Photo By Capt. Mark Lazane | Armed Forces of Liberia 1st Lt. Dessaline Allison, headquarters AFL public affairs...... read more read more
MONROVIA, Liberia—Worldwide, many army leaders rely on chaplains and chaplain’s assistants to conduct spiritual care and counseling services to soldiers and their families.
Often, chaplains are asked to ensure not only spiritual needs are met, but also that psychological and emotional concerns are dealt with in a caring, professional manner. In this way, a chaplain is seen as a key part of a military commander’s staff, said Armed Forces of Liberia 1st Lt. Dessaline Allison, AFL chaplain general.
To better assist AFL commanders in providing this support, Allison recently completed an extensive advanced chaplain’s training course in Yorktown, Va.
The course, entitled “Chaplains Interaction,” taught international chaplains basic principles of chaplaincy, especially in regards to deployment support and spiritual care for the wounded.
“We were taught how to provide religious support not only to the soldiers but also to their families,” Allison said. “The course helped give me a deeper look at how the chaplaincy should operate. The things I learned are going to help me professionalize our own chaplaincy corps here in Liberia among the soldiers and their families.”
Allison joined eight other chaplains from different national militaries throughout Africa for the course, which was held on a U.S. Coast Guard base.
One of the skills Allison learned was the practice of clinical pastoral care, the type of work performed by chaplains when dealing with the sick or wounded in hospitals.
“Clinical pastoral care was new to me, but very important, and it was taught in a way that really helped me learn,” said Allison.
“Usually, when learning how to greet soldiers and family members, we get the theoretical teaching on what should be done. This conference was different; this time, we actually went to the hospital and conducted live training with wounded individuals to practice the concepts we were taught.”
“My attending this conference is going to help the AFL chaplaincy program because I can provide more professional training to the rest of the unit chaplaincy corps,” Allison said. “We are already good at chaplaincy work here. But this conference helped me to learn a better way to do the things we are doing.”
To provide immediate assistance in this area, Allison has organized unit-level chaplaincy service throughout the AFL. In the program, soldiers work with their unit commanders to provide spiritual care and assistance to their fellow soldiers and their families on an on call basis, while still maintaining their core military responsibilities.
The program has seen initial successes, and only looks to improve with increased training and experiences for the “on call chaplains,” said Allison.
In addition to his role as the sole AFL chaplain, in January of this year Allison was named the AFL director of public affairs, a position in which he is responsible with fulfilling the information management priorities within the AFL and their roughly 2,000 soldiers and Coast Guardsmen. Allison feels he is up to the task of both staff functions, even believing that being a chaplain helps him in his public affairs officer duties.
“There are similarities between the two roles,” said Allison, a 2011 graduate of the Department of Defense’s Defense Information School at Fort George Meade, Md. “The chaplaincy has to do with relating to the troops, helping with their immediate needs and the needs of their families and sometimes even helping out the larger community. In public affairs, we have an internal information program, which works with military leaders to inform the soldiers and the families of the soldiers. We also have a community relations mission, where we seek out opportunities to inform the Liberian people that the AFL is a force for good. Both jobs rely on communicating a message effectively to groups of people.”
Allison firmly believes his role as a chaplain is important in the development of capable armed forces in Liberia.
“Every army needs a chaplaincy because chaplains provide religious support to the soldiers,” said Allison. “More specifically, they offer a platform for commanders to use to address soldiers’ spiritual and emotional needs. Each soldier comes from a different religious background; but regardless of their specific beliefs, these soldiers have spiritual needs, they have emotional needs, they have needs with morale. The chaplaincy exists to assist these soldiers as necessary.”
Having a chaplain within the AFL is required by regulation, just like many other military occupational specialties, said Allison, who became the AFL’s chaplain shortly after joining the rebuilt AFL in 2006.
“From the time of the previous military, we’ve only had three or four chaplains general before me, which makes me feel like it’s a real opportunity,” said Allison. “It’s why I came in the military; I came to provide these services to the troops. I consider myself the luckiest guy in the AFL. I get to do what I want to be doing every day. I wake up in the morning feeling great about the job I get to do. I step out of my house to go to work feeling so good that I get to help troops and help commanders provide religious support for their troops. It is the best job ever.”
With continued advanced training such as was recently completed, Allison will able to do the job he loves even more effectively in the future, which benefits his fellow soldiers as much as it benefits him.
| Date Taken: | 06.01.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 06.26.2012 08:35 |
| Story ID: | 90594 |
| Location: | MONROVIA, LR |
| Web Views: | 133 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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