On Saturday, February 9th , Chaplain Colonel William T. Yates was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, Air National Guard Assistant to United States Air Force Chief of Chaplains. The ceremony took place at Stout Field on the Indiana National Guard base in Indianapolis.
Before moving to work in Washington, D.C., Rev. Yates served as Associate Pastor and then Senior Pastor of Calvary Lutheran Church and School (LCMS) on the South Side of Indianapolis, from 1990 to 2014. During his 24 years there, Calvary participated in the LCMS Ministry to the Armed Forces through its support of Rev. Yates in his Reserve Chaplain duties and deployments. Rev. Yates was offered the position of Deputy Director Air National Guard Chaplain Corps and moved to work in D.C. later in 2014.
Yates was born in Madison, Wisconsin and is a graduate of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He entered the military in 1985 and was deployed several times over the years while working as a church pastor at Calvary Lutheran. His military deployments included Europe, Antarctica, the Middle East, the Balkans, The Pacific, and Southeast Asia. Recently, Yates wrote and narrated the Air Force training video “Bringing Faith to the Fight.”
Reflecting on his career as a military chaplain, Yates said “I don’t think I’m special because I’m a Chaplain, but I can tell you what I do as a Chaplain is very, very special. We bring God to people, and we bring people to God.”
(Photos by Senior Airman Jonathan W. Padish)
