Spiritual Readiness
By Chief Warrant Officer Ronald F. Sellers
Canadian Armed Forces
August 30, 2024
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Readiness is a fundamental, perpetual pursuit of professional military forces. All aspects of preparedness require leader presence, but the military needs to be more willing to address spiritual readiness.
With society increasingly pluralistic and individuals holding less-defined personal belief systems (or none), spiritual readiness becomes an essential but largely underdeveloped domain in the Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) initiative.
Barriers to spiritual readiness, derived from societal shifts and internal resistance, reveal the role of this type of preparation in H2F. Examining active leaders’ importance in enabling Soldier growth can show the benefits of spiritual readiness to individuals and the organization.
In an increasingly secular society, leaders must allow Soldiers to develop their personal beliefs and values. Failure to produce spiritually ready Soldiers degrades individual resilience and organizational effectiveness in high-tempo operations.
Spiritual Readiness Within H2F
Spiritual Readiness as a Readiness Domain
Like the other H2F domains, spiritual readiness prepares Soldiers for their present and future endeavors. The Department of the Army (DA, 2020) notes, “Spiritual readiness supports individual and collective readiness as Soldiers negotiate challenging moral and ethical situations in training or operational environments” (p. 1-2).
With Soldiers enrolling from diverse backgrounds, DA identifies spiritual readiness as the resource that develops innate aspects of each person’s worldview into tools to combat stress, hardship, and tragedy. “The spiritual dimension draws on an individual’s core religious, philosophical, or human values to develop an individual’s sense of motivation, character, and integrity,” the Army states (DA, 2020, p. 3-5).
Soldiers must spiritually prepare to process events, make ethical choices, and overcome adversity when events challenge their worldview. This preparation is necessary for religious individuals and critical for all force members (DA, 2020).
This idea of readiness is not solely a military concept, as civilian researchers find links between proactive spiritual practices and improved health outcomes (Chen & VanderWeele, 2018). Overlooking spiritual readiness can directly impact an individual’s ability to process trauma.
Impacts on Soldier Preparedness
Ignoring the proactive pursuit of spiritual readiness can have dire consequences for Soldiers. Spiritual readiness prepares individuals for the point of conflict and, more importantly, to make it through an incident intact and ready for the next challenge.
Soldiers prepare for stress and hardship by maintaining a lifestyle grounded in a personal worldview, but they may develop problems if behaving in a manner inconsistent with this worldview (DA, 2020).
A common term for the result of this conflict is moral injury, which standardized testing has commonly found in combat veterans demonstrating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms (Ames et al., 2019). Ames et al. (2019) revealed a strong correlation between moral injury and an increased risk of suicide that was not attributable to other factors.
Gordon (2020) notes that the Stoics protected against moral injury through “a system that enabled them to reconcile good and evil to ensure their actions aligned with their beliefs” (p. 81) and through aligning their lives toward a greater good. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote, “Another person will not hurt you without your cooperation; you are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be” (Epictetus, ca. 125 C.E./2008, p. 234).
According to the Stoics, moral injury occurs only when individuals create the conflict associated with deviating from their values and beliefs (Gordon, 2020). These individual impacts stemming from a lack of spiritual preparedness have a compound effect on the broader organization.
Collective Impacts
As with any other readiness domain, Soldier spiritual readiness has a corresponding effect within organizations. Gen. George C. Marshall highlighted the danger of permitting the neglect of spiritual readiness to transfer from the personal level to the organization:
“The soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul, are everything. Unless the soldier’s soul sustains him he cannot be relied on and will fail himself and his commander and his country in the end.”
— Gen. George C. Marshall (Marshall, 1986, para. 13)
The Department of the Navy (2020) notes that an organization’s readiness requires readiness from its members, emphasizing that while service members need not practice religion, they all need to be spiritually ready.
