Military Chaplains and Joint Professional Military Education: Why am I Here?

The joint operations culture, birthed in the Petri dish of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, continues to develop with its own unique doctrine, dialect, and planning ritual. Analysis indicates that military chaplains assigned to this environment are unequipped to work within the joint culture as their expertise focuses primarily at the tactical level of war. This paper argues that chaplains working at the operational level require the same Joint Military Professional Education JPME as their line counterparts in order to learn the language and context exceptional to the joint environment. Then utilizing the fluency of that language, military chaplains, as essential staff officers are able to serve as trusted and capable advisors to the operation. Additionally, this analysis contends that the Joint Forces Chaplain JFCH, equipped with JPME, works as a force multiplier and renders legitimacy in his role and relationship with the operational commander. Finally, the paper offers recommendations in preparing a pool of qualified chaplains from which selections to Unified and Subordinate Commands are made.