55.620 Here, the chaplains and the Religious Affairs specialists, 00:55.620 --> 00:57.010 are working with smaller groups, 00:57.010 --> 00:59.470 of very specialized medical personnel. 00:59.470 --> 01:00.786 And so our medical personnel, 01:00.786 --> 01:05.140 are here to help support the civilian medical providers. 01:05.140 --> 01:06.930 And they can be experiencing some tough stuff 01:06.930 --> 01:08.070 in the hospitals. 01:08.070 --> 01:10.640 Seeing the suffering of their fellow Americans, 01:10.640 --> 01:11.950 in a very difficult time. 01:11.950 --> 01:14.400 And so, our primary role here is, 01:14.400 --> 01:16.760 while we still offer religious services, 01:16.760 --> 01:18.580 devotional services, that sort of thing, 01:18.580 --> 01:20.880 it's also really helped to protect, 01:20.880 --> 01:23.300 the resiliency of those medical providers, 01:23.300 --> 01:24.760 and military medical providers, 01:24.760 --> 01:26.700 that are working in the civilian hospitals. 01:26.700 --> 01:28.880 And so we're focusing on, 01:28.880 --> 01:30.130 resiliency activities, 01:30.130 --> 01:31.870 making sure that people stay connected, 01:31.870 --> 01:33.520 so that when they have downtime, 01:33.520 --> 01:36.210 they can kind of decompress and connect 01:36.210 --> 01:37.820 with their fellow service members. 01:37.820 --> 01:39.570 Or just have time away if they need that. 01:39.570 --> 01:43.250 And so, shifting from just religious services, 01:43.250 --> 01:44.810 which is a big thing that we still do, 01:44.810 --> 01:47.660 but also helping to come up with resiliency type activities, 01:47.660 --> 01:49.150 for people to stay connected, 01:49.150 --> 01:50.167 and stay, 01:50.167 --> 01:51.673 get their morale high. 01:53.370 --> 01:54.560 You know, in some ways, 01:54.560 --> 01:55.780 there's interesting parallels, 01:55.780 --> 01:58.580 between this time in service, 01:58.580 --> 02:02.460 and when I was a young Captain chaplain, and, 02:02.460 --> 02:04.737 you know, deployed to Afghanistan. 02:04.737 --> 02:06.450 There, we were dealing with people 02:06.450 --> 02:07.920 in very difficult situations, 02:07.920 --> 02:09.080 obviously in a combat zone, 02:09.080 --> 02:10.860 and so very different, 02:10.860 --> 02:13.410 and yet trying to be there for folks, 02:13.410 --> 02:15.540 when they're facing very difficult times. 02:15.540 --> 02:17.110 And so, in Afghanistan, 02:17.110 --> 02:18.940 the difficult times were, 02:18.940 --> 02:21.819 potentially the loss of a fellow service member. 02:21.819 --> 02:24.040 Intended to offer comfort and pastoral care, 02:24.040 --> 02:25.490 in the midst of those times. 02:25.490 --> 02:28.080 And so a lot of the same skills transfer over now, 02:28.080 --> 02:30.440 to just caring for the providers 02:30.440 --> 02:32.860 as they've potentially experienced the loss 02:32.860 --> 02:34.320 of their fellow countrymen. 02:34.320 --> 02:37.920 And so, I think a lot of that stuff transfers over. 02:37.920 --> 02:39.840 It was interesting when we're deployed overseas, 02:39.840 --> 02:41.810 we travel around a lot. 02:41.810 --> 02:44.240 And usually, in the army side, 02:44.240 --> 02:46.910 a chaplain might be ministering to an entire battalion. 02:46.910 --> 02:49.680 So we might have 400 to 700 soldiers, 02:49.680 --> 02:51.860 that we're taking care of all throughout the area 02:51.860 --> 02:53.300 that we're operating in. 02:53.300 --> 02:55.230 Here, we've been fortunate to be able 02:55.230 --> 02:58.340 to have religious support teams connected with one 02:58.340 --> 02:59.850 or two hospitals oftentimes. 