Rev. (Flt Lt) Robert Hadfield, CF

Two years as a United Board Chaplain to the RAF

Today is the last day of my first posting in the RAF, a fitting occasion to reflect on the opportunities and experiences I’ve had so far in this unique expression of ministry. I’ve been based at RAF Lossiemouth, in the north of Scotland which is an incredibly beautiful place to live. It’s also a very exciting place to work given the strategic importance of this station.

Team Lossie is responsible for three vital tasks:

• We protect the United Kingdom’s airspace using Typhoon fighter jets to intercept any suspicious aircraft, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year.
• We patrol the United Kingdom’s territorial waters, using highly specialized Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft which monitor the activity of surface and sub-surface vessels with potentially hostile intent.

• We conduct global operations, deploying aircraft, equipment and personnel to numerous locations worldwide on a whole host of missions. 

Examples include counter-terrorism operations, protecting Nato airspace, providing humanitarian support or military training and advice to partner nations.

These tasks and this posting have provided some of the most exciting experiences I’ve ever had. There’s nothing quite like the visceral sound and sight of a typhoon taking off with full afterburner and then climbing vertically into the sky like a shuttle! Few people get to sit in the cockpit of a tanker aircraft and look out the window as we refuel partner nation fighter jets on an exercise above the arctic circle. 

Not many church ministers get to wear body armour rather than clerical attire. It’s a job full of significant contrasts. I’ve visited cathedrals and palaces, slept in canvas tents and sheltered in sand-bagged concrete dug outs.

I’ve experienced fine dining and have also experienced cold ration packs. I’ve spoken to ambassadors and to young air cadets. I’ve met with troops who’d recently had to take shelter while rockets and missiles streaked through the sky around them, and with troops who’ve never deployed anywhere. No two days are the same and this job has already given me some unique and memorable adventures!

However, it’s still the ministry opportunities that are the most exciting and privileged part of the job. As a chaplain, I provide pastoral, moral and spiritual guidance to all armed forces personnel and their families, as well as to civil servants who work at military establishments. People I don’t know regularly make appointments to come and see me and talk about their problems, having never met me before. I also have the incredible freedom to venture out and walk into people’s workplace unannounced.

I get to respectfully engage daily with a community that predominantly do not go to church. Their problems are often different to those I used to help people with in a local church setting. Due to the nature of their work, the experiences some of them have had are not things they can talk about with their civilian friends. So they welcome me as the friend they’ve never met and share with me things they haven’t been able to discuss before. It’s an immense privilege to serve them in this way.

Even while writing this article, I had a knock on the door and began a chat with someone who has experienced significant trauma this week. Whilst the stigma that surrounds mental health is reducing, talking about spiritual thoughts or feelings still seems socially taboo. 

However, as is sometimes the case with people who are at a low ebb, our conversation turned to spiritual things, not because I led it there, but because life’s most difficult challenges cause most people to try and find purpose or meaning in the midst of human suffering.

Chaplains provide a safe space to discuss their thoughts and feelings in confidence, and therefore people often tell me things they haven’t told anyone else, including their potentially unpopular belief in the existence of God.

What a privilege it is to be able to normalize spirituality for those generations of people who’ve not come from a church or social background where faith gets discussed!

Of course, to the casual observer, most of my conversations have nothing to do with faith. They’re usually centred around helping people to become more resilient. Chaplains are employed by the military to strengthen fighting power by helping develop the moral component that lies within each individual. To the military, this is about increasing the commitment of troops to keep fighting (morale). 

As a Christian minister, ethics and morality are not just a means to a more likely military victory. They are the central concerns of the heart and soul of human beings made in God’s image. So, encouraging people to embrace sacrifice while serving their country is actually about helping them love their neighbour in the way Christ loved the world and gave himself up for the sake of others. It’s helping people take a next step on their personal spiritual journey, whether they fully understand why it’s important to them or not.

It’s about helping people discover the roots of their values for themselves. As I prepare for my next posting at RAF Halton, a training base, I look forward to teaching part of the ethics and values program and to engaging in meaningful conversations about where humans get our sense of right and wrong and why our conscience matters so much, especially in the military.

By God’s grace and the leading of his Spirit, who knows what new divine appointments await me there?