Chaplain Jeffrey Neuberger, a Whidbey resident and a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, owes his careers to the First Amendment of the Constitution.

“I’m wearing the uniform of the United States of America, and I’m a clergyperson, and the government is paying my salary, so put that together. Does that sound like the separation of church and state to you?” he asked at a presentation for the Whidbey chapter of the Military Officers Association of America recently. “The bridge is the First Amendment, the freedom of religion.”

Neuberger went to South Dakota State University in 1968, where the ROTC was mandatory. The following year, he went to boot camp in San Diego.

In his 34 years of duty, Neuberger served in the Navy, the Navy Reserve, the South Dakota Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve and Air Force. His career moved him to Spain, Germany, California, North Dakota, Delaware, Georgia and elsewhere.

For him, though ironic on the surface, his ministry calling and his military calling went hand-in-hand. Military life has ups and downs and that comes with a diversity of experiences for a minister.

Running the ranks of the church isn’t so different from the military, he said. When enlisting a minister, the military doesn’t decide who’s qualified; the church does. This typically means college seminary pastoral experience and ordination. After that, the minister must meet the requirements of a military officer: age, citizenship, education, fitness and documentation.

Chaplains tend to be like lawyers and doctors, Neuberger said, because it takes seminary, extended education and experience.

Neuberger is an Episcopal priest, but not all worshipping airmen share this affiliation. Per the same rule that pays his salary, those of any vetted, recognized faith must be accommodated.

As the senior chaplain at the Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Neuberger organized a place and time for a coven of Wiccans to meet and practice on the base on a weekly basis, he said.

Chaplain school teaches about reaching everyone, he said, including prayers for all different religions. In a combat hospital in Iraq, Neuberger recalls putting his hand on a body bag of a Muslim and reciting a Muslim prayer. This can provide solace to the families.

“For me it was honoring the humanity and the faith,” he said. “I didn’t have to follow that faith, but I honored that person’s faith by providing that prayer.”

Accommodation comes in many “different flavors,” he said, including allowing soldiers to grow their beards, wear turbans and, nowadays, have certain tattoos on display.

Through Neuberger’s time as a military chaplain, he has been in touch with every step of a tragedy, barring bullets flying on a battlefield.

“I’ve made the death notifications to the front door. I’ve done the funerals. I served in a combat hospital in Iraq and I’ve been in the emergency room when someone died on the gurney,” he said. “I’ve accompanied them to the morgue and prayed for them there. I’ve also worked in the Port Mortuary in Dover, where they process human remains so that they can go back to their families.”

In 1996, Ron Brown, then-secretary of commerce for the Clinton administration and 34 others were killed in a plane crash near Dubrovnik, Croatia. The bodies were brought to the Port Mortuary in Dover, Delaware to begin the process of identification.

Neuberger introduced members of the deceased’s families to Clinton’s entire cabinet, who were in attendance.

“They don’t train you for that in chaplain school,” he said. “You just have to do that.”

Afterward, Neuberger drove the remains of one of the victims from Dover to Maryland and delivered them to his family with a folded flag on a Sunday afternoon.

Neuberger served in Iraq from September 2006 to January 2007. His first week on the base, he’s looking into the crib of an injured baby.

“I’m a dad. I’m a granddad. I was seeing my own daughter there,” he said. “I was like, ‘don’t do that,’ because how can you take care of the medical people around you if you get so lost that you can’t do your job? It’s not a cold separation. It’s just you have to compartmentalize just a little bit.”

One day, an international guard unit landed, and the airmen were going to Sunday morning breakfast for the first time when an alarm went off to take cover. Neuberger, with everyone else, crammed into a little shelter. They stood around, waited and made new friends until they were given the “all clear.”

Later, he found out that a quick reaction force went out to meet a threat, and two young soldiers were killed.

“Here I am standing in this bunker with all these people not even really knowing what’s going on out there,” he said.

At the time, Neuberger was one of the older people working on base, he said. He was impressed daily with the dedication, commitment and skill of the young people there, as well as the events they had to live through.

“It was about 9:30 in the morning, a chopper came in, 25-year-old, Westpoint graduate, captain officer, was shot, wounded, died on the table,” he said. “The next morning I was there, about 9:30 in the morning, invariably it’s the same story, 25-year-old, Westpoint grad, young officer, didn’t survive.”

Each morning, the commander had the chaplain say a prayer, Neuberger said. These were some of the toughest prayers he had to write, because he didn’t want to do it extemporaneously. It was an effort, catching the moment just right.

A large part of his job is providing comfort, which can be a North Star, he said, but the chaplain feels the pain too.

“I’m human. I’m married. I have kids. I have grandkids. I have a son in the Navy,” he said. “If you’re human, you feel this stuff.”

Neuberger has never been deterred, but quite the opposite, he said. When he retired from the Fairchild Air Force Base, he became a hospital chaplain in Spokane.

“I’m just kind of drawn to that kind of ministry,” he said, “to be with people in these moments. It’s pretty critical, and a lot of times it’s just being with somebody who’s there with you.”

Neuberger still thinks about the young people in service every day, he said. He moved to Whidbey three years ago to be closer to his son, Eric, who was stationed at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.

Eric is the chief of Combat Operations in the Combined Air Operation Center, 14 years into his Navy career and currently serving in Qatar with his fingers on the Gaza airdrops, Neuberger said.

“He’s over there from February to November on his own without his family, so I think of this a lot,” he said.

Among all else, the chaplain can be the embodiment of hope to service members who need it, Neuberger said.

“I’m in the Navy, I’m on a ship, it’s Sunday, we’re out in the middle of the ocean, and I’m a person of faith and I want to worship, and if the military doesn’t accommodate that, they have violated my constitutional right,” he said. “That’s why chaplaincy exists, that accommodation, the freedom of religion, and to be a visual reminder of the holy.”

Chaplain, Lt Col, USAF (Ret) Jeffrey Neuberger stands before the Emergency Department in Iraq. (Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Neuberger)

Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Neuberger Chaplain, Lt Col, USAF (Ret) Jeffrey Neuberger stands before gate H6 in Iraq.

Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Neuberger Chaplain, Lt Col, USAF (Ret) Jeffrey Neuberger stands on a helipad in Iraq.

Chaplain, Lt Col, USAF (Ret) Jeffrey Neuberger served 34 years in the military. (Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Neuberger)

Chaplain, Lt Col, USAF (Ret) Jeffrey Neuberger stands at the military hospital entrance in Iraq. (Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Neuberger)

Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Neuberger Chaplain, Lt Col, USAF (Ret) Jeffrey Neuberger stands poses at the Air Force base in Iraq.

Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Neuberger Chaplain, Lt Col, USAF (Ret) Jeffrey Neuberger stands poses at the Air Force base in Iraq.