As Veterans Day approaches, do many people think about the veterans who were military chaplains or about the role they play in combat situations? If not, the film Fighting Spirit: A Combat Chaplain's Journey, opening in select cities on Nov. 8, puts the spotlight on them, especially Father Emil Kapaun and Protestant chaplain Justin Roberts. 

Father Kapaun’s heroic story becomes the exemplar, the model bookends for the story of chaplains attending all the armed services. 

At the beginning, two images come into focus: the return of Father Kapaun’s remains to the United States in 2021 (he died in a POW camp in 1951) and the personal story of another chaplain.  

“My name is Justin Roberts, and I was a chaplain with the 101st Airborne in Afghanistan,” says this onscreen narrator, introducing himself. Since chaplains do not carry a firearm, Roberts had permission to carry a camera with the stipulation, “Just don’t get shot.” That sets the scene for the selfless bravery chaplains have displayed throughout American history, with 419 chaplains giving their lives on the battlefield. 

A combination of a docudrama and documentary, the film is framed by the personal story of Chaplain Roberts. He becomes more than the onscreen narrator, as he recalls not only his own experiences but the heroic deeds of other chaplains, especially those of Father Kapaun and Father Joseph O’Callahan. 

For reasons Roberts explains related to his own post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), once he learns the story of Father Kapaun, he decides with the consent of his wife to drive more than 700 miles from his home in Louisiana to welcome back the remains of this heroic chaplain — named a “Servant of God” by John Paul Il, officially admitting his cause for sainthood by the Catholic Church — and attend the Medal of Honor-recipient priest’s funeral in Wichita, Kansas. 

The journey offers Roberts plenty of time to reflect upon and to share with viewers the role of chaplains in the military. Along the journey, several chaplains of different faiths appear in snippets, as do the head chaplains of each branch of the service, offering short insights that add to the overall picture and understanding of what chaplains do and experience on their missions. Most important: the immense comfort, support counsel and aid they provide for the military servicemen and women and their families. 

“No commander that I’ve met can imagine going to battle without chaplains. We’re not just there for them in the moment of the fight, but also to help them process everything that they’ve been through,” one chaplain said. “Chaplains are out there risking their lives, too, to give comfort and aid.” 

At the Pentagon, Army Chief of Chaplains Tom Solhjem singled out a painting of Valley Forge that includes a chaplain prominently in the scene to illustrate their spiritual legacy, starting in the Revolutionary War. “George Washington knew that it was right to have clergy amongst his men; that, in fact, readied him for battle,” he said. “George Washington made sure that they would always be there.” It was a “very powerful moment of decision that really shaped the course of the nation.” 

As always, chaplains have risked their lives along with troops on the battlefield, as the intermingling of combat footage from different wars poignantly proves. 

 

Heroic Homecoming 

During the time Roberts journeys to be at Father Kapaun's homecoming, he has much time to talk to viewers “riding” in the passenger seat about what he hoped Father Kapaun would do for him, as he “had done for so many others on the battlefield.” Roberts wondered if he could also bury his own pain, too: “Maybe it’d help me sort through why now that I’ve left the military, I’m feeling so lost.” 

Along the miles, he shares how “chaplains have provided the bedrock of care for every branch of the military. Some chaplains have done heroic things. Some have died during their service, and some died too soon afterwards. But with all of them, their presence in combat changed lives, including their own. During my service, the legacies of the chaplains who came before me were my North Star, my guiding light.” 

Among the heroic stories he highlights are the Four chaplains of the Dorchester — one Catholic priest, two Protestants and a Jewish rabbi. Linking arms, they died together in World War II while comforting and saving servicemen aboard their ship when it was torpedoed in February 1943. 

What makes this part exceptionally moving: the recollections of some seamen who were among the 902 men on that ship who were saved. Still living, they share how they saw these chaplains in action. 

“They were moving about the soldiers and calming them, praying for them, telling them which way to go,” one said. “They were encouraging everyone to leave the ship,” another added. The third said one of the chaplains faced about nine men. “We start praying. I knew that I had to get off. I knew that none of them [the chaplains] were going to go. I admit, I cried. I prayed.” The chaplains gave their life vests so others could live. 

Helping Souls

Stirring testimonies like these amplify the theme and add a great deal of the human element to the way chaplains help souls. 

Similarly, the films offers the insightful story, with much film footage of the actual events as they took place, of Chaplain O’Callahan, a Catholic priest who offered Mass before a battle to remind soldiers where their strength came from. Aboard the aircraft carrier Franklin with its crew of 3,300, when hundreds were killed or wounded by bombs and devastating fires, Father O’Callahan was seen everywhere, giving last rites, praying with and helping the wounded, and giving commands in many ways to prevent further explosions, in order to save lives and prevent the ship from sinking as he “led rescue parties to the bowels of the ship” and “passed hot ammunition to throw overboard so it didn’t explode.” This chaplain also received the Medal of Honor. 

“All the planning in the world can go out the window,”  Roberts explained. “Instead, you must make split-second decisions in life-or-death situations. Those decisions must simply be based on love.”   

Another moving incident makes this clear, as a chaplain describes how he got Iraqi military to surrender without a shot being fired on either side. 

How many realize that, by being the person of compassion, the horrors of war can lead to “compassion fatigue”? Roberts asks, adding: “Many times, chaplains carry within themselves the scars, maybe not visible, but the invisible scars.” His healing includes recalling what Father Kapaun did and by attending his funeral. 

Again, Fighting Spirit: A Combat Chaplain's Journey shines and engrosses in setting the scene with solid sections of actual footage and photographs, recalling highlights about Father Kapaun and bringing the human side out with memories shared on camera by three survivors who Father Kapaun helped in the prisoner of war camp where he died: Mike Dowe, Herbert Miller and Bob Wood. “The will to live — I just can’t overstate that — and that is where Father Kapaun played the biggest role,” Dowe said.  Wood added, “He tried to raise our spirits, and he’d go from room to room and lead us in prayer..” Miller continued, “Father could turn a mud hut into a cathedral by walking into it. He said, ‘Well, don’t worry. Keep up your spirit. They’re going to get us out of here.’” 

“Miller added.  time you saw Chaplain Kapaun, it renewed your strength a little bit more,” Miller added. Viewers should be as amazed and moved as Roberts when he arrives for the procession carrying Father Kapaun’s remains to his hometown of Pilsen, Kansas, and then to the overflowing funeral Mass in Wichita. Much film footage backs up why Roberts “realized that people from all over the United States had had the same idea I did. They came together in the spirit of Emil Kapaun to celebrate him.”  

“Hopefully, Father Kapaun becomes a saint,” reflects a renewed Roberts in the film. “The funeral felt like the end of a chapter for me, then the start of another: a new one filled with hope and joy and life.” Viewers find out what that leads to for him and his family. 

Overall, Fighting Spirit becomes a journey of healing for one former chaplain, a moving boost for the cause of Chaplain Kapaun, and a triumphant ode to military chaplains whose presence with troops can bring them strength, courage and healing. 

“It’s my complete wonder,” Roberts concludes, “at the sacrificial love I saw people show over and over in the most unexpected situations.” 

WATCH

For a theater near you, visit FightingSpiritFilm.com.