Wilton Bulletin
Former Wilton priest dons Army gear to bring religious freedom to Baghdad

Jan 3, 2008

Colonel Frank Wismer, an Episcopal priest who began his career at St. Matthew%u2019s in Wilton and a senior Army Reserve chaplain, sits with a Sufi cleric who is the grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini at Iftar. Iftar is the evening meal Muslims eat to break the fast during the Islamic month of Ramadan. Mr. Wismer has served all over the world as an Army chaplain, working to encourage the free exercise of religion.

Colonel Frank Wismer has been all around the world, and he’s come to the conclusion that one’s search for God is aided by talking with others who are likewise looking.

“I think your perception of God is enhanced by interactions with different faith groups,” said Mr. Wismer, a senior Army Reserve Episcopal chaplain and former priest at St. Matthew’s in Wilton.

Mr. Wismer has been to places as varied as Haiti, Bosnia, Iraq and Kuwait, and his mission while with the Army has always been the same: striving to ensure everyone is allowed the free exercise of religion as they see fit.

Mr. Wismer began at St. Matthew’s as a priest in 1974. He was at St. Matthew’s from 1972 to 1975, and said becoming a priest “had been a lifelong ambition since the time I was eight.”

“Before I was eight, I wanted to be a sheriff,” he said with a laugh. During his time at St. Matthew’s, he worked with the young people of the church. He said his time at St. Matthew’s helped to paint his future of working with those of different faiths, because of St. Matthew’s joint venture with the Wilton Presbyterian Church.

“I began by dealing with people with different theological approaches,” said Mr. Wismer. He came to be a chaplain with the Army while in Vermont, where he was asked to perform services for cadets at Norwich University, the nation’s oldest private military university.

“I think they asked everyone else, and everyone else said no,” said Mr. Wismer. After he had performed services with the cadets for a number of years, he was asked by the state chaplain for the National Guard of Vermont whether he’d like to be a chaplain.

“Really, the military came after me,” said Mr. Wismer, who agreed. As a chaplain, he was responsible for supporting any faith’s exercise of religion; during his service, he worked faiths ranging from Islam to neo-paganism.

“I think it’s the most exciting job I’ve had in my life,” said Mr. Wismer. He spent a year working for the Coalition Provisional Authority, working in Baghdad with not only troops, but Iraqi nationals as well.

Mr. Wismer was given one of Saddam Hussein’s throne rooms to use as a chapel for all those who practiced their faith; the room had once been known as an “intimidation room,” Mr. Wismer said.

One time, during services, Mr. Wismer reflected on what the room had been converted to.

“This had been a place where people were sentenced to death. Now it was a place where people gave praise and worship to God,” said Mr. Wismer.

He said the chapel was used by Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Christians, and was “set aside for God, regardless of how people understood it.”

In order to ensure that Iraqis were able to experience “the word of God in their own tongue,” Mr. Wismer worked to make the lessons read at services in both English and Arabic. Besides Arabic, there were others who worshiped who spoke Aramaic.

“It was like stepping into the Bible,” said Mr. Wismer, as Aramaic was the language spoken by those who lived during Jesus’s time.

But of course, being in a war zone isn’t always about the free exercise of religion: it’s also about survival.

“Each Sunday that I left the Green Zone and went into town, I had to decide, ‘Am I willing to put my life on the line?’” said Mr. Wismer. He said there wasn’t much violence after Hussein was overthrown, but “as the months went by the violence increased.”

Even from those who practiced faiths other than Christianity, he was asked to help heal after services. He prayed with Muslims, for instance, who came to him looking for blessings from Jesus.

After finishing his time in Iraq, he spent another year as a senior chaplain in Kuwait, where he was responsible for helping 750,000 United States military personnel worship as they saw fit.

Mr. Wismer has retired from the military as of Jan. 1, and he is going to write a book about his experiences in Baghdad titled Life and Death in the Garden of Eden, due to the city’s close proximity to the Biblical location. But his thoughts are still with the many people he met there.

“I would go back in a heartbeat,” said Mr. Wismer.

© Copyright 2007 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers