Male Chaplains and Female Soldiers: Are There Gender and Denominational Differences in Military Pastoral Care?

In this study, 15 United States Army chaplain men described the practices they engaged in when providing pastoral support to women soldiers. Many engaged in creating safe spaces for women and themselves, particularly in regard to avoiding perceptions of impropriety. Other clergy did not consider gender a factor in counseling. Some chaplains placed limitations on the amount of support they would give. This study did not determine the degree to which chaplain men were effective.

GIs and the Kids of Korea

This chapter centers upon the US military in Korea between 1945 and 1953. While Koreans experienced war violence firsthand, American and international audiences grew increasingly aware of and concerned about the devastation wrought by the US military as the war raged on. It was in this context that US military officials actively paired US servicemen with Korean orphans to help narrate the unpopular war. This chapter demonstrates how the American soldier was transformed from the bringer of bombs to the rescuer of children. Using US military records, army chaplain logs, Department of Defense raw footage, newsreels, photographs from popular US magazines, as well as US and Korean newspapers, this chapter traces how violent soldiers were transformed into caring fathers. Mandated by the US military and perpetuated through media, these relationships helped to recoup the losses of war and deflect international accusations of US imperialism, while drawing Americans together with Koreans in intimate ways. The chapter closes with a look at the symbolic purposes of these actions, goals made clear by military officials who blocked Korean houseboys from living in the barracks and stopped servicemen from formally adopting Korean children, intimacies that exceeded the intentions of these rescue narratives.