Ignoring spiritual readiness (or any other H2F domain) will impact organizations. Koenig et al. (2022) noted that in the 20 years after 9/11, four times as many active-duty members and veterans had committed suicide as had died on operations over the same period and that almost 20% of Marines with no history of mental illness developed one after returning from deployment.
Given the importance of spiritual readiness to Soldiers and organizations, what barriers hamper efforts to become spiritually ready?
Barriers
Societal Shifts
Societal shifts are a leading barrier to spiritual readiness. Religious participation rates have recently dropped in the U.S., particularly among younger generations (Chen & VanderWeele, 2018). However, Chen and VanderWeele (2018) note that despite this downward trend, there is still considerable continuity between generations in religious families.
Lipka (2017) found that those who identify as spiritual as opposed to those who identify as religious has increased by 9% in 18- to 29-year-olds and 10% in 30- to 49-year-olds between 2012-2017 and that the total number of Americans who are neither spiritual nor religious increased from 16% to 18% in the same period.
Given these younger generations make up much of the military population, it could be challenging to instill spiritual readiness where overall religiosity and spirituality are on the decline. Further, this can correlate to a shift in intrinsic beliefs or values, such as selfless service.
Changes in worldviews and beliefs often produce changes in motivations. Krebs and Ralston (2022) conducted a survey and found that respondents with military service after the transition to an all-volunteer force “are significantly more likely than other Americans to believe that service members sign up chiefly for the material benefits of service rather than out of deep commitment to country” (p. 26). The shift from selfless service to a self-serving interest demonstrates a significant reversal in motivations when deciding to serve (Krebs & Ralston, 2022).
Perceptions of Infringement
Because society has shifted away from religious and spiritual practices, conversations on the subject have become shallower and less frequent. As noted in Holistic Health and Fitness, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides a foundation upon which Soldiers develop the right to either observe their religion or not subscribe to one (DA, 2020).
“Leaders accommodate diverse religious and spiritual practices but do not apply undue influence, coerce, or harass subordinates about religion” (DA, 2020, p. 10-2), thus aligning the Army with the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.
With the nation drifting further from religion, spirituality, and conversations on these topics, leaders may fear infringing upon their Soldiers while attempting to address spiritual readiness.
Koenig et al. (2022) perceive this reluctance in organizations when noting that neither the word spiritual nor the phrase spiritual readiness appears in the United States Department of Defense’s Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms.
Soldier Resistance
Soldiers may resist or avoid spiritual readiness for several reasons. Seeking mental health assistance remains stigmatized in the military (Kaplan, 2019), and this may transfer to the spiritual domain. Further, Koenig et al. (2022) cite a Navy study that found 94% of respondents broadly believed and 55% directly believed in a connection between a series of high-profile accidents and Navy leadership pursuing superficially perfect readiness metrics at the expense of meaningful crew rest, training, and malleable ethics in pursuit of the mission.
Environments like this do not nurture spiritual development nor encourage Soldiers to approach the chain of command. Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius countered avoiding talking about spiritual or mental readiness in Meditations:
“Do not be ashamed of help. It is your task to achieve your assigned duty, like a soldier in a scaling-party. What, then, if you are lame and cannot climb the parapet by yourself, but this is made possible by another’s help?”
— Marcus Aurelius (Aurelius, ca. 175 C.E./2006, p. 59)
Whether real or perceived, leaders must find ways to overcome the barriers to spiritual readiness to ensure their Soldiers are proactively improving in all H2F domains.
Leader Involvement
As with anything impacting unit readiness, leaders must involve themselves in their subordinates’ spiritual readiness. Leaders willing to become involved “can encourage personal spiritual readiness by creating a climate of mutual respect and dignity that promotes dialogue, fosters team cohesion, and enables healthy free exercise of religion or no religion” (DA, 2020, p. 3-5).
