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Advanced Guard: Strategic Communications and theDual Agency of the U.S. Armed Forces Chaplaincy 1Martin Edwin AndersenABSTRACT“Strategic communications” is a key means of gaining acceptance of one’s ideas, policiesor courses of action. As such it plays a critical role in helping the United States to reinforceunderstanding of its values and culture—including support for its ideas, policies and coursesof action—both within its war-fighting establishment and by the rest of the world. This articleexamines the historical actions of military chaplains to shed light on a critical aspect of theirwork—their ministries as strategic communications platforms from which they carry out apastoral role while offering, as valued members of the military inner circle, religious, moral,spiritual and ethical advice to leadership, both at the strategic and tactical levels. It examinesthe role of the American military chaplaincy as a strategic communications phenomenon thatpredates the concept itself. A buzzword emanating from the 1990s that gained even greatercurrency in the September 11, 2001 global “war of ideas”—“strategic communications” mightappear to be a new concept. Yet for centuries military chaplains have labored as strategiccommunicators in an effort to win support within the armed forces for their countries’ nationalpolicy and doctrine.It is the chaplain’s highest function to stimulate or inspire men through the medium of religionto an idealism which finds its fruition in loyalty, courage and contentment, the very essence ofgood morale. … His ultimate end and aim should be to help both officers and men to maintain acheerful and courageous spirit with unshaken faith in the high cause which they serve, throughboth the monotony of peace and the trying ordeal of war.--- “The Chaplain: His Place and Duties”Training Manual, United States Army (1926) 2An Army chaplain must appropriately offer a commander an opposition perspective to decisionswhich may violate the conscience as well as the law. The chaplain must communicate his or hermoral and ethical concerns in tactful dialogue with commanders, and at the same time, do so insuch a way so as to preserve his or her continued presence for pastoral ministry to people. Thechaplain, to be truly effective, must have a pastoral as well as a prophetic voice in the Army.-- Donald Kammer, The Unique PropheticVoice of the Army Chaplain 31The author would like to thank the following people for their encouragement, faith and wisdom in offering suggestions and critiques of this work,whose errors in appreciation and/or fact nonetheless remain his own: Rev. Bruce Burslie, former Assistant Dean for Management and EducationServices at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS); Chaplain (Lt. Colonel) Carleton Birch, U.S. Army Office of the Chief of Chaplains;Chaplain (Colonel) Eric Wester, Senior Military Fellow, Institute for National Security Ethics and Leadership, and Randy A. Marshall, DeputyCommand Chaplain (Lt. Colonel) at the U.S. Southern Command. Special thanks are due to Professor Christopher J. Kauffman, a warm and generoussoul at the Catholic University of America, under whom this study was originally completed.2Page 40, Box 57, Folder: “Military Affairs: Chaplains’ Conference, 1926-1940”; National Catholic Welfare Council General Administration Series,The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives (hereafter ACUA), The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.3Cited in Randy Marshall, “Identifying and Highlighting the Leadership Role of a United States Air Force Chaplain in the Context of an IncreasinglyDiverse and Pluralistic Twenty-First Century Military Environment,” a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Houston Graduate School of Theology,May 9, 2009.Security and Defense Studies Review 2009/Edición 2009/ Edicão 2009/ Volume 9, Issues 1 & 2 115