Remembering Father Rocheford
Twenty years ago today, I went to Quantico, Virginia, to try to earn a commission as a Marine Corps officer. At 29 when the training began, I was no longer a very young man, and I had to leave my wife and nearly two-year old first-born son back at home. I would miss his second birthday a month later.
Other than becoming a Christian at age 11 and marrying my wife at 27, that period was the defining and seminal experience of my life, and the turning point between everything that had come before and everything that would come after. Every single day was a fight, every single night was full of dread in anticipation of whatever awaited me in the morning. Unlike some who claim (lie) otherwise, it wasn’t easy for me.
I learned to try and take each day as it came, one at a time. Over ten long and seemingly never-ending weeks, Marine Corps drill instructors quickly dismantled the person I had been and methodically rebuilt my platoon mates and me into something far stronger, far nobler, far better, than what we were before.
Several times I leaned hard on our chaplain, the late Dennis Rocheford, a Navy Lieutenant Commander who as a young man enlisted in the Marines at 18, went to Vietnam, and fought in the hellish streets of Hue City, and who, decades later, although he was a now a Catholic priest and Naval officer, always seemed to find the right words for this southern Baptist.
The first time I spoke with him was several weeks into the training when he spotted me in apparent distress after some sort of painful physical evolution. All of sudden, there he was. Not wanting my fellow candidates to see what I was going through, he pulled me aside and said, “Candidate Hines, what is it?” I told him I was having a hard time because it was my son’s birthday and I was missing my family. “Is this the first time you’ve ever been away from them for a long time?” “Yes Sir,” I responded. “How about we pray about it?” “Right here?” I asked incredulously. “Right here,” he smiled. We bowed our heads right there in the Quantico forests and he did the praying. Just like I had grown up doing it, “Dear Lord. Please keep Glen’s family safe while he is here. Bless his son on this glorious day you brought him into the world. And please give Glen the peace and comfort of knowing that you are watching over them, always and forever. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.” A Catholic priest praying like a Baptist minister, perfectly, succinctly, and just as I knew it. How did he know how to do that? I immediately felt the stress, anxiety, and sadness fall away, and a sense of peace came over me.
That’s the way he was; he would appear out of nowhere just at the right place and moment, to support you, physically, or spiritually.
I’m thinking about Father Rocheford this morning. Although pushing 50, he could outrun every candidate at OCS, had the best military appearance of anyone on the staff with the crispest utilities on the base, and if the situation required it, as stated, he knew how to pray just like a Baptist, down on his knees if necessary. After that first time on my son’s second birthday, we prayed that way several times in his office, and this Baptist boy was continually amazed at how well that Catholic priest could petition the Lord better than many of my pastors growing up. He as much as anyone else there shaped what I would eventually become.
The entire experience changed me. Permanently. There we things that were important to me before the fall of 1997 that weren’t important anymore. And as I matured as a husband, father, Marine, officer, and a man, those things became even less important. I had taken the proverbial road less-traveled, but unlike the poet Frost, I don’t look back with a sigh; only with quiet satisfaction and gratitude to God, Staff Sergeants Carpenter, Cook, and Masters, my fellow platoon mates, and of course Father Rocheford.
Tragically, Father a Rocheford left us far too soon. The news of his death and its circumstances shocked everyone, but knowing who he was, I know he is up there with the angels. I have no doubt about it. I just hope he knew how many lives he impacted as a man of God, as a Naval officer, and a role model.
Such is the nature of life; people move into our lives and out again, some pass through very quickly and others stay a while. And then others make a mark that is never forgotten. They make a lasting difference in our lives.
As I look back to that fall season along the banks of the wide river, I think of my fellow platoon members, my drill instructors, the other Marines who taught and trained us, and of course, Father Dennis Rocheford.
Glen Hines is the author of five books, including the recently published Of Time and Rivers, and the highly-regarded Bring in the Gladiators, Observations From a Former College Football Player Who Was Never Able to Become a Fan, all available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. He is the writer and producer of the book and podcast Welcome to the Machine, available on most podcast platforms. His writing has also been featured in Sports Illustrated, Task & Purpose, and the Human Development Project.
