Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Charlotte Oliver | DAEGU, KOREA (March 21, 2018) - Chaplain (Maj. Gen.) Dondi Costin, the U.S. Air Force...... read more read more
Chaplain (Maj. Gen.) Dondi Costin, the U.S. Air Force Chief of Chaplains, and more than a dozen Air Force chaplains and chaplain assistants from U.S. Pacific Air Forces spent time with U.S. Airmen and their South Korean counterparts in a weeklong long visit to Daegu Korea.
The chaplains and their assistants worked with Republic of Korea (ROK) Air Force chaplains to build not only the resiliency of their forces but build upon their alliance and friendships.
The chaplains shared ideas and experiences from both on and off the battlefield about how to better assist U.S. and South Korean forces maintain not only their spiritual fitness, but also their mental fitness and physical fitness.
“We’re here to help Airmen, help Soldiers, Sailors and Marines – our warfighters – and their families to get the job done,” said Costin. “The chaplain’s job is to walk alongside with the chaplain’s assistant, walk alongside the warfighters and their family members through good times and bad times. We’re there for every Airman, whether a person is a person of faith or of no faith, the chaplain corps is there for them.”
The U.S. chaplain corps and the ROK chaplains compared experiences and teachings across an array of faiths on how they, as chaplains and chaplain assistants can better serve their service members, whether they are religious or not.
“The position of a chaplain is one that builds on spiritual resiliency,” said Chaplain (Lt. Col.) David Sarmiento, from the 163d Attack Wing, California Air National Guard. “We’re able to be the sounding block for the Airmen because we have absolute confidentiality. We’re there to serve in any way possible to encourage them, to look out for them emotionally, physically and most importantly spiritually.”
The main topic was how to maintain and improve the resiliency of our forces. Costin said that many Airmen may feel that the word resiliency eludes to another program that the Air Force offers and will tune it out, but what he and the chaplain corps are striving for is to get Airmen and other warfighters to not think of it as a program but as a normal lifestyle.
“People talk about resiliency as being the ability to bounce back,” said Costin. “We know from human experience that difficulties are going to come, we know that we’re all going to have trouble, and the question is are we going to be prepared when these troubles come?”
| Date Taken: | 03.21.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 04.24.2018 22:10 |
| Story ID: | 274344 |
| Location: | DAEGU GWANG'YEOGSI [TAEGU-KWANGYOKSHI], KR |
| Web Views: | 277 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Bringing Faith to the Fight: Air Force Chief of Chaplains Visits South Korea, by PO1 Charlotte Oliver, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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