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POZNAN, Poland — U.S. Army Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF) chaplain leaders and NATO Allied partners from Canada, Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia gathered Sept. 1-3, 2026, for the Operational Religious Support Senior Leadership Training, a conference