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Changing Roles of Military Chaplaincy

Introduction

One of the primary components in the military that works with families and soldiers in the Army is the U.S. Army Chaplain. The U.S. Army Chaplaincy began its history in 1775 in the continental Army of George Washington. On 29 July 1775, the Continental Congress first recognized chaplains by agreeing to pay them twenty dollars a month. This was the same amount paid to Captains and Judge Advocates, and thus the first official recognition of chaplains by the government (Rider, 27). With a long history of over 235 years of service, The US Army Chaplaincy strives to meet the religious needs of soldiers, family members, and Department of the Army (DA) civilians throughout the Army.

Discussion

In the Army, the Chaplaincy's doctrines and policies have evolved through the course of its history that was forged in the furnace of peace, war, and conflict. Even though the Chaplaincy has a long history, it did not become a professional organization of the Army until after World War I. Today it is recognized as a valued component of the United States Army (Miles, 78). The Army Chaplaincy has been involved in most of the major conflicts to include those of the last century and this century, e.g., WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam, Just Cause, Gulf War, Bosnia conflict, Somalia, and Operation Iraqi and Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan (Loudon, 52). The literature about religion's role in chaplaincy has centered almost entirely on religious dissent during the American wars. Scholars have privileged the religious motives of the antiwar movement without taking seriously the religious responses and motivations of either pro-war advocates or those who were ambivalent about the war.

While chaplains' responses to the war were far from uniform, many offered the perspective of a plausible middle ground in which religious Americans were deeply conflicted over the morality and conduct of the war, but for whom all out denunciation was never a comfortable possibility (Johnson, 84). It might be easiest if these views could be written off as only quasi-religious-mere examples of the military's power to co-opt religious language and ideals-but this essentially leaves scholars in the position of judging the veracity and sincerity of other people's faith and it plainly ignores the long history of how religion and warfare have complemented and supported each other.

Influence of Chaplaincy in American Military

The religious component of chaplains' moral training has always played an important role in training in the development of military values. The best example of chaplaincy influencing the military cadets was set during the First Gulf War in the year 1991, when American military was engaged in combating the Iraqi forces; who had illegally attacked Kuwait (Groh, 115). The term cultural mediator can encompass a good number of people in different circumstances, including military chaplains. Cultural mediators are people who, by virtue of their cultural skills such as language, cultural knowledge, or education, are firmly entrenched in two or more worlds and can move easily between these cultures and communities.

Cultural mediators' positions ...