wfn.org | Episcopalians: Griswold makes pastoral call on wounded soldier

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

May 12, 2003

2003-102

Episcopalians: Griswold makes pastoral call on wounded soldier

by Jan Nunley

(ENS) During the April Executive Council meeting, held at a 
conference center near Baltimore, Presiding Bishop Frank T. 
Griswold took a few hours to visit U.S. Army private first class 
Donald R. Schafer at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 
northern Washington, D.C.

The 23-year-old Schafer, an active Episcopalian and a member of 
St. Matthias' in Baltimore, is a tank operator. He arrived in 
Kuwait for six months of desert training in September of last 
year with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry 
Division (Mechanized) and was to have returned to the U.S. on 
March 23. But war intervened on March 21. 

Schafer was wounded during combat with Iraqi forces outside 
Baghdad April 5, while protecting an embedded reporter from the 
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ron Martz, who described the 
incident in a report entitled  "Sgt. Diaz's war: One American's 
march to Baghdad" and a more personal account entitled "I owe 
these heroes my life." Martz's reporting was how Schafer's 
family discovered he had been wounded, according to Schafer's 
rector, the Rev. Louanne Mabry-Loch. 

"He was in a tank and the tank in front of theirs was hit," she 
said. "It caught on fire and Donald jumped out with a fire 
extinguisher and started putting out the fire. But they couldn't 
put it out, so they started snatching out the ammo and maps and 
papers."

Schafer was going to get back on his tank, Mabry-Loch said, but 
it was loaded with men from the crippled tank, so he jumped into 
an armored personnel carrier. That's where he and Private 
Christopher Shipley, the driver of the crippled tank, were when 
they were shot and wounded -- Shipley in the head and Schafer in 
the arm and chest -- while protecting Martz, who was also riding 
in the vehicle. A medic tended to Schafer's chest wound and he 
was evacuated to a hospital in Kuwait, then to Germany. 

Frantic search

But the Atlanta reporter's dispatch reached Schafer's parents 
before the Red Cross called with the news. Distraught, his 
parents called Schafer's commanding officer and found out that 
he was in critical condition, but had no more details. After 
four days of frantic phone calls by the family, Mabry-Loch 
contacted Bishop Suffragan George Packard in the chaplaincies 
office at the Episcopal Church Center.

"He contacted a priest in Kuwait who told us Donald had been 
shipped to a military hospital in Rota, Spain," she said. St. 
Matthias' parishioners had just finished a prayer service for 
Schafer, who was a member of the youth group and an acolyte 
before joining the Army in 1999, when his stepsister received a 
call from his stepmother saying that the wounded soldier was 
going to call home. 

His main concern, Mabry-Loch said, was what had happened to tank 
driver Shipley. Later, he and Shipley were reunited at the Rota 
hospital.

A real hero

A few days later, Schafer was shipped to Walter Reed Army 
Medical Center for three weeks of recuperation. That's where 
Griswold met him on April 30, accompanied by Walter Reed's chief 
chaplain, Colonel Malcolm Roberts; Mabry-Loch; and the Rev. 
Gerald Blackburn, director of military ministries. 

"He has this pin in his arm that kinda sticks out -- he almost 
lost his forearm," Mabry-Loch said. "He got shot in the side, in 
the back, and in his arm. So he took some pretty heavy hits."

Griswold said later he was "very close to tears" during the 
visit and impressed by Schafer's open, self-effacing attitude.	
"When you visit people in the hospital their energy is often 
very modest, but he's obviously an extrovert and the more people 
around, the more energetic he became," he said. "When I said, 
You're a real hero,' he said, Everyone's a hero in some way.'" 
Schafer received a Purple Heart for his actions in Iraq.

Immensely proud'

Griswold added a lapel pin bearing the Presiding Bishop's seal 
to Schafer's collection of military "challenge coins" from 
visiting officers and officials.

"I felt it was important to visit because, even though I have 
been very much opposed to the war in Iraq, that does not mean 
for a moment that I don't have incredible respect for those who 
serve in the military," Griswold said. "They're doing what 
they've committed themselves to do, being faithful in the 
carrying out of their duties, and I'm immensely proud of them."

Schafer was released from Walter Reed on May 1, the same day 
President Bush announced that major combat operations in Iraq 
had ended. He will continue to recuperate at his mother's home 
in Essex, Maryland.

"He's doing well," Mabry-Loch reported. "But we're still 
lighting a candle for him at the church until he walks in our 
door."

------

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of Episcopal News 
Service.