For the six years that Fr. Jack McLain, SJ, was an army chaplain, home was Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. But being with the 82nd Airborne and the Special Forces meant tours of duty in Kosovo, Western Africa, Mali, and (above) Afghanistan.

HE KNOWS exactly where God is in the middle of a war zone.

When asked how many times he has jumped out of an airplane, he needs more clarification: "With a parachute?" he asks.

He's knowledgeable enough about military training to fill in at the local college as an ROTC field instructor.

He loves rock bands, had his own radio show in college, and sings loudly when wearing a Walkman.

He can advise a Gameboy user which battle sword is most advantageous when playing The Legend of Zelda.

This Catholic priest also celebrates the Eucharist, baptisms, weddings, and funerals. "He likes to challenge people's inherited notions of what a priest is," says close friend Fr. Greg Vance, SJ, president of Seattle Prep.

Vance is talking about Fr. Jack McLain, SJ, who served as an army chaplain for six years. Based at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, McLain was with the 82nd Airborne and the Special Forces, the Green Berets, an elite group specializing in rapid response to contingencies all over the world. He served in Kosovo, Western Africa, Mali, and, after 9/11, twice in Afghanistan.

In 2004, McLain's provincial called him to Portland, Oregon, to be superior of the Colombiere Jesuit community, responsible for the spiritual vitality of the fourteen Jesuits with whom he lives, involved in community nights, faith-sharing evenings, and retreats. He also works in fund-raising for his province, and he still serves in the National Guard reserves.

"Captain Jack," 41, resembles someone you might see in an ad for outdoor gear in the Pacific Northwest-clean cut, rugged, muscular, ready to rock climb or wind surf at any moment. He uses the casual vocabulary of an enlistee in his early 20s. Get past his self-deprecating humor and you realize he's quick, bright, and loyal to the core. Not wanting to regale others with vivid war stories and not being allowed to discuss any national secrets, he summarizes his life experiences in pivotal moments and compelling adjectives.

"I swear, if I were a kid today, I would have been diagnosed with ADD and doped up because I was too active." Even though his mom worked at his grade school in Port Orchard, Washington, he didn't care about grades. "I was smart, but not smart enough to play stupid. Everyone knew I was a slacker."

Though his dad had a long career as a navy engineer, McLain's familiarity with military service had more to do with the culture of a nearby navy town, Bremerton. He remembers classifying people as squids (sailors) and townies (people who lived in the city). The influence of the military was a fact of life.

When it came to religion, his father was not involved, but his mom had set her sights on raising the kids Catholic. "It wasn't a real pious home, but we were always taught to shoot straight and be just," McLain remembers.

After high school, he didn't know what to do next. He considered the priesthood, but it didn't seem real. "I think every Catholic, adolescent male pictures himself in the collar and wonders 'can I do that?' Then he shudders and forgets about it."

While studying communications at Washington State in Pullman, someone there invited him on a white-water rafting trip, complete with a keg. McLain knew it was a recruiting tool for the army. As he describes it, it worked.

In his junior year, those ROTC rafters got him to jump out of airplanes. "It was a huge boost to my self-confidence to learn to jump. I learned that being afraid was normal. I experienced real power when I felt enough confidence in myself and in my teammates to make the jump. A captain once taught me that death is going to get you wherever it wants. So, until it shows up, you might as well act as if this ain't it."

McLain sees a parallel between this bold attitude and that of Ignatius. "Ignatius believed that if we do everything for the greater glory of God, that the results should be indifferent to us. We should apply all our gifts to whatever we are doing at the moment."

It was at this time that he began to feel a turning toward the future. He started working hard, improving his grades. Thoughts of the priesthood still lingered, but, after graduation, there were student loans that needed paying off. McLain had just started working for outdoor clothing giant Eddie Bauer, taking phone orders, when he read an intriguing Seattle Times ad: PLAY VIDEO GAMES FOR A LIVING.

Nintendo tested and timed his ability to play their games and quickly hired him to handle calls from gamesters needing strategies for beating digital villains and demons. Within six months, he was promoted to the lead research and development position; within a year he was appearing on the Today show, plugging new Gameboy products.

"I was going places, seeing things, and making money. I was getting a lot of perks and feeling successful," he says.

Even so, there was a general unease about where he was headed. Big issues loomed-his mother was suffering from cancer, and he had lingering thoughts about entering the Jesuits.

At 25, his application to the Society of Jesus was accepted, but ambivalence nonetheless overwhelmed him.

McLain called the novice director the night before he was to enter the novitiate in 1989: "I don't know if I'm going to be there tomorrow," he said.

"I think you need to be here," came the reply. Jack did show up. His mom died two weeks later.

