Two days before Charlie Battery’s early morning return to Lejeune, the group of Marines had been training on the island of Okinawa. Less than half the size of Rhode Island, Okinawa hosts some 13 military installations, but Charlie had been housed primarily at one—Camp Hansen, which gained notoriety in 1996, when three American servicemen stationed there were convicted of the kidnapping and rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl.
Okinawans still complain about the base, but local merchants also profit from its vices. Located just a short walk from Hansen’s main gate, Kin Town is known by Marines as “Sin Town.” Jesse, 20, a corporal on his second duty assignment, says the area offers bars, strip clubs, tattoo parlors, and a handful of restaurants catering to drunks: “Kin is where everyone on base goes to do whatever they want, because they have the mentality of ‘what happens in Kin, stays in Kin.’ … Most on this base believe that if there is a God, He has left Camp Hansen.”
For Christians like Jesse, isolation is a real part of their military experience. Evangelicals are a rarity in most units. Marines who don’t swear or drink feel excluded from social gatherings. Peter, a seasoned gunnery sergeant with 17 years of service, says pride is also an issue: “The fruits of the Spirit are seen as weakness in the personality of a Marine.”
Darrow and Vicki Frazier direct the Hansen Christian Center, a Cadence International outpost just 500 yards from the base. On Friday nights, the couple hosts Bible studies, and some weeks as many as 40 Marines, airmen, soldiers, and sailors attend. Home-cooked meals provide a draw for the all-singles crowd, and the kitchen has a stove and well-stocked refrigerator, but no dishwasher—on purpose. Vicki says relationships are built over that chore, and they’re built using first names—no “yes, sir,” “no, sir,” or ranks. Bible study attenders run the gamut, from boots on their first assignments to decorated colonels. Dropping designations makes everyone more comfortable.
Some visitors arrive at the center looking for outings like rock climbing at Hedo and trips to Okinawa’s famous aquarium. Others have pressing needs. “We’re all broken, but a lot of your Marines are really broken,” Darrow Frazier, a veteran himself, says: “They become Marines to prove something to whoever broke them”—like the divorced parents who had a female Marine sleep outside with the dog, or the revolving door of mother’s boyfriends who abused a male Marine.
The center celebrates a lot of the 19th and 20th birthdays of Marines who “struggle with knowing what a family is and should be, but they still want one.” The center becomes that family, and it helps them deal with difficult things. Just last year, an Osprey aircraft crashed in waters near Hansen, requiring participants of the center to help in the cleanup. Some suffered skin burns from gas during the dive. Frazier says those kinds of experiences often lead to moments of soul searching and receptivity. He’s glad to be there when they do.
Comments
reader 400
Posted: Sun, 05/14/2017 11:09 pmI appreciate this article. It was a missionary like these that reached me for the Lord in my early army days. It was his encouragement that guided me to seminary and his invitation to help him teach a Bible study that helped me grow my love for teaching the Bible. In October, my wife and I drove 1,000 miles from Wisconsin to Chesapeake, VA to help my former church honor him and his wife for 25 years of ministry.
Hawkdriver
Posted: Wed, 05/24/2017 11:36 pmI too appreciate this article and was lead down the road to Christ as a young soldier from Wisconsin by missionaries like these. God Bless you and the work He is doing through you, be encouraged.
SAWGUNNER
Posted: Tue, 12/11/2018 09:14 pmI have known some great "para church" ministry folks. Unlike the chaplain corps no one puts any kind of muzzle on these great men and women. I tell folks all the time that our all volunteer armed forces truly is a place where the "harvest is great while the laborers are few". I would hope that in light of the great spiritual need, churches across our land could point others to this vital area of ministry: either sponsor a seminarian bound for military chaplaincy or else adopt a para church ministry. If your church is near a base or post, encourage congregation families to host an airman, sailor, soldier or marine who for whatever reason didn't head home at either Christmas or Thanksgiving.
I do not in any way speak with a broad brush against an entire caste of dedicated military officers HOWEVER my anecdotal observations of many chaplains convinced me that many were military chaplains because quite simply no church pastoral search committee would have ever called them to preach and lead. If those men ever had a desire to proclaim the Gospel and share in the sufferings of their sheep they lost both long ago.
If folks knew the percentage of abused abandoned youngsters who swear in to serve and protect this nation I'm sure they would stagger from that revelation. Many find a environment where they gain identity, community and a higher purpose than their own desires or wants. The strict drill instructor is the Daddy so many craved all along. And yet, the camaraderie and brotherhood of service often abruptly ends when the last item of issued equipment is handed back to the unit supply sergeant or the CIF contractor [Central Issue Facility]; I attribute a high percentage of "homeless veterans" to the isolation and anomie which inevitably follow from that abrupt cut off.