Steve Donegan is a retired U.S. Army warrant officer. He joined the Army and made this prophetic statement during his initial training: The Army will either make me an alcoholic or a Christian. Luckily, he chose the latter. His Army career took him into many locations in Europe, to Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and around the United States. In each location he served as a teacher at many levels, counselors in many presidencies, and a student at the feet of many who knew/know more than him. His Eternal Companion has given him three children on each side of the veil and they have provided eight grandchildren.
Enter Steve…
After a 22.5-year military career, I have not attended all wards in all countries, but I have traveled some and I have been out of the military just a little longer than I served. I am attempting here to say: Disclaimer: the opinions expressed are my own, the truths are my own, and the perceptions are my own. Read at the risk of your own perceptions.
I am about to take you on a journey to somewhere you may not have been before. You need to realize I am not writing from a position of educational and emotional strength, but from experiences that shaped the soul I now carry with me.
Some of those experiences you will share with me, some of those experiences will be foreign to you. In all, you leaders; whether you have a calling of leadership or not, you lead those around you; need to “see” some of the things I have seen and vicariously experience them – the good and the not so good.
“Transitive Wards.” The term I hear most often in civilian wards that brings a chuckle is, “transitive ward.” Until you have experienced a ward where EVERYONE moves in or out every three years, you have not experienced a transitive ward.
In the wards we have been members of over the past … 15 years … there were a high percentage of the membership who lived very near the home they grew up in; this alone makes a huge difference in military vs. civilian wards.
I have had the pleasure of sitting on a pew in Augsburg, Germany, when the brother sitting next to me began speaking about his experience in the Boy Scouts. It turned out we were in the same troop, at the same time, in Denver.
I have sat in a pew with a brother in Nuremburg, Germany, when he started speaking of his high school: my school’s rival “back in the day.”
I have sat in a tent in Saudi Arabia and passed a broken MRE (meals-ready-to-eat) cracker and a canteen cup of water to fellow Saints before we listened to a lesson prepared about the plan of salvation given by a leader from our military ward in Germany who was also a captain in our unit.
It has been quite the journey. What is the main, distinctive difference between the military and the civilian wards we have lived in?
Family.
Feeling Like a Ward Family
When you arrive in a military ward, you are welcomed by your new family. You are “felt out” to see how active you want to be in your new ward. If you want to participate less in the ward, so be it; but you are still family. If you want to participate more fully—as fully as you can with the variability of serving in a military unit which may receive a new mission at any moment—you will be asked to “lift where you stand” (Lift Where You Stand, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Priesthood Session, General Conference, October 2008).
Many of us had home teaching routes that had us driving at or near 100 miles in one day to visit the four families we were assigned. Many of us had closer home teaching routes which included seven or more families (I was assigned 15 families once…).
Many of us had times where, in order to perform our duties as members of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ, we arrived in uniform. When I was scheduled to have my interview to check my worthiness to receive the Melchizedek priesthood, I had to ride a train from Augsburg to Stuttgart, Germany, in uniform, after working a mid-shift (2200-0600 … 10pm to 6am). When I walked into the room being used as an office by the counselor in the stake presidency, he said nothing about the tiredness in my eyes or the state of my clothing as he was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and understood.
That understanding came from the shared experiences we had as we served in the military. The pride in our units, country and uniforms, was subdued by our humility in being able to see the hand of God as he worked with those of us who trained to kill His children along with our training in our job specialties and our Church and family responsibilities.
This “understanding” is a feeling I miss terribly as I serve in civilian wards. Looking back over the last 20 years – all civilian – I am struck with the few times my family and I have been asked to join another family in their home for a meal. I am struck with the few times an offer to eat with my family has been accepted. It has been an extremely long time since anyone seemed to want to get to know us.
Where is the “Family” in That?
Serving in the military, at least the places I served, and wanting to be a good child of God, meant a lot of time reading and researching how to be Christ-like in situations most members never experience. It has provided the opportunity to “find Jesus” and the Holy Ghost in places you would have never guessed they would be. He lives, and I feel a warmth in my bosom, realizing Heavenly Father (and Mother), Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost love my family and want the best for us.
Where did I achieve such discernment? From foxholes and missions where I would not have wanted the companionship of a friend, but never lost the companionship of the Godhead.
These times of reading, researching and experiencing, have—apparently—caused me and mine to become, in the words of the all-knowing executive director of our Leading Saints organization, Kurt Francom, “perfect” (see his newsletter sent 19 March 2019, titled, “Your Ward Thinks You’re Perfect”). Do not get me started on how much I despise that moniker…but for the purpose of this article, let me define “perfect” as: corresponding to an ideal standard (Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary).
I miss my ward family. I miss the shared experiences that made us a “family” to begin with. I cannot compete with the generational families we meet in civilian wards. I cannot seem to find an “in” which will allow me to become more than just a “member of the ward.” I have not yet been able to find a member of our current ward’s leadership that I can confess all of this to. That is the saddest part of all.
We miss the companionship and differing perceptions of a ward family. I miss being able to share something I have read, or heard someone speak, to another member of the Church of Jesus Christ who can help me see how this enlightenment can make a bigger difference to us and to the community we live in. Most of all, I suppose, I miss the handshakes and hugs of fellow saints who are just trying to more-than-survive…for we were meant for so much more than “survival.”
We do not belong to our ward or stake, though there are those who can call us by name and have been to our house (it was owned by a previous bishop, which is how most of the people know where it is). We do belong to the community of Saints, but we are lonely. Sadly true.
Creating a Ward Family
So, getting back to the original reason for this article: how is a military ward different than a civilian ward? I would summarize with this:
- Take the verbiage “transitive ward” out of your vocabulary;
- Stop running your ecclesiastical organization like a business;
- Involve the members more, finding out their strengths, weaknesses, and experiences (have you seen a business run where the bosses don’t realize the untapped potential within their ranks? Not good…) and have them share in the callings where they can bring hope and love AND connection;
- See who is “perfect” in your organization and get your counselors to assist you in rallying around such persons as they need to be rallied around;
- Remember we are at War (capital W), not with an enemy we can see or touch, but with “the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being,” with the power to bring us “not to an imaginary ruin,” but to an eternal ruin (Joseph Smith—History 1:16).
Urban Camouflage
I spent most of my military career in “urban camouflage” (I was a military intelligence investigator who worked a lot in the civilian public) and tried not to be noticed. I, as a civilian, now wear the uniform which befits my community and want – desperately want – to be noticed. Please look for me. I could be in your ward. I could be a brother or a sister. I could be sitting right next to you.
By the way, yes, I stand for the National Anthem and get a smile when I hear “Secret Agent Man” by Johnny Rivers
