Gannett News Service
The Special Forces Prayer is incorporated into the stained glass window in the chapel at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Armed with prayer

Army chaplain's words penned 40 years ago have stuck with Special Forces

MIKE FOLEY, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

"It is very much a part of who Special Forces are. It's part of our heritage, part of what we are." -- Col. Paul Vicalvi, command chaplain of Army Special Forces at Fort Bragg

U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers battling in Afghanistan are equipped with the most modern weaponry and support known to mankind.

They also have support of a different kind: the Special Forces Prayer penned 40 years ago by an Army chaplain four years after his graduation from Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C.

In 1961, as Green Berets from Fort Bragg, N.C., were about to be sent to Laos to train the Royal Laotian army to fight communists, Chaplain John Stevey was asked to write a prayer for the men.

Gen. William Yarborough, then-commanding officer of the U.S. Army Special Forces, told Stevey that he wanted to remind the soldiers of the spiritual nature of their work.

"But I had to write it so that it could be used by many faiths," Stevey recalls. "He wanted it made so it could be put on a card in men's wallets."

Stevey came up with a prayer that makes no mention of Jesus, but succinctly captures the spirit -- and the spirituality -- of the men and women of the Special Forces. In the four decades since its birth, the prayer has become a part of the culture of the elite group of Army warriors.

"It is very much a part of who Special Forces are. It's part of our heritage, part of what we are," says Col. Paul Vicalvi, command chaplain of Army Special Forces at Fort Bragg.

Part of community

What started as a prayer on a wallet card soon became ingrained into the Special Forces community. At the conclusion of Special Forces training, soldiers are feted at a regimental dinner. Along with being outfitted with their Green Berets, they receive a copy of the Special Forces Prayer.

Special Forces soldiers at Fort Lewis also have access to the prayer. It is posted at the unit's headquarters inside the Special Forces Compound at the post. It's also read at all memorial services, including last month's memorial for Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Chapman, said Brenda Lyn Carpenter, spokeswoman for Fort Lewis.

Chapman was killed Jan. 4 during an ambush while serving in Afghanistan.

The same prayer is etched into a large stained glass window above the entryway at JFK Memorial Chapel at Fort Bragg. It's included in special Bibles issued to all Special Forces troops. It has been set to music and pressed into records. And today, with the Army's blessing, it can even be found on a variety of T-shirts and sweat shirts.

"It kind of blows my mind," says Stevey, now 70, a native of Greensburg, Pa.

Prayer's influence untold

While Stevey was earning bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees during the 1950s at Bob Jones University, he took a commission in the Army Reserve. After he graduated in 1957, he applied for active duty. Two months later, he was an Army chaplain.

He served in Panama and more than a dozen other stops in 22 years, including six years of parachute duty and four years as a Green Beret. He retired in 1977. Unbeknownst to Stevey, a stained-glass window emblazoned with his prayer was installed in the Special Forces chapel while he was serving overseas.

While attending a funeral in Dayton, Ohio, several years ago, the senior chaplain at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center there asked him to come back and serve as a chaplain at the center. So he came out of retirement.

During his careers, Stevey has had an influence on many lives. But he'll never know how many people he's affected with his simple prayer.

People such as retired Lt. Col. Bob Huckabee, who has a framed copy of the prayer hanging on the wall above his desk in a Seneca (S.C.) High School classroom where he teaches Junior ROTC. He bought a copy of the prayer at the JFK Special Warfare Museum Gift Shop at Fort Bragg.

"You would see it in team rooms, headquarters ... and anywhere you see special ops and Special Forces people serving," Huckabee says. "It's followed me everywhere I've been -- and now into retirement."

South Sound Living editor Frieda Ray contributed to this report. She can be reached at 360-754-5443.

SPECIAL FORCES PRAYER

Almighty God, who art the Author of liberty and the Champion of the oppressed, hear our prayer.

We, the men of Special Forces, acknowledge our dependence upon Thee in the preservation of human freedom.

Go with us as we seek to defend the defenseless and to free the enslaved.

May we ever remember that our nation, whose motto is "In God We Trust," expects that we shall acquit ourselves with honor, that we may never bring shame among our faith, our families, or our fellow men.

Grant us wisdom from Thy mind, courage from Thine heart, strength from Thine arm, and protection by Thine hand.

It is for Thee that we do battle, and to Thee belongs the victor's crown. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and glory, forever.

Amen.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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