As previously established, organizational readiness is the sum of individual readiness. Gordon (2020) notes that military leaders show no hesitation in becoming involved in an individual’s physical readiness, so why not spiritual readiness? Further, Gordon (2020) asserts leaders are “morally obliged” to ensure their subordinates are “spiritually ready to fight” (p. 85). Leaders looking to optimize their organizations have several methods and resources to address spiritual readiness with their Soldiers.
Methods of Engagement
Leaders and their Soldiers may need to learn where to begin with spiritual readiness, but many methods are available to develop a foundation. Scales or inventories that address spiritual fitness or readiness in an Army context include:
- The Consortium for Health and Military Performance/Special Operations Command (CHAMP/SOCOM) Spiritual Fitness Test
- The U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (USACHPPM) – Duke Spiritual Attitudes Inventory
- The U.S. Army Spiritual Fitness Inventory (Koenig et al., 2022)
According to the Department of the Army (2020), these tests and inventories are subjective, relying on self-reporting, as opposed to objective tests in H2F (such as the Army Combat Fitness Test).
While that may be true, these tools can be invaluable in helping leaders optimize members’ spiritual plans or act as a starting point (by using the questions to broach conversations).
Leaders are no better versed in religious or spiritual matters than their subordinates. As such, there are resources such as Unit Ministry Teams, garrison chaplain offices, equal opportunity offices, ArmyFit, the H2F performance team, and other local supports to leverage to develop their knowledge and guide Soldiers to spiritual readiness assets (DA, 2020).
Benefits to the Individual
Spiritual readiness benefits those who incorporate spiritual practices into their readiness regimen and their lives. According to DA (2020), “as their spiritual readiness grows, they become a leader of character and build the resilience necessary to navigate crises” (p. 10-1). Holistic Health and Fitness further highlights that developing spiritual readiness improves Soldiers’ overall health and wellness, such as healthy coping mechanisms, pain control, mental health benefits, and health benefits (DA, 2020).
When applying spiritual readiness as a preventative measure, research revealed a degree of immunity to several issues plaguing Soldiers, veterans, and the broader military organization. A study of adolescents with relatively developed spiritual relationships, religious or otherwise, found they were less likely to misuse substances compared to adolescents with underdeveloped spiritual relationships (Miller, 2015). Miller (2015) describes similar results for “risk taking, depression, … and severe affective disorders” (p. 28).
According to Ames et al. (2019), spiritual interventions, whether religious or secular, “have been or are now being developed to address MI [moral injury] in Veterans and active-duty military personnel with PTSD” and “participation in organized religion has been shown to be [a] powerful protective factor against completed suicide” (p. 276).
Chen and VanderWeele (2018) found daily prayer or meditation “was associated with greater positive affect, emotional processing, and emotional expression; greater volunteering, greater sense of mission, and more forgiveness; lower likelihoods of drug use, early sexual initiation, STIs [sexually transmitted illnesses], and abnormal Pap test results; and fewer lifetime sexual partners” (p. 2,357) compared to those who never practiced them.
Benefits to Organizations
As seen in the Miller (2015) literature, organizations could use a spiritual program to reduce issues that impede individual and unit readiness (such as mental illness, substance abuse, and acting out behavior) and for Soldiers and the public to see organizational interest.
Koenig et al. (2022) also present research findings supporting human flourishing through spiritual practices in religious and secular communities. Leaders should familiarize themselves with these practices to realize the individual benefits for Soldiers and leverage the multiplying effect when consolidated at the organizational level.
Spiritually ready Soldiers assist their organizations in becoming more robust units. DA (2020) says spiritually ready Soldiers display commitment to and pursuit of unit goals and select “behaviors that lead to team cohesion, performance, and mission success” (p. 9-10).
Gordon (2020) highlights a study that compared PTSD rates between prisoners of war at the Hanoi Hilton and the broader population of Vietnam veterans. While the wider Vietnam veteran population experienced the war over an average of a one-year deployment, the prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton experienced repeated torture and deprivation over months to years.
