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to accept ideas, policies or courses of action in support of the national command authority. Thesesecular actions have taken place both inside the military—such as the persuading troops about theneed for censorship during wartime and character building exercises—as well as outside the armedforces—helping win the “hearts and minds” of foreign populations, enlisting support for militarypreparedness, and educating freed slaves. 9 At the same time, as Professor Max Stackhouse of thePrinceton Theological Seminary has observed: “The really good chaplains realize that they are trulyunder God’s command first and under military command second. So this means sometimes theymust, with prudence, give tough and delicate critique of the military orders that are given.” 10Since the earliest beginnings of the American armed forces, at Concord Bridge on April 19,1775, military chaplains have played an integral role, providing comfort and guidance to militarypersonnel, with primary responsibility—from planning and development to implementation—forassisting combatant commanders in safeguarding “the religious, spiritual, moral, and ethical wellbeing of all personnel in their command.” 11 That included an overtly political stance, in favor ofone’s comrades. Noted one War Department report nearly 150 years later:When the Revolutionary War came, the same preachers who had been leaders in theircommunities went to battle with their parishioners. … There was John Martin, who, afterpraying with the soldiers of Bunker Hill, seized a musket and fought gallantly to the closeof the battle. A day or two after he preached to the remnants of his shattered regiment fromNehemiah iv, 14: ‘And I said unto the nobles and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, Beye not afraid of them.’ 12Col. (ret.) John W. Brinsfield, the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps historian tells us that RevolutionaryGeneral George Washington believed “that the only victorious army [was] going to be, at least, anethical army if not a religious army … Washington thought the only way he could win was with arighteous army, because the odds were so overwhelming against him …Washington wanted [chaplains] to be religious leaders. … But the chaplains were also to visitthe wounded, take care of the dead, write letters home for soldiers who couldn’t write, givediscourse of a patriotic nature to keep the soldiers from deserting. The chaplain was a veryimportant link between the commander and the troops. 13The chaplains’ dual role also impacts their search to maintain respectable identities and corevalues as both a military officer and as the leader of a flock who faces a delicate balancing act in her/his interaction with enlisted personnel. “The chaplain, being both a military officer and a clergyman,must somehow come to grips with the problem of carrying on an effective religious ministry forenlisted personnel and at the same time retaining his status as an officer.” 14 As Dale R. Herspringhas pointed out, their roles tending to issues of morale, motivation and political socialization havealso been—depending on the time and the nation’s ideology—carried out by political officers andone-party state commissars. 1510Princeton Theological Seminary Web site (http://ptsem.edu/Publications/inspire2/6.3/feature_1/two_chains.htm.), quoted in Marshall, “Identifyingand Highlighting the Leadership Role,” op. cit.11U.S. Army Regulation 165-20, Chapter 3; a major regulation revision including the same language is found in AR 165-1, “Army Chaplain CorpsActivities,” December 3, 2009.Report of the Conference on Moral and Religious Work in the Army, War Department, (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1923), p. 5.,in Box 57, Folder: “Military Affairs: Chaplains’ Conference, 1926-1940”; National Catholic Welfare Council General Administration Series, ACUA13“Military Chaplains: A historian’s view from the American Revolution to Iraq,” The Christian Science Monitor, October 30, 2007, p. 25. In aRevolutionary Order issued from Valley Forge on May 2, 1778, Commander-in-Chief Washington directed: “that divine service be performed everySunday at eleven o’clock in each brigade which has chaplains. Those brigades who have none will attend the places of worship nearest to them. …While we are duly performing the duty of good soldiers we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the highest duties of religion. … Signal instancesof Providential goodness which we have experienced and which have almost crowned our arms with complete success demand from us in a peculiarmanner the warmest returns of gratitude and piety to the supreme author of all good.”14Waldo W. Burchard, “Role Conflicts of Military Chaplains,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 19, No. 5 (October, 1954), p. 532.15Herspring, Soldiers, Commissars, and Chaplains: Civil-Military Relations since Cromwell, (Landham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).Like that of commissars and political officers, he argues, the institutional role of chaplains also serves to help understand the state of a nation’s civilmilitary relations.Security and Defense Studies Review 2009/Edición 2009/ Edicão 2009/ Volume 9, Issues 1 & 2 117