An answered prayer, 509th BW Chaplain receives top award

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Stephen Linch
  • 509th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. --  "I remember going out the gate at Eglin Air Force Base, as I was leaving active duty in 1977 and praying as I left, Lord if I could ever be an Air Force Chaplain that's what I want to be," said Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Steven West, 509th Bomb Wing Chapel. 

His prayers were answered and his career recently led him to receive the 2008 Air Force Association Chaplain Service Award, an award given to one individual in the Chaplain Corps each year. 

He was recognized for his leadership, job performance, community involvement and significant self-improvement as judged by a board of representatives outside the Chaplain Corps. 

Chaplain West left active duty to prepare for the ministry the Lord was calling him to, hoping his ministry would be able to touch the lives of Airmen. 

"When I left active duty as an enlisted troop, I didn't feel like I ever had a chaplain that spiritually cared about me," Chaplain West said. "I know what it feels like to be away from home, in the dorms with all of the peer pressure to be a part of things that I really didn't want to be a part of and hadn't been raised to be a part of - like many others I didn't have that spiritual support base. 

"So I felt if I could ever come back and be an Air Force Chaplain that I would understand how the Airmen feel and would be able to relate to them in that way." 

Feeling strongly for the spiritual well being of Airmen led the Chaplain and his team to go the extra mile for people at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, where the Chaplain and his team did the work that he accredits with earning him this award. 

"It is a humbling thing just to be nominated let alone win this prestigious award," The 30 year veteran said. "I won this award because of what my people accomplished, not what I did. 

"I had a tremendous team of chaplains and chaplain's assistants who were touching the lives of people every day," the chaplain said. 

"My job was to enable them, empower them, equip them and stay out of their way, " he added. 

That is exactly what he did as the his staff of nine chaplains and six chaplains assistants, the largest chapel staff in Iraq, reached out to the needs of approximately 30,000 Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and contractors. 

"People do a lot of thinking and praying when they are at war, and because of that, they come to us," he said. "As wing chaplain I am the senior pastor of all denominations: Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals, Lutherans. I oversee them all. I'm a Southern Baptist, but I'm here for everyone." 

Remembering a specific night when he was meeting those injured as they came in to the Air Force Theater Hospital, the busiest trauma center in the Department of Defense, on helicopters, the Chaplain put taking care of everyone into perspective. 

"One night I went to meet a teenage Iraqi boy in one of the Black Hawks who had been an innocent bystander when he was injured by an insurgent. In the same helicopter was the insurgent, shot by an American Soldier and another American Soldier," he said.

"We worked hard to save the insurgent's life, just as much as the soldier's or the boy's life. Saving a life is what matters. Around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we were helping people," he said. 

Providing those spiritual needs for people, most specifically Airmen at war, has always been Chaplain West's desire. 

"God finally answered my prayer in 1993 when I came back on active duty," the Chaplain said recalling the prayer he said more than 30 years ago. "Every day of it has been a blessing from God; I have been blessed beyond imagination."