Veterans Day: Remembering those still on the frontline

(Vatican Radio) Across the world this Sunday, the 11^th day of the 11^th month, people will commemorate the World War I armistice that led to an end of hostilities that cost millions of lives.

In Commonwealth countries it is known as Remembrance Day, in the US it is called Veterans Day, to remember the members of the armed forces who have died in the line of duty and those who have survived.

But what about the hundreds of thousands of men and women who are on the frontline of wars today? Serving in Afghanistan, Iraq or in peacekeeping missions across the world? This Veterans Day the US based Frontline Faith Project is asking us to pause for a minute at noon in a sign of thanks and support for troops far from home, those men and women still on the frontline facing life and death situations every minute of every hour of every day.

Cheri Lomonte of Austin Texas is founder of Frontline Faith : “It is my hope that this collective moment of silent prayer – lifted all over the world on a single day – will fortify the men and women of our Armed Forces”.
Lomonte founded Frontline to support the spiritual needs of the United States Military. The project produces MP3 players packed with prayers and inspirational material for Christian U.S. military serving around the globe. “The idea came to me after some asked me to pray for her son who was on duty and who hadn’t seen a priest in over 9 months”.
In fact, there are now less than 240 Military Chaplains to serve the spiritual needs of an estimated 960 thousand Christians serving in the US Armed Forces. “These men really are hero’s and they really love the players, because they can leave them with the troops, and one chaplain said that when he comes back round to say Mass again, I find a Catholic community that’s already established, another Chaplain said ‘thank you for brining God to our soldiers and our soldiers to God’”.
Cheri’s project has distributed more than 30,000 MP3 players to date from Camp Pendleton to Kandahar, but its task remains daunting. Reactions from troops themselves has revealed an unexpected hunger for faith.
“We hear from our troops that having a player is like somebody by your side to remind you that there is a higher purpose and to make your hardships relatively small”, she says. “Another soldier wrote us and said just hearing the Mass helps me relax”.

“We have been thanked over and over again” she concludes “one quote that I will never forget is a soldier who wrote us and said ‘we are starving, starving for spiritual support”.

This month Cheri faces the task of meeting the latest request for 100 players for troops heading off on a tour of duty and who will be cut off from all communications. “They say they want to be able to listen to the Mass everyday. You know that says it all!”.

To find out more about Frontline Faith and how you can help, listen to Vatican Radio’s extended interview with Cheri Lomonte: