Preparing For War, US And Allied Chaplains Train Across Faiths And Under Fire
“STARS AND STRIPES” By Jennifer Svan
“The field exercise in a wooded training area capped three days of joint instruction aimed at helping chaplains from the United States and nearly a dozen NATO allies and partners work together during a crisis.”
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“Chaplains in camouflage crawled on the ground, carried stretchers and counseled fellow service members amid a barrage of explosions and gunfire, part of a drill meant to prepare them to care for military personnel during large-scale combat.
The training comes as NATO strengthens its collective defenses in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine and the threat of a wider conflict. Part of that effort involves preparing military chaplains from different countries and faiths to work together during peacetime and war. The U.S. European Command-sponsored exchange, the third iteration, included “foxhole ministry,” a form of modern warfare training tailored to uniformed clergy.
Chaplains answered questions about the divine while under fire and helped medics make difficult decisions about whom to save, among other tasks, all while learning how the battlefield is evolving due to technology, they said.
“We’re looking at how do we adapt?” said U.S. Army Maj. Randy Croel, chief of the clinical pastoral division at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. “We can no longer take 40 to 50 people, put them in a field and have a [worship] service.”
The three-day event included what participants called foxhole ministry, training uniformed clergy to minister under the threat of drones and long-range missiles. (Michelle Sies/U.S. Air Force) Deployed chaplains must account for the threat of drones and long-range missiles as well as the risk that cellphone signals could reveal their location, said Croel and Air Force Capt. Jamie Osborne, a chaplain with the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein.
“Foxhole ministry — how do we be safe in dangerous situations,” said Osborne, an Episcopal priest. “We need to be aware of that.” In a potential conflict in Europe, chaplains from different denominations and branches of the military could be called upon to support foreign service members, helping them cope with the trauma of war.
“We’re working together to understand how each other works, so that we can integrate better,” Croel said. “I’m a Baptist from the U.S. Army,” he said. “There’s a lot of people like me. How do we care for people unlike us?” The training could also prepare chaplains to work together following a mass-casualty incident, like a bus or plane crash, Croel added. Those types of scenarios were built into field drills. Chaplains and religious affairs teams practiced caring for mock patients of different faith groups at a staged triage area in the woods, as recorded explosions boomed.
“We have Jewish and Muslim patients, and we’re going through different faith groups, so they have to care for somebody that’s not a Protestant or Catholic,” Croel said, referring to the two largest Christian faith groups in the U.S. military and worldwide.
The three-day event was the third of its kind and trained chaplains in dignified transfers, memorialization and pastoral care for what U.S. European Command described as large-scale combat scenarios. (Jared Lovett/U.S. Air Force) Besides the United States, participating countries included Kosovo, Finland, Slovakia, Denmark, Germany, Romania, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Belgium. But chaplains regardless of nationality or faith share a core mission, Croel said.
“In the U.S. Army, we nurture the living, care for the dying and honor the dead. “Every chaplain out here … lives that mission, even if it’s not written.” Chaplain Hans De Ceuster, the Belgian military humanist chaplain general, said most military exercises he’s participated in don’t focus on death itself. “When people start dying, mostly the exercise stops,” he said. That wasn’t the case in this training, he said, where chaplains have learned, for example, how to do hasty memorials in the trenches, often a necessity in combat. “It’s chaplaincy in high-intensity conflict,” De Ceuster said.
“We have been doing chaplaincy in expeditionary operations for decades.” Chaplain Christopher Schuller, a German army chaplain, said his knowledge of Christian theology was tested under rapid-fire questions during one exercise scenario. He was hiding from a fictional drone with an exercise participant posing as a soldier. “He started asking me very pointed questions that he expected quick, direct answers anchored in religion,” Schuller said. “That’s an important challenge for a chaplain because that’s what I would have to do
” The question dealt with “how does a just and loving God permit there to be evil in the world?” Schuller said. His answer in part: “God suffers with us in solidarity and in the moments when we’re facing down death, that’s when I believe that God is closest to us,” he said. “If I can be a credible witness of that solidarity … I think that’s what [gives] people comfort and support in these situations.” As a humanist, De Ceuster doesn’t believe in an afterlife. But as a chaplain, he said he can offer his compassion and presence.
“No one wants to die alone,” he said.”
Preparing for war, US and allied chaplains train across faiths and under fire Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2026-09-10/chaplains-train-combat-nato-integration-22807975.html Source – Stars and Stripes
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jennifer H. Svan reports on the U.S. military from Kaiserslautern, Germany, where she writes about the Air Force, Army and DODEA schools. She’s had previous assignments for Stars and Stripes in Japan, reporting from Yokota and Misawa air bases. Before Stripes, she worked for daily newspapers in Wyoming and Colorado. She’s a graduate of the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
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