Female Chaplain of Marine Corps Makes History

Chaplain of the Marine Corps: 'Nobody comes back from combat unaffected'
Marine Corps Times
Hope Hodge Seck
Staff Writer
Jul. 12, 2014

Rear Adm. Margaret Kibben, the chaplain of the Marine Corps, talks with a colleague downrange. Kibben will become the Navy's first chief of chaplains later this year. (Marine Corps)

Rear Adm. (lower half) Margaret Kibben made history in 2010 when she became the first woman to be named the chaplain of the Marine Corps. Later this year, she will do it again when she becomes the Navy’s first female chief of chaplains. She spoke to Military Times Wednesday about her time with Marines and preparing for her new role.

Q: You are the first female chaplain of the Marine Corps, the most male-dominated of the military services. How do you connect with that population, particularly infantry Marines downrange?

A: I was called to ministry very young, I was in junior high. Nobody ever said I shouldn’t, or I couldn’t, so this idea of being the first is really kind of foreign to me. As a chaplain, I think there was less issue about me being a woman than people really believe — as long as I PT’d with Marines, as long as I was out there and with them, as long as I spent time with them, everything a chaplain is supposed to do. And actually the reason I felt called to be a chaplain was so I could eat, sleep, breathe and endure the same things my parishioners, if you will, experienced, that was what called me to ministry.

I think there was some thought that women would want to connect with other women. But it’s also been helpful to men who wanted to talk to someone and maybe are less apt to talk to another man and might approach a female chaplain just because it’s a little bit safer. And we’ve seen that throughout the time. But that’s not to say that men aren’t doing their ministry and that women aren’t approaching them because they’re men and they’d feel more comfortable talking to a man than they would to a woman for whatever reason.
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