Should the military be hiring clergy? Can the military tell them how to act?  How does a Christian chaplain minister to a Buddhist? A Muslim? An atheist?

To explore these questions, Lee Lawrence and Terry Nickelson spent three months in Afghanistan and Iraq, where troops let them into their lives.

They joined them on patrols and missions, hung out with them in guard towers, flew on medevacs with the wounded, and attended memorials. It was there, where troops deal with boredom, anger, loneliness, fear, death and grief that they learned why military chaplains are crucial and how they sometimes become controversial.

The result is CHAPLAINS UNDER FIRE, a feature-length independent documentary that explores the world of military chaplains through the lens of the troops they serve in combat and the Constitutional issues they raise at home.

The Vanderbilt Divinity School student group, Students Exploring Chaplaincy (SEC) partnered with Project Dialogue to show a special screening of this film in Sarratt Cinema on Monday, November 10th at 6pm. The event was free and open to the public. Following the film, there was a meal and discussion in Rand 308 upstairs that featured a panel discussion led by our University Chaplain Rev. Mark Forrester.