Libby chaplain has command role in Middle East

At MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, Fla., a busy Libby native commands quite a bit of respect — and airmen.

Lt. Col. Jerry Sather, 54, is the command chaplain for the Air Force Element of Special Operations Command Central. He oversees all chaplain activity for the command.

That means Sather oversees all Air Force chaplainry in some of the world’s hottest spots, including Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Wherever airmen and women operate and fly in that crossroads of the world is where Sather has command.

This keeps Sather busy, since on occasion he must travel from Florida to these locations. Before MacDill, he was stationed in Misawa Air Force Base in Japan.

How does a boy from Libby end up commanding chaplains from Cairo to Baghdad and from Tel Aviv to Islamabad?

It began at Libby High School, where Sather graduated in 1976.

“He was always very musical,” said his mother, Gladys Sather. “He loves to tell stories and to entertain, just like his father did.”

Perhaps it was this storytelling ability that got him interested in reading Scripture to others in the armed forces, but it was his music that first motivated him.

After high school graduation, Sather attended the University of Montana for a year. Then he got his first taste of military life when he was accepted into the U.S. Army Band, with which he served in Germany and registered for the Reserves.

He played with the band for 4 1/2 years before coming back to UM to finish his studies. By then he had found his calling and went to a seminary school in Portland. 

Sather, the natural entertainer, played his saxophone solo at graduation.

After graduation, he served as chaplain in the Reserves until the mid-1990s.

That was when he transferred to U.S. Air Force to serve as a chaplain for an active branch of the military — and his real adventures started.

His deployments have taken him to England, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Djibouti and Japan.

While the globetrotting Sather was hard to talk to via more than the odd email, Gladys, his mother who still lives in Libby, said the reason for Sather’s success came from his environment growing up.

“I think the town and Libby High did very good in those years,” she said.