Christmas at the Top of the World
Shortly before Christmas, I received a phone call from the office of the Air Force Chief of Chaplains. I am a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force, and I was asked to go to Thule Air Base in Greenland for two weeks to provide Catholic services for Christmas and the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (New Year’s Day). Thule Air Base, 800 miles above the Arctic Circle, is the northernmost military installation of the United States. It has a small base population of American, Canadian, Danish, and Greenlandic personnel. The base’s main mission is to provide missile warnings, space surveillance, and satellite command and control for our senior civilian and military leaders. In the Air Force (and the recently formed Space Force), Thule is the punchline of many a joke about where one might end up if he or she doesn’t “straighten up and fly right.” Indeed, when I told a friend of mine, a former Air Force medical doctor, where I would be for Christmas, his one-word reply was, “Sucker!” That stung a little, but my instincts told me he was wrong.
He was right that at this time of year, northern Greenland is blanketed in total darkness. Every few days, a faint purplish ribbon of light can be seen on the horizon, but only for an hour or two. Then the sky returns to Bible-black. The other distinguishing feature is the extreme cold. As I write this, it’s a balmy -7 degrees Fahrenheit, but temperatures in the -40s are not uncommon here in January.
Due to the size of its active duty population, the base is only assigned one chaplain. Two would certainly be one too many. And for obvious demographic reasons, both in terms of the base population and the dwindling number of Catholic chaplains in the Air Force, the one assigned chaplain at Thule is a Protestant. For the past twenty-five years, the Air Force has flown a Catholic chaplain up here for Christmas and New Year’s Day, and then again for Holy Week and Easter. Unfortunately, that’s the most we can provide to the Catholic service members who are up here for a year at a time.
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