02:59.850 --> 03:02.370 And so we're able to embed more, 03:02.370 --> 03:04.150 with the DOD medical providers, 03:04.150 --> 03:06.370 to get to know them maybe a little bit more, 03:06.370 --> 03:07.550 than we would on a deployment, 03:07.550 --> 03:08.912 where we're trying to support, 03:08.912 --> 03:11.070 maybe seven, 800 soldiers. 03:11.070 --> 03:12.673 And so that's been a nice change here. 03:12.673 --> 03:13.700 It's a smaller group, 03:13.700 --> 03:15.350 that we're providing support for. 03:16.810 --> 03:17.880 So we started in Michigan. 03:17.880 --> 03:21.530 And we were fortunate in some sense, 03:21.530 --> 03:22.990 that we were working directly 03:22.990 --> 03:25.400 with our own Task Force Staff. 03:25.400 --> 03:28.260 And so we were able to offer more direct support to them. 03:28.260 --> 03:31.630 But what we sought for religious support across the country, 03:31.630 --> 03:33.410 through the chaplaincy is that, 03:33.410 --> 03:36.740 that most chaplains ended up having to provide support 03:36.740 --> 03:37.670 through virtual means. 03:37.670 --> 03:40.160 And so that really pushed the chaplain corps, 03:40.160 --> 03:43.640 to like everybody else to utilize technology, 03:43.640 --> 03:45.900 in order to provide worship services, 03:45.900 --> 03:49.320 but also to provide even pastoral care. 03:49.320 --> 03:53.020 And so just like various folks throughout the country, 03:53.020 --> 03:55.150 have had to adapt their work practices, 03:55.150 --> 03:56.040 to an environment, 03:56.040 --> 03:58.610 where everyone's trying to maintain social distancing. 03:58.610 --> 04:00.130 The chaplain called to do the same thing. 04:00.130 --> 04:03.410 And so we saw all sorts of interesting innovation, 04:03.410 --> 04:05.880 where chaplains were putting their messages online, 04:05.880 --> 04:08.455 but then also doing more person to person, 04:08.455 --> 04:11.636 chaplain to service member counseling, 04:11.636 --> 04:12.690 through virtual means. 04:12.690 --> 04:14.330 And so we saw a big push early on, 04:14.330 --> 04:16.440 kind of in March, April timeframe, 04:16.440 --> 04:18.270 for developing virtual services. 04:18.270 --> 04:19.810 And now, you know, 04:19.810 --> 04:21.860 as the as the missions kind of changed, 04:21.860 --> 04:23.770 we're once again able to work more directly 04:23.770 --> 04:24.960 with the providers, obviously, 04:24.960 --> 04:28.280 with the appropriate PPE, that sort of thing on. 04:28.280 --> 04:30.220 But now that we're working with smaller teams, 04:30.220 --> 04:31.053 who were again, 04:31.053 --> 04:33.470 able to do a little bit more in person ministry 04:33.470 --> 04:34.330 than we would have been doing, 04:34.330 --> 04:38.100 back in the kind of March, April, May timeframe. 04:38.100 --> 04:40.300 And so that's been a nice transition for us. 04:41.737 --> 04:42.840 I know from my own perspective, 04:42.840 --> 04:46.320 the thing that's been so exciting for me to see. 04:46.320 --> 04:48.596 When I first got to Texas, 04:48.596 --> 04:50.270 you know, I have a little bit of rank. 04:50.270 --> 04:51.103 I'm a Lieutenant Colonel. 04:51.103 --> 04:53.210 So I was working at a task force, 04:53.210 --> 04:55.300 kind of at a command level, 04:55.300 --> 04:56.360 working more directly, 04:56.360 --> 04:58.780 with administrative and planning sorts of things. 04:58.780 --> 05:02.120 And so that brings it's own joys and challenges. 