RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany -- RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany – Chaplains from the U.S., NATO and partner nations gathered from Sept. 1-3 for a religious affairs subject matter exchange, sharing their expertise, strengthening relationships and advancing combined readiness to care for service members.
Eighty-seven chaplains and religious affairs personnel from the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and National Guard, as well as 11 different nations participated in the third-annual U.S. European Command event, emphasizing collective spiritual resilience and dignity for the warfighter.
“We are an alliance and interoperability is what we do,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Christian J. Chae, U.S. EUCOM command chaplain. “We count on our NATO and partner nations to walk side by side with one another.”
Chae said the ability to work together begins with opportunities like the subject matter exchange, where participants can learn about one another’s spiritual practices and perspectives.
“We’re hyper focused as a chaplain corps on advancing the readiness and resilience of our warfighters,” said U.S. Air Force Capt. Jamie Osborne, 86th Airlift Wing chaplain. “As the spiritual guides and advisors for our formations, we advance readiness through the care we deliver, and we’re excited to share those best practices with Allies and partners to advance our combined spiritual readiness.”
According to Osborne, spiritual readiness is a fundamental component of individual service member readiness and resilience. This readiness and resilience in turn translates into holistic mission impacts.
The three-day exchange consisted of in-class and field-based scenarios which included simulated combat, triage events with medics, and dignified transfers. The different perspectives strengthened relationships, spiritual readiness and resiliency, and religious interoperability among different nationalities and denominations.
With spiritual readiness as an important component of warfighter readiness, Osborne stated that building multinational and joint relationships in chaplain corps positively impacts service member care and overall readiness in the EUCOM and NATO areas of responsibility.
“Our missions are broadly similar, but sometimes in the details they can be different from each other in very important ways,” said Christopher Schuller, Bundeswehr Hospital chaplain.
Schuller further stated the nuances of each nation and denomination are important to understand and accommodate for an interoperable force.
By bringing together chaplains and religious affairs personnel from multiple nations, the subject matter exchange helped strengthen the relationships with partner and allied nations while reinforcing continued cooperation and mutual understanding and support for their shared mission.
“The will to fight comes from a desire to serve a greater purpose,” said Osborne. “It’s the chaplain corps’ responsibility to enable that will through spiritual and moral guidance.”