| Chaplain speaks out about experiences in nameless desert By Kathy GilbertUnited Methodist News Service  When there is a war, God doesnt sit on the sidelines, says Chaplain Daniel Nigolian.
God sends in the chaplains. From Jan. 19 to May 21, Lt. Colonel Nigolian was in an undisclosed location, in a nameless desert, someplace on Gods Earth. As a Wing Chaplain of the 78th Air Base Wing, Robbins Air Force Base in Warner Robbins, Ga., he was answering his countrys call to service. The church cannot be absent from those critical places in a kids life. I mean, whats more critical than going to war? The church needed to be there, and there we were, he said.  Nigolian and his wife Kathy recently attended a United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry spiritual retreat in Nashville, Tenn. He spoke to United Methodist News Service about his time as senior installation chaplain with an Air Force Special Operations team on a classified mission.
Ministry to Special Operations people must be flexible, he said, because they cant talk about what they do, they often work late at night, and their mission is always dangerous. They come back with some pretty heavy burdens. It was Nigolians job to provide for the religious needs of anyone on the mission. At its peak, that included about 6,700 people from all the major services and from several coalition nations, he said. Our job was to allow religious accommodation for all those people, regardless of where they came from, their worship style, whatever. When we first landed there were about 16 tents. By the time we left there were 600. Nigolian has great admiration for the job your sons, your daughters, your nieces and nephews are doing. I saw people do things that would be totally unlike the behavior of a 19-, 20-, 21-year-old here in the States. I would walk into the chow tent, for example, and easily two-thirds of the kids were praying before they ate, and you dont normally see that in a restaurant in the States. Nigolian says the Air Force does an outstanding job of training these men and women and when they get into a combat situation they bond quickly and their maturity level goes up. It takes a lot of maturity to face Iraqi soldiers who come out holding women in front of them, shooting at you, around the women, he says. What ... does the typical 19-, 20-, 21-year-old kid do? Well, in this case, they possess themselves and they turn around and walk away. That was a no-win situation. They werent going to kill the innocent. They were taking fire; they were certainly protecting themselves, but they withdrew. Gain the objective another way. Beside the stress of being in a country where Americans were not supposed to be, doing missions they cannot talk about, these young people were also missing births of their children, anniversaries and serious illnesses in their families from literally multiple thousands of miles away. At 53, Nigolian says he is not sure he would have the energy to go into combat again. But, when people are a long way from home, sleeping on cots in tents without any of the comforts of home, they need to know God is still God, he says. Theyll look over at you and say, Chaplain, how about a prayer? And thats the reason for us to be there. | 
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