Seminarian Reid commissioned as U.S. Army officer 

Dressed in clerical black with a Roman collar, Nicholas J. Reid raised his right hand and repeated the words of his father, who stood before him in an olive green uniform. With the words, "So help me, God," Mr. Reid, a seminarian and first-year theology student for the Jefferson City diocese, became a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army the first of many steps toward becoming a Catholic chaplain for the military.

Attending the March 8 commissioning ceremony were family members, Monsignor Raphael P. Keyes, pastor of St. Anthony parish in Camdenton; Father Joseph S. Corel, diocesan vocation director; Father Joseph L. Sheter, associate pastor of Cathedral of St. Joseph parish in Jefferson City; and Julie Wieberg, administrative assistant for the diocesan Vocations Office.

2nd Lt. Reid, a son of U.S. Army Lt. Col. John (Ret.) and Sue Reid of Camdenton, moved to Waynesville with his parents when he was in third grade and was confirmed in the chapel at Fort Leonard Wood. Raised in a household with strongly Catholic parents and a father who served 28 years in the U.S. Army, 2nd Lt. Reid thought a lot while growing up about combining service to the Church and the Armed Forces.

"I had some really good priest friends who were chaplains," he said. "And that style of not only life but of ministry really got me thinking." Among those chaplain mentors was Father Vincent J. Inghilterra, who was a chaplain at Fort Leonard Wood and is now the Pacific Command Post chaplain in Hawaii.

"He was very influential in my high school years in getting me to 're-think' about the possibility of going into the seminary," said 2nd Lt. Reid. "He was a strong witness to me."

2nd Lt. Reid sees many opportunities for service and ministry as an Army chaplain. "You can have a great impact, say, on an 18-year-old kid who's been displaced from his household and has signed-up for the military and is really looking for something to hold onto," he said. "I think people really look for their faith at that point."

He noted that the Continental Congress under Gen. George Washington in 1775 adopted the British custom of having military chaplains to help reign-in the soldiers of the Continental Army. "Gen. Washington, in his wisdom, felt that in order to win over a new nation, his soldiers should be gentlemen," said 2nd Lt. Reid.

The new second lieutenant noted that his own induction into the U.S. Army's officer ranks will allow him to pursue military training while he continues to pursue a calling to the vocation of the Holy Priesthood. This summer, he hopes to attend Chaplain Basic Officer Leadership Course, "which will be my first formal introduction into the customs and courtesies of the United States Army," he said.

He is taking part in what is known as a cosponsor program between the Jefferson City diocese and the Archdiocese of the U.S. Military Services, which has jurisdiction over all Catholic priests and laypeople in the United States military. As a first-year theology student, he is taking his priestly studies and formation at the Theological College at the Catholic University of America, which is a short distance from the military archdiocese's headquarters in Washington, D.C. He hopes to incorporate military training over the summers between his next three-and-a-half years of seminary studies, beginning this summer with a six-week basic training.

Next year, as a second-year theology student, he is scheduled to work in hospital ministry through the Theological College, possibly at one of the military hospitals in or near the nation's Capital. In a few years, he might get to serve as a transitional deacon at Fort Mead, "which is just up the road in Maryland."

2nd Lt. Reid can be reached at the Theological College, 401 Michigan Ave., Washington, D.C. 20017, or by e-mail at: 01reid @cua.edu.