The prisoners learned Stoic principles and forged spiritual fitness from (then) Navy Cmdr. James B. Stockdale. Just 4% of the prisoners received PTSD diagnoses as opposed to 30% of the wider veteran population.
Gordon notes, “The authors attributed the remarkable disparity to Stockdale’s exemplary leadership and his ability to communicate” (2020, p. 84). This remarkable difference showcases the importance of leader presence and the practice of spiritual readiness impacting both individuals and the organization.
Conclusion
In an increasingly secular society, leaders must actively enable Soldiers to develop their personal beliefs and values in pursuit of spiritual readiness. Failure to pursue spiritually ready Soldiers degrades individual resilience and organizational effectiveness in high-tempo operations.
Leaders play an active role in allowing individual Soldiers and the organization to profit from the benefits of spiritual readiness, an increasingly essential but largely underdeveloped domain in H2F.
References
Ames, D., Erickson, Z., Youssef, N.A., Arnold, I., Adamson, S., Sones, A.C., Yin, J., Haynes, K., Volk, F., Teng, E.J., Oliver, J.P., Koenig, H.G. (2019). Moral Injury, Religiosity, and Suicide Risk in U.S. Veterans and Active Duty Military with PTSD Symptoms. Military Medicine, 184(3-4), 271–278. https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usy148
Aurelius, M. (2006). Meditations (M. Hammond, Trans.). Penguin Group. (Original work published ca. 175 C.E.)
Chen, Y., & VanderWeele, T.J. (2018). Associations of Religious Upbringing with Subsequent Health and Well-Being from Adolescence to Young Adulthood: An Outcome-Wide Analysis. American Journal of Epidemiology, 187(11), 2355–2364. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwy142
Department of the Army. (2020). Holistic Health and Fitness (FM 7-22). https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN30964-FM_7-22-001-WEB-4.pdf
Department of the Navy. (2020, February 7). Department of the Navy Strategic Plan for Religious Ministry. https://www.uscg.mil/Portals/0/seniorleadership/chaplain/DoN-Strategic-Plan-for-Religious-Mnistry-v-2-2020-02-07.pdf?ver=2020-02-21-105717-823
Epictetus. (2008). Discourses and Selected Writings (R. Dobbin, Trans.). Penguin Group. (Original work published ca. 125 C.E.)
Gordon, T. (2020, August). The Invincible Man: Teaching resilience. Marine Corps Gazette. https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Invincible-Man.pdf
Kaplan, D.A. (2019, July 8). Reducing Military Mental Health Stigma to Improve Treatment Engagement Guidance for Clinicians. Health.mil. https://health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Centers-of-Excellence/Psychological-Health-Center-of-Excellence/Clinicians-Corner-Blog/Reducing-Military-Mental-Health-Stigma-to-Improve-Treatment-Engagement-Guidance-for Clinicians#:~:text=Mental%20health%20stigma%20in%20the,seeking%20care%2C%20including%20career%20harm
Koenig, H.G., Carey, L.B., & Al Zaben, F. (2022). Spiritual Readiness: Essentials for Military Leaders and Chaplains.
Krebs, R. R., & Ralston, R. (2022). Patriotism or Paychecks: Who Believes What About Why Soldiers Serve. Armed Forces & Society, 48(1), 25-48. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X20917166
Lipka, M., & Gecewicz, C. (2017, September 6). More Americans now say they’re spiritual but not religious. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/
Marshall, G.C. (1986). Speech at Trinity College: June 15, 1941. In L.I. Bland, C.N. Wunderlin Jr., & S.R. Stevens (Eds.) The papers of George Catlett Marshall: “We cannot delay,” July 1, 1939-December 6, 1941 (Vol. 2, pp. 534–538). John Hopkins University Press. https://www.marshallfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2-484.doc
Miller, L. (2015). The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving. Picador.
Chief Warrant Officer Ronald (Ron) Sellers is a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. He is an infantry Soldier from Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and recently graduated with Class 74, Sergeants Major Academy, Fort Bliss, Texas.
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