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was prepared by the Office of the Chief of Chaplains and administered by Army chaplains. Itsintertwined curriculum included religion, citizenship and character building, with a series of lecturesreinforcing the idea that the country’s leadership and service in the armed forces reflected God’s willand that atheistic totalitarian ideologies abroad represented a fundamental threat to the United States.“Religion in Our Way of Life” offered the counsel that “service to the nation is most effective onlywhen religion becomes part of individual life.” The lecture “The Nation We Serve” called the UnitedStates a “covenant nation” recognizing “its dependence upon God and its responsibility toward God,”in which “public institutions and official thinking reflect a faith in the existence and the importance ofdivine providence.” Another, “Our Moral Defenses,” stressed the importance of developing “a desireto live in accordance with moral principles as the best defense against the aggression of a totalitarianphilosophy.” 69The Character Guidance initiative came as the Army also worried about an increasing incidentrate of venereal disease among the troops, with Secretary of War Robert Patterson specificallyreferencing the public health problem, saying it was “higher than at any time in the past thirty years,”in his announcement of the character education initiative to the Army Chief of Chaplains. 70 TheOffice, Chief of Chaplains helped rewrite Army policy on the issue, which resulted in a new directiveon “Discipline and Venereal Disease.” As part of this new directive, chaplains were tasked withdelivering “Citizenship-Morality Lectures” prepared by the chaplains’ office. Reportedly, once thenew policy was implemented, “VD rates went down, and attitudes and moral improved.” 71Anne C. Loveland explains that the requirements for a standing army in a time of peace, andconcern about the possible “corrupting aspects of the military environment” placed a premiumon military services’ ability to show that soldiers would be returned to civilian life “in the bestpossible physical, mental, moral, and spiritual condition,” particularly with the return of peacetimeconscription in 1948. As a result of having included moral and civic as well as religious instructioninto regular training, “Army leaders were able to offer assurance that their character-buildingprograms would return soldiers to civilian society as virtuous, God-fearing, democratic citizens.” 72Chaplains’ interest in the Character Guidance program was motivated in part by the temporalrewards of corporate interest, the “preoccupation with national preparedness and total mobilization”in the chilliest climes of the Cold War presenting “a momentous opportunity for Army chaplains,”Loveland wrote. “Traditionally, their involvement in military training had been limited to lectureson sexual morality.Perhaps inspired by the appreciation high-ranking military leaders accorded them duringWorld War II, in the immediate postwar period they campaigned for a more central role.…(i)t is clear that chaplains regarded it as a means of raising their status and expandingtheir influence. … (W)riting about the newly-established Character Guidance program Chiefof Chaplains Miller observed: “The Army chaplain is no longer playing guard; he is in thebackfield. Commanding officers more and more are making up plays with the chaplaincarrying the ball.” 73The Character Guidance Program faithfully reflected U.S. military values and strategies. It was,Waldo W. Burchard said, “a direct attempt on the part of chaplains to ‘sell’ military life to servicemen. … The lectures are ‘canned.’ They are prepared by a special Board of chaplains, and prior tobeing distributed to chaplains in the field, they are approved and pronounced official state policy bythe Secretary of Defense.” 7470Patterson quoted in Venzke, Confidence in Battle, Inspiration in Peace: The United States Army Chaplaincy, 1945-1975 (Washington: Office of theChief of Chaplains, Department of the Army, 1977), p. 41.71Letter to Rev. Paul Tanner from Chaplain Harold O. Prudell, Headquarters Chaplain School, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., December 15, 1947, Box 57,Folder: “Military Affairs: Chaplains, 1945-1950;” ACUA.72Loveland, “Character Education in the U.S. Army, 1847-1977,” op. cit., p. 801.73Loveland, “Character Education in the U.S. Army, 1847-1977,” op. cit., p. 804.74Burchard, op. cit., p. 535.130Security and Defense Studies Review 2009/Edición 2009/ Edicão 2009/ Volume 9, Issues 1 & 2