April 3, 2009

CHICAGO – As a military chaplain, the Rev. Clint A. Pickett's role is to embody God's love at a site that once symbolized America's post-9/11 global war on terrorism.

Pickett serves with the Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, the military unit charged with interrogation and oversight of prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq wars brought to the U.S. Naval Base in southeastern Cuba.

"It is clearly a unique mission here at Guantanamo, a part of history," said Pickett, 54, Groton, Conn., a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

The base, nicknamed "Gitmo," is more than 100 years old and occupies a 45-mile stretch along Guantanamo Bay. Explorer Christopher Columbus claimed the land for Spain in 1494 during his second voyage to the "New World."

Pickett arrived last summer – long after the prison camps became an international controversy, and only a few months before President Barack Obama ordered them shut down by mid-January, 2010. The Naval base will remain open.

"The plan to close the detainee facility does not impact my ministry in any substantive way," said Pickett, who expects his tour of duty in Cuba to end soon.

"As military personnel, we're not Republican, we're not Democrat," he said. "We follow the orders of whoever is in charge. The sense of commitment here is to our country."

The 4.7-million-member ELCA, the nation's largest Lutheran denomination, endorses military chaplains through its Bureau for Federal Chaplaincy Ministries, Washington, D.C. Roughly 220 pastors serve, the bureau said.

"Military ministry is pastoral ministry on steroids," said the Rev. Darrell D. Morton, who heads the ELCA bureau. "These chaplains are providing Word and Sacrament ministry at all hours and in the most unlikely settings."

Pickett ministers to military and civilian personnel serving the prison camps. Other chaplains assist the estimated 240 detainees on site. More than 800 detainees have been through the camps, according to the Pentagon.

"What I've seen and experienced here is a pride for folks doing their jobs 10 to 12 hours a day," he said. "The majority of those I serve do not look at me as a Lutheran necessarily, but simply as their chaplain."

Pickett became a U.S. Navy chaplain in 1996. He'd previously served the U.S. Air Force for several years as a civil engineer.

"Being a chaplain gives one so many opportunities to touch people's lives," he said. "Relationship and family issues are common themes, as in any family, but accentuated by the separation of deployments."

About 2,000 military personnel from the five military branches are on the task force overseeing the prisons, the military said.

"We are truly a joint mission here, with Navy, Marines, Army, Air Force and Coast Guard, in addition to a number of different government agencies," said Pickett, one of three task force chaplains.

"Speaking for the Joint Task Force portion of the mission down here, I pray for the troopers who do a phenomenal job caring for the detainees," Pickett said, "and endure abuse from the detainees in an extremely professional manner on a daily basis."

Detainees, human rights groups and FBI reports alleged that some past prisoners were tortured. The claim was disputed by the Bush administration, which classified the detainees as "enemy combatants." The status denied them prisoner of war protections outlined in the Geneva Conventions.

Obama reversed the policies, saying the detainees deserve due process and humane treatment.

"Our mission here is to provide safe, humane, transparent care for the detainees," Pickett said. "That mission will continue until the last detainee leaves."

More information on ELCA military chaplaincy is at http://tinyurl.com/ckyys3/. on the Web.

President Obama's order to close the Gitmo prison camps is at http://tinyurl.com/ceh2ay/, on the Web.

Information about the Joint Task Force – Guantanamo is at http://www.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil/about.html, on the Web.

ELCA News Service