We are hosting two Women Veterans Military Moral Injury conferences in 2020. The first will take place in Charleston, SC on March 26-27 and the second in Richmond, VA, May 14-15. The purposes of the conferences are to bring together women veterans, military and VA chaplains, civilian clergy and mental health practitioners to discuss the […]
Category Archives: Chaplain Learning
Old Memories, Fresh Wounds
For the last several months, I have been working with a partner to conduct a moral injury study for women veterans. (We are still looking for participants. If you are a female veteran and experienced something while serving that caused inner conflict or went against your moral values, consider signing up: https://chaplainconsultants.com/projects/). Although military sexual […]
Why Male Clergy Need to Understand Moral Injury in Women
Introduction In the United States, most clergy are male. Approximately 95% of U.S. Army chaplains are men (U.S. Army, 2014) and only 12% of churches have a woman in the senior leadership role (Hartford Institute for Religion Research, 2006). There are many women in institutional ministry (e.g. prison and hospital chaplaincy), but for most women […]
What’s Missing in Moral Injury Research
Moral injury (MI) is a term that refers to the emotional trauma a military service member feels when his or her sense of moral rightness is violated during the course of war (Currier, Holland, Drescher, & Foy, 2015a; Currier, McCormick, & Drescher, 2015b; Nash, Carper, Mills, Au, Goldsmith, & Litz, 2013). MI addresses a gap […]
Raped, Bullied, and Neglected
So far, I have only conducted a small number of interviews for the study entitled, “Moral Injury in Women Veterans: A Grounded Theory,” but some common themes are quickly emerging. The first is, that all of the women were raped by someone in a position of authority over them, like their commanders. Some were raped […]
Caring Deeply about the Underserved
Sixteen years ago, I began a journey that would transform the rest of my life. In February of 2002, I entered the military chaplaincy as a member of the dominant group – a White, male, conservative Christian. In my prior service as an infantryman, I had never worked with female soldiers. I assumed, like many […]
Narrative Counseling: Helping Women and Minority Service Members Navigate Trauma
Even though the Department of Defense continues to promote equality through training and policy, minority groups, including women, non-Whites, and LGBT service members continue to experience a higher level of emotional trauma, bias, and discrimination than men, Whites, and heterosexuals. Military women are sexually assault at seven times the rate of men (Davis, Grifka, Williams, […]