"I spent most of the first year in the novitiate waiting for them to kick me out, thinking Don't these people know how wrong I am for this?" But in his second year he started trusting the discernment process that had allowed him, and everyone else, to believe it was OK for him to stay.

Throughout the years in Jesuit formation, friends had suggested he become an army chaplain. One buddy, a Gulf War vet, told McLain that he had never seen a priest while in Iraq. The call of being a chaplain, a natural melding of his life's military and religious influences, made sense. "I got back in shape. I cut my hair. It gave me a direction and a context for studying theology."

After ordination in 1998, he headed to Ft. Bragg to take up chaplain duties.

"When fear is really running around, that's when you need to be there. God is right in the middle of that moment," said McLain (center), at ease after saying mass in a dining hall at a firebase in Afghanistan.

"I gave Jack permission to remain in the army early in my time as provincial," says Fr. John Whitney, SJ. "I have supported him in this work-not out of any political agenda but because Jesuits need to go where no one else is willing to be. They need to announce Christ's reconciling love even in the midst of death and destruction."

Though many of McLain's Jesuit friends are opposed to the war, he still feels their support for his ministry to soldiers. He himself is passionate in the belief that someone needs to take care of the people who are doing this work.

" Soldiers don't get to decide American policy," says McLain, "but they get to enforce it, whether they like it or not. You may or may not believe in the war, but you can always believe in soldiers."

McLain could not anticipate what it would be like to be an army chaplain, other than "being with the troops" and "doing what they are doing." Though chaplains are not required to go through the same training as the rest of the troops, he got himself qualified as a jumpmaster and went through the same snake- and frog-eating survival camps as the others. "I thought it was important that they knew I was one of them."

Although it was hard to picture what serving in a war would look like, he tried to wrap his mind around the fact that it would be dangerous. "My generation doesn't know what it means to go to war, but I was ready to deal with whatever came."

One time, that "whatever" included eating three pounds of peppered pig fat and washing it down with a quart of beer at 10 A.M. on a hot August day. It was a meal he was given by some soldiers from Africa as thanks for the training he gave them.

"What really happens in a war is so far out of what you can picture. There would be days, weeks, months with nothing happening, then it's zero to 80 in less than a second. I'm not sure human beings were designed for that."

McLain, reluctant to talk about friends he has lost, would rather discuss what it meant to be there. "You're living in bizarre conditions, desperately trying to put on layers of sanity to process what is happening." As a chaplain, he helped people absorb the experiences they had, confronted them with love, and helped them come through whole.

He recalls a friend who lost a hand in a grenade explosion. The man, who needed to be flown out via helicopter, asked McLain to go with. "When fear is really running around, that's when you need to be there. God is right in the middle of that moment."

McLain's life these days is much calmer than his life in the military. Superior of (and sometimes shopper for) Colombiere Jesuit community in Portland, Oregon, he also works for his province development office and serves in the National Guard reserves.

The seven times he had to notify a family that a husband, a son would not be coming home were the most difficult. "I felt like a horrendous person to give the news, but I would never let someone else do that job for me."

For fellow Jesuit Vance, McLain's military service is a way for McLain to put his faith on the line in a dramatic way. "There is a brotherhood among us when we see each other in hard jobs," says Vance. "I can't be who I am unless other Jesuits are being who they are. None of us do this work on our own."

McLain describes many of his experiences as "incredibly unpleasant," but his loyalty and love for the men who were willing to be there kept him on mission. "The guy to my right or left may not be my favorite person, but I will go as far as I need to protect him and to help him find God in those moments."

That personal credo was most tangibly tested in Afghanistan, when his truck was bombed on its way to Kabul-a trip he had made a hundred times before without incident. Deafened by the explosion, McLain saw his driver clutching a bloody leg, unable to see or to walk. He carried him into the American Embassy for help. After a few days, the man regained his sight; his wounds were healing.

"No sane person would choose these experiences; but my job was to make the very best of very bad situations."

Author Karen Crandal assists Oregon Province provincial Fr. John Whitney, SJ, with his schedule and activities and publishes the province magazine, News of the Northwest Jesuits.

McLain was awarded a Purple Heart for that incident, which permanently damaged his hearing. On his return to the United States, he gave the medal to his provincial.

After receiving the gift, Whitney remembers falling silent. "I was unable to speak in the face of what was offered-not just a medal but a whole life, consecrated in service to the Society of Jesus and the people of God."

"I'm proud of what it represents, but I felt weird keeping it to myself," says McLain about the medal. "I wanted the provincial to be reminded that I am not unique among Jesuits in my willingness to serve. He needs to know that."