Chaplain Lt. Col. David Shirley at the 179th Airlift Wing said he loves it when he can help make people smile, adding, “I like to see people happy, and I think I’ve got the stuff to help them get there.”
Shirley is one of three chaplains at the 179th Airlift Wing. He serves alongside Chaplain Capts. Randy Barlow and Sarah Ditto.
“My motto when we greet the new troopers coming in is ‘We bring the joy,’” said Shirley.
As chaplains serving at the local Air National Guard unit, Shirley said their job is to ensure that men and women in uniform have the ability to exercise their religious freedom. “That’s really the core reason why we’re in place as chaplains,” he said.
Beyond that, they do counseling and visitations, offer programs, and sometimes advise commanders on faith or religious issues, he said.
“We call it a ministry of presence,” said Barlow. “Basically, I’m not going to be everyone’s pastor. There are so many different faiths that are represented on a military base, but I can be chaplain to everyone.”
Ditto, who is the first female to become a chaplain at the 179th, said she loves everything about her job—“From preaching, to one-on-one counseling sessions, to the visitations around the base.”
She said, “I became a Chaplain because I love helping people. My parents are both pastors, so I grew up in the ministry. I joined the USAF Active Duty at 17 and quickly found out that I could work in the ministry while serving in the military. It just seemed like the perfect fit.”
Shirley joined the 179th Airlift Wing in 1993. Before becoming a chaplain at the base in 2001, he had recently graduated from Ashland Theological Seminary.
He said, “When it comes to ministry, I’ve always been happy doing ministry wherever I work.”
He added, “Doing ministry, to me, is being the example of what you say you believe.”
Although a career as a chaplain at the local base wasn’t on his radar, when an opportunity arose for him to serve in that role, he enthusiastically accepted the position. “When [a former chaplain] asked me if I’d like to be chaplain, I said, ‘You better believe it,’” he described.
“To say that my job is to do what I love now is ridiculous. It’s not really a job,” he said.
Barlow serves predominantly at the 200th RED HORSE Squadron. “This is a fairly new thing, a new relationship that we have with [the 200th RED HORSE Squadron]. We have agreement where we provide certain services…The chaplain service is another one of those services that we lend from the 179th, so I actually work for Lt. Col. Shirley at the 179th, but my job as a staff chaplain is to cover the RED HORSE,” he explained.
One of the unique aspects of his job, Barlow said, is the “ironclad confidentiality.” “We offer airmen a safe place to talk about whatever it is that’s on their hearts,” he said.
He noted, “About sixty percent of people who have mental health issues, in a recent survey that I read, said that they would feel more comfortable talking to a clergy person or a chaplain rather than a mental health professional. And so, to me, being there, being present, that’s significant.”
“I’m not a mental health professional, but I can help get people the help that they need.”
He further shared, “As chaplains, we can help people connect with their spirituality, their spiritual strength, and help them to be more resilient. So to people who have a Christian faith, we offer for them something of a religious nature, but I think the most significant thing we offer is a safe place, where we have that confidentiality. And we can also help people connect with sources of strength.”
At the 179th Airlift Wing, the Protestant and Catholic faiths are represented by the chaplains. Across the Air National Guard, other faiths beyond Christianity are represented, including Jewish and Muslim faiths.
Shirley noted, “They do expect us to be pluralistic; meaning, I don’t have to believe what you believe. So, if you come in here saying you’re a Wiccan, I’m still here to serve you.”
Sometimes, their job as chaplains takes them across the globe. Shirley has deployed to Kirgizstan and Germany. Of those trips, he reflected, “I basically never slept because it was always busy.”
He said there were 26,000 people at the base in Kirgizstan. “There were forces from all over the world, coalition forces, and we were responsible for saving them, whether that was through services or going on visitations or participating in different events and doing an invocation or benediction or showing up and being available for counseling,” he said.
One of the highlights of his four-month stay in Kirgizstan, he said, was administering 11 baptisms.
Barlow has also had the opportunity to deploy. In July 2013 through January 2014, Barlow served at a base in Qatar. “There, my role was a little different—I was what they call the mission support group chaplain. I had about 2,300 troops that I would visit. My goal was to shake everyone’s hand at least once a month,” he said.
Each chaplain is a traditional Air National Guardsmen, who juggle work at civilian employment with raising their families, and even attending college.
Ditto is a stay-at-home mom in addition to serving as a chaplain and support pastor at her church. “My daughter just turned one in November and I am due with our second baby in April. Being able to stay home with my kids while they are young is a blessing and I couldn’t ask for more than to be a stay-at-home mom and work at the same time,” she said.
“It does bring about challenges when we have events planned at the church over a drill weekend, or my daughter doesn’t want me to go to work as I am putting on my uniform, which I’m sure will only get to be more often as she gets older and our second child comes this spring, but I have a wonderful husband who is very supportive of my career, which makes juggling everything so much easier.”
Shirley works at Mansfield Choice Academies located in the Ocie Hill building as the transformational leader.
Barlow is a resident chaplain at the Louis Stokes VA Clinic in Cleveland. He’s also a student at Ashland Theological Seminary working on attaining his second master’s degree in clinical pastoral education.
Despite the juggling act they all perform, they each feel honored to serve the airmen and airwomen serving this country.
Barlow noted, “I could do a lot of jobs and I could do ministry in a lot of places, but I feel honored to be able to do the job that I do and serve the people that I serve.”
