| Rabbi Jon Cutler thought his
one tour of duty in the sweltering Persian Gulf would sum
up his war-zone career.
But 16 years after returning home from Operation
Desert Storm, he will again be returning to the Middle East
to serve as a Jewish chaplain.
"I never thought I would go back again,"
said the 51-year-old commander with the Navy Reserves. "You
read about people going to war, and they only go once in a
lifetime. I had no idea that I would be going twice."
Cutler, the head rabbi at Conkgregation Tiferes
B'nai Israel in Warrington, said his goodbyes during Shabbat
services last Saturday.
His first stop will be at Camp Pendleton,
a Marine Corps base in Southern California in late November;
from there, he'll go to Al Asad Air Base just north of Baghdad
about two or three weeks later.
He doesn't plan to return home for good until
March 2009.
Cutler reported that of the 170,000 American
troops now serving in Iraq, about .5 percent -- or about 850
-- are Jews. While he plans to offer comfort and guidance
to soldiers and sailors of all faiths, he said that his dealings
with such a minute number of Jewish servicemen and women should
lead to very personal relationships.
As he said: "There's a tremendous amount
of isolation for Jews. They're in a Muslim country, among
all Christians, so they're really feeling isolated. Who can
they really relate to? So when a rabbi comes along, they say,
'This is one of mine.' There's a real camaraderie."
'Human Dignity'
Cutler -- whose deployment is mandatory, not
voluntary -- will serve as the only full-time Jewish chaplain
for the Navy and the Marines in Iraq, he said.
While deployed, his primary task will be to
pray with dying or wounded, and help mourn with those who
have lost a comrade and friend. With such daunting tasks ahead
of him, Cutler sites teamwork with chaplains of other faiths
as a key component for getting through tough situations.
"No matter what your theological differences,
we all pull together because what we really understand is
human dignity."
Cutler has a good idea of what he'll be facing
come December. During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, he spent
four months in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
"I know what the environment is like.
The problem is that I was there before, so I know what it's
like, and it's pretty miserable," he noted.
To promote a sense of Jewish normalcy at his
base during Desert Storm, he created an actual Passover seder
complete with matzah and wine -- never mind that it was raining
oil instead of hail.
"This is like the closest thing to the
plague and the real Passover seder because here we are, Jews,
eating matzah in the desert with three of the 10 plagues impacting
us -- flies, darkness and oil."
Besides the Gulf war, the 22-year veteran
of the Navy Reserves has been deployed in Japan and the Philippines.
He also served as a grief counselor after the terrorist attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001.
But this time around, the war in Iraq has
proven much more deadly. His main security concern, he said,
is traveling from base to base in convoys, which are susceptible
to Improvised Explosive Devices, more commonly known as IEDs.
"That's what scares me the most -- the
traveling," he admitted, "because that's where you're
most vulnerable."
At the Al Asad base, Cutler plans to run regular
Shabbat services Friday nights and Saturday mornings, as well
as provide study sessions upon request, to make sure there
is a consistent Jewish presence where none may have existed
before.
"I'm going to offer the normalcy
and stability," he insisted, "that others are getting."
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