Meet your battle buddy: the chaplain assistant

Meet your battle buddy: the chaplain assistant
1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division
Story by Pfc. Paige Pendleton

FORT HOOD, Texas – Many soldiers can explain the role of their unit’s chaplain, but do they know about the soldier supporting him from behind the scenes?

The Army offers more than 200 military occupational specialties, or jobs, that can be made into careers and carried over into the civilian world.

The role of the chaplain assistant begins with exactly what the name describes: assisting the chaplain. Although this MOS has a humble title, the scope of its duties is multi-faceted.

“Our MOS is not really well defined,” said Kingsport, Tenn. native Sgt. Nicholas Teague, the chaplain assistant for the 1st “Centurion” Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 1st “Ironhorse” Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. “The job isn’t really self explanatory.”

Teague said some of his duties include providing religious support to soldiers at the battalion level, preparing for religious services, providing security for the chaplain while deployed, planning retreats and talking to soldiers in need of a release.

Killeen, Texas, native Capt. Marshall Coen, the Ironhorse Brigade’s Chaplain, said chaplain assistants are invaluable and their primary role is to ensure the chaplain does well.
read more here