Fort Jackson, SC (WLTX) -- While there isn't a seaport for 100 miles, you could almost smell the salt air at Fort Jackson Friday morning.
Realignment under BRAC in 2005 brought the Naval Chaplain School here from Rhode Island last year, and Friday was their first graduation since the move.
Lieutenant Commander Bruce Crouterfield came along to train the future chaplains.
"There were ships and boats, and we were surrounded by water up there," he said, "It was very Navy, but our plan now that we've been reassigned is to bring the Navy here."
The move worked for graduate Jeremy McIntyre, the only Columbia resident out of the class of 29.
"The rest of the class had to stay in housing here on the base, I got to go home to my bed every night."
Now, a Navy Chaplain, McIntyre and the rest of the graduates will serve the spiritual needs of troops.
"We're taking these troops away from their homes, away from their families and putting them in unfamiliar conditions, often in combat," Crouterfield said.
"Those spiritual needs are magnified 1000 times."
"We get to be there during the most difficult time of their lives," McIntyre said. "We're their support."
It's a task McIntyre says he's been waiting for since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. That day he was serving as a sailor aboard the U.S.S Enterprise.
"At that point, I almost felt a tap on the shoulder when I saw what the chaplains were doing for the crew that said I needed to do that as well."
And while the graduates celebrate for now, Crouterfield says it won't last long. Soon, each of them will be assigned, and he says by the very nature of it, times will be tough.
"In any crisis situation people begin to question a lot of things," he said. "They question their faith, the nature of God, and the chaplain comes in and helps make sense of that."
McIntyre says it's an idea that rises above Army green and Navy blue.
"I get to serve God and my country," he said.
"I remind the troops that they are cared for and they are loved."
11/6/2009 7:51:58 PM
