Tag Archives: saint michael

Chaplains Lead Paratroop Jump: All Things Through Christ

An official Army article describes a fascinating tradition of the Army honoring the patron saint of paratroopers, Saint Michael, with a parajump training event:

The Saint Michael’s Jump is meant to celebrate the airborne community’s patron saint and promote spiritual resiliency across the Division.

Perhaps most interesting is the fact the jump is explicitly a chaplain’s event:

[T]he Saint Michael’s Jump is significant in several ways, starting with the way a paratrooper qualifies to get on the jump.

“You have to go through a spiritual training event with Read more

US Army Colonel Selects Unit’s New Patron Saint

US Army Col Phil Deppert, commandant of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA, recently selected St Jerome as the patron saint for military linguists:

The tradition of patron saints as guardians over areas of life, to include occupations, dates back to as early as the fourth century. Linguists now join with other military career fields who have followed in this tradition. St. Michael, paratroopers, and St. Barbara, field artillery, are examples of military occupations that have previously inducted a patron saint.

In an indicator of the times, the DLI Chaplain (Maj) Chan-young Ham said they went out of their way to say they weren’t trying to endorse Christianity:  Read more

US Veterans Join Christian Militias in Fight against ISIS

While there has been plenty of coverage on foreigners leaving their home countries to join ISIS, somewhat less talked about has been those who have traveled to the region to join the fight against ISIS — some for religious reasons, some for reasons of simple justice, and some probably for their own reasons:

Saint Michael, the archangel of battle, is tattooed across the back of a U.S. army veteran who recently returned to Iraq and joined a Christian militia fighting Islamic State in what he sees as a biblical war between good and evil.

Brett, 28, carries the same thumb-worn pocket Bible he did whilst deployed to Iraq in 2006 – a picture of the Virgin Mary tucked inside its pages and his favourite verses highlighted.

“It’s very different,” he said, asked how the experiences compared. “Here I’m fighting for a people and for a faith, and the enemy is much bigger and more brutal.”

Further:

Matthew VanDyke says he is “stepping in where the international community failed.”

In a post on Twitter Thursday, the American said he has spent the last two months “helping to raise a Christian army” in Iraq to fight the Islamic State group.

“The international community does very little for Christians in the Middle East, so if they’re not going to do it, we’ll do it.”

FoxNews even led with a headline of “Onward Christian Soldiers” for a time.

The situation is probably Read more