JBER Airman sets goals, reaches them

Published June 4, 2015
By Airman 1st Class Kyle Johnson
JBER Public Affairs

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --

This article is a personality feature on one JBER Airman's service and spirituality. While this is not a Chaplain's Corner submission, we remind readers that comments and imagery regarding specific beliefs, practices, or behaviors strictly represent the author and/or subject. They are not intended to imply endorsement by the U.S. government, the Department of Defense, the Army, the Air Force, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, or the 673d Air Base Wing.

Life was going great for Madison Hayes. He snagged a full ROTC scholarship to the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, he had a 4.0 grade point average, and at 6 feet, 4 inches tall and 215 lbs, he was nothing to shrug off on the NCAA football field.

"I was thinking I'd graduate with no problems," Hayes said. "I'm going to be an officer, and that's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life."

Life rarely stays that smooth for long, and at 19 years old, Hayes would learn the path to success isn't always a straight line.

Shortly after he signed on the dotted line and committed his life to protecting his country and his people, his childhood asthma was brought to light and there was no time to get a waiver.

His scholarship was immediately cut off and his future, once so clear and bright, suddenly went dark.

"I was part of ROTC Detachment 410," Hayes said. "That's really what I wanted to do. It turned out that's not really what God wanted me to do."

Hayes hadn't hidden his asthma when he signed up. He wasn't that kind of guy, he said, and even if he was, there would have been little point. Hayes grew up on military bases and went to military doctors his entire life.

Hayes doesn't claim any one location as his hometown. When asked where he's from, he goes through the process every military child is all too familiar with; listing states and countries in a lengthy monologue which only leads to a look of confusion and inexplicable disappointment on the individual who asked.

Instead of claiming a hometown, or trying to, Hayes said he claims the Catholic Archdiocese of the Military as home.

The archdiocese of the military is the Catholic governing body that supervises every Catholic chaplain and ministry service in the military.

It is this organization that Senior Airman Madison Hayes, an airborne missions systems specialist with the 962nd Airborne Air Control Squadron on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson calls home, and aspires to become a leader in.

"Growing up on a military base, I had a lot of positive influence in my life by the chaplaincy," Hayes said. "I feel strongly that I am called to serve God in that capacity."

A quarter of the military identifies themselves as Roman Catholic. There are very few Catholic chaplains available to serve the spiritual needs of these men and women - about 50 in the Air Force, and 88 in the Army.

Because of this, a local clergyman often fills the role of chaplain for Catholics on military bases.

Hayes said he first felt the call to become a priest when he was sixteen.

"The call" is phrase often spoken about in Protestant and Catholic circles. It is used to describe a moment, or process wherein an individual feels God is pulling his heart or desires toward a specific goal.

Hayes describes his own calling toward priesthood as akin to a seed being planted.

More than a decade ago, Hayes had just returned from his confirmation retreat and was attending mass at Ramstein Air Force Base. The priest administering the service asked the congregation if anyone was interested in becoming a priest.

The only two to stand up where Hayes and his brother.

At that moment, Hayes made a statement of intent, a confession to the people around him he was committing himself to a life of celibacy and service to others.

"This is someone who thinks differently," said U.S. Air Force Chaplain (Maj.) Jesus Navarrete with the 673d Air Base Wing. "He sees things in a different way than others."

"It's a process, it's taken me over a decade to get here," Hayes said. "I'm going to seminary."

Hayes' family couldn't afford to send him to college outright, so he pursued the ROTC program, and was accepted into the University of St. Thomas, where his success would blur his perspective.

"I let my vocation go dormant," Hayes said.

It didn't stay dormant for long though; when he lost the ROTC scholarship, he found himself at a crossroads.

"I took out student loans and decided to finish what I started," Hayes said. "I was in a place where I was lost. I had everything going for me. All of a sudden, I was in a place where I felt like I had nothing."

Instead of returning home as most would do, he quit playing college football and got a job. He worked his way through college, eventually graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Business.

In any other story, this would have been game over, the victory, mission accomplished.

But Hayes finished what he started, and found himself at another crossroads, again unsure of where to go.

"I had graduated, I was living at home, I was working a simple job, I had nothing going for me," Hayes said.

"I turned to God and said 'Alright, I give up. Whatever you want, I'll do it. Just give me the strength and show me what it is.' And now I'm here.

"It's crazy how doors started opening."

One of those doors was military enlistment. He enlisted in the Air Force and arrived at his first duty station as an Airman 1st Class with a Bachelor's degree, a year of ROTC experience, and well into his twenties.

"I think God wanted me to have that experience," Hayes said. "If I didn't become enlisted, I wouldn't have met all the mentors that I have now - mentors who have been crucial to my discernment process."

Not long after enlisting, the seed planted in his life at 16 began to show its roots. He became one of the founding members of the Young Adult Catholic group on JBER.

The group addresses the specific spiritual needs of young Catholics in the military and frequently meets for events and fellowship.

"The hope of this small community is to build connections," said Navarrete. "[It's] to help them realize they are important in our community and to develop their faith more."

Hayes began to pursue the long road of becoming a military chaplain.

"The application process took almost a full year to complete. The vocational director of the Archdiocese of Anchorage taught me what the archdiocese is about. He set up a meeting with the archbishop for this archdiocese, where I met with him and told him I want to be a priest," Hayes said. "I filled out my whole life history, my autobiography, my financial history, everything about me. They look into your criminal record, everything. You have to tell them everything."

Throughout this process, Hayes has been working with the archdiocese, the chaplains and the community as well as completing his military duties.

"They look at every part of your life and meet with you several times until they are ready to review their application," Hayes said. "Then they make their recommendation to the archbishop to accept you.

"Then you are accepted as a seminarian candidate."

After being approved by his home archdiocese, Hayes flew to St. Paul, Minn. to meet with the board of the seminary and applied to be accepted.

After being accepted into the seminary, the military and Archdiocese of Anchorage would co-sponsor him as a seminarian candidate in the eventual hope of having his service in the future.

Hayes has been accepted into St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in Minnesota and is scheduled to begin classes this fall.

During this six-year process, Hayes will transition into the Air Force Reserve as a 2nd lieutenant, earn a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a master's in divinity.

Eventually, he will be ordained as a Catholic priest and accepted into the Archdiocese of the Military where he will serve as a Catholic chaplain to American Armed Forces.

"You give your whole self to the church. Your self, what you are, in every capacity," Hayes said.

"You give 100 percent of yourself, 100 percent of your time," Hayes said.

"I feel like a lot of people who have a military background have a calling to be a priest, because they know what it's like to give 100 percent of yourself already."

"There's no greater love than this to lay down one's life for a friend," Hayes said. "Everybody in the military understands this. They all are willing to lay down their life for their friend.

"A priest is much the same. They lay down their life for the church."