During his time with the National Guard, Lt. Col. Irvine Bryer served as chaplain to the 369th Transportation Battalion, the “Harlem Hellfighters.” He still wears the ring. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
During his time with the National Guard, Lt. Col. Irvine Bryer served as chaplain to the 369th Transportation Battalion, the “Harlem Hellfighters.” He still wears the ring. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
Bryer, 60, of Stockbridge, Ga., sits in his office at Camp Victory in Baghdad on Memorial Day. Bryer was drafted in Vietnam, went to seminary in the 1970s and signed up with the New York National Guard in 1982. (Teri Weaver / S&S)
CAMP VICTORY, Iraq
When Lt. Col. Irvine Bryer first sees a patient, he stands on the other side, the one where the doctor is not working.
Bryer grabs a hand, when he can, and holds on. He does his best to calm the patient as the medicine takes over.
The Vietnam veteran and 31-year military man has no medical training, unless you count this: Every chaplain who serves in a combat military hospital must do in-hospital training for 90 days and face this haunting test. He or she must be able to withstand watching a limb amputation and bear the sole responsibility of carrying the arm or leg from the body to the proper bin.
“The docs don’t play,” said Bryer, 60, of Stockbridge, Ga. Neither does Bryer, the head chaplain for Task Force 3 Medical Command, the medical team in Iraq that runs the combat support hospitals for servicemembers and detainees.
“They say, ‘Now take the leg and put it in the bag,’” Bryer recalled of his own training and others he has supervised. “‘Now go back to the head,’” the docs will say. “That’s a real person.”
It’s the medical chaplain’s job to witness the real horror and then go back to the person to offer any comfort they can, he said. Sometimes it involves hand-holding and talking. Most often, it involves prayer. Occasionally it involves taking a Quran, the Muslim holy book, and placing it in the hands of a suspected insurgent.
“We treat all people the same,” Bryer said of the nine medical chaplains who work under him in Task Force 3. “We have never had anyone say no.”
Bryer himself once tried to say no after a life-time of saying yes. He grew up in Beacon, N.Y., near West Point, with eight siblings. They were the fifth generation of a military legacy, and the kids had a duty roster on the fridge.
Bryer served two tours in Vietnam, the first in answer to his own draft in 1966 and the second so that his younger brother, the other son in the family, wouldn’t have to go. He was a radio operator for two months before they made him a trigger puller for two years.
His ready reserve status ended in 1972, and he moved on. He went into sales for IBM in New York City until he felt a pull toward the seminary. Even after earning a master’s degree and serving as a Baptist minister, he still wasn’t sure what type of service would fulfill his calling.
Then a running partner invited him to a ceremony with the 369th Transportation Battalion of the New York National Guard.
The “Harlem Hellfighters” didn’t have a chaplain, but Bryer tried to decline the invitation. He resisted until the paperwork — and then-Gov. Hugh Carey — was waiting for him after a Hellfighter event. He signed on the spot in 1982.
Nineteen years later, after 9/11, Bryer signed up for active duty. “We’re all active duty now,” he said.
His latest assignment with Task Force 3 puts him in charge of medical ministry throughout Iraq. He also serves as the chaplain for any medical crisis at Camp Victory, and he meets the incoming helicopters on the pad.
In December, he did 1,300 visits to the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad. More recently, the need has dropped to between 800 and 900 visits a month.
Bryer has his own ministry as well. Twice a month, he directs a Baptist service at Victory with a growing congregation of 500. The other two Sundays he leaves for the younger chaplains or assistant chaplains. The church has a choir, music group and dance theater. Most recently, he’s helping a group of Ugandan soldiers who are working at Victory to organize their own service.
His ministry in the hospitals is just as flexible.
As more and more Iraqi soldiers come into the hospitals, Bryer and his chaplains are ready to offer Qurans to their wounded allies. The books are wrapped in zipper-locked plastic bags, so as to avoid offending the Muslim soldiers by touching the text directly. Bryer gives the book to another Muslim, who hands it to the patient.
He does the same for suspected insurgents. “I feel we always have to be compassionate,” he said.
Bryer is supposed to retire at the end of this tour in August. He’s already put in for an extension for one to three years. “I want to stay,” he said. “I want to be the chaplain that trains the chaplains for the next two years.”
Sometimes in the combat hospital he must release his patient’s hand. He carries a purple stole in the left bottom pocket of his combat uniform, just in case. On his left hand, he still wears his Hellfighters ring.