05:02.120 --> 05:04.540 But because of some, 05:04.540 --> 05:05.373 you know, 05:05.373 --> 05:07.390 some shortfalls with the religious support staffing, 05:07.390 --> 05:10.030 I was able to come out to the field, 05:10.030 --> 05:10.863 if you will, 05:10.863 --> 05:12.130 to help support a couple of hospitals 05:12.130 --> 05:13.540 about two weeks ago. 05:13.540 --> 05:15.483 And it was, 05:16.320 --> 05:18.600 it was good to come into this environment, 05:18.600 --> 05:20.480 and see the degree to which the teams, 05:20.480 --> 05:23.010 had already started to really care for, 05:23.010 --> 05:24.340 and support one another. 05:24.340 --> 05:25.700 That it didn't necessarily, 05:25.700 --> 05:26.760 even though that kind 05:26.760 --> 05:29.185 of professional help is greatly appreciated. 05:29.185 --> 05:31.330 They certainly appreciate the support, 05:31.330 --> 05:32.590 from the religious support team, 05:32.590 --> 05:34.100 from the behavioral health folks. 05:34.100 --> 05:36.420 And I think that that's been a great addition 05:36.420 --> 05:37.260 to the teams out here, 05:37.260 --> 05:38.775 and has really allowed them to focus, 05:38.775 --> 05:42.010 on their mission without having to worry 05:42.010 --> 05:43.090 so much about making sure, 05:43.090 --> 05:44.270 that their own behavioral health 05:44.270 --> 05:45.900 and spiritual care is taken care of. 05:45.900 --> 05:47.470 What I was encouraged to see was the degree 05:47.470 --> 05:49.970 to which they were caring for one another as well. 05:51.190 --> 05:52.402 It means a lot to me. 05:52.402 --> 05:55.080 For we've been an order since March, 05:55.080 --> 05:58.870 and because I met a task force, 05:58.870 --> 05:59.720 that had a 05:59.720 --> 06:01.783 two star Command headquarters. 06:01.783 --> 06:04.870 So much of the work that I had been doing, 06:04.870 --> 06:06.530 was, you know, taking care, 06:06.530 --> 06:08.260 of the the religious needs of the folks, 06:08.260 --> 06:09.093 that I was serving directly 06:09.093 --> 06:10.810 within our task force. 06:10.810 --> 06:13.870 But a lot of the work in the field, 06:13.870 --> 06:16.820 was being done by the kind of battalion level chaplains, 06:16.820 --> 06:17.653 that sort of thing. 06:17.653 --> 06:19.740 And so just have the opportunity to get out, 06:19.740 --> 06:23.500 and see firsthand for an extended period of time, 06:23.500 --> 06:24.450 that's just a quick visit. 06:24.450 --> 06:27.636 But to actually be embedded with the the providers, 06:27.636 --> 06:30.310 the medical staff, the DOD medical staff, 06:30.310 --> 06:31.690 that are in the hospitals. 06:31.690 --> 06:32.880 Seeing how they operate, 06:32.880 --> 06:34.020 seeing their professionalism, 06:34.020 --> 06:36.420 seeing their passion for the care 06:36.420 --> 06:37.480 that they're giving. 06:37.480 --> 06:38.780 And just to be a part of that, 06:38.780 --> 06:40.450 to see it firsthand. 06:40.450 --> 06:42.330 It's been a wonderful. 06:42.330 --> 06:44.580 And there's nothing like serving your own people, you know. 06:44.580 --> 06:47.150 So often the military calls us to go abroad, 06:47.150 --> 06:48.665 in the purpose of serving our country. 06:48.665 --> 06:52.170 But to be able to actually serve in uniform, 06:52.170 --> 06:53.003 in our own country, 06:53.003 --> 06:55.310 is a profound thing as well. 06:55.310 --> 06:56.650 And I greatly appreciate it. 06:56.650 --> 06:59.330 And I greatly appreciate the professionalism of the men 06:59.330 --> 07:00.163 and women that I get 07:00.163 --> 07:01.553 to serve with here as well.