Wow! No wiser sentence ever: "The ontological stuff didn't mean much when your hunkered down."

It's living away from, not hunkering down "with the troops," that so minimizes the potential of priests to optimally serve and, frankly, to optimally be humble. 

In Nam, you did not say, "I must remain in the rear, away from knowing my flock. I'm too good for that grunt stuff.  Anyway, I'm an officer and they're  just enlisted personnel."

Too many priests are told they must stay far from the troops, in the rear, away from women, away from a spouse, away from children, away from grandchildren, away from intimacy.  Yes, Phrogge, the ontological stuff didn't mean much when you're "hunkered down with your troops."

I recall that great M*A*S*H  episode when Fr. Mulcahey is counseling the PTSD infantryman, saying, "Yes, son, I can imagine how horrible it must be up there at the front."

"You can IMAGINE??? Father, have you never even been there?"

He went. And it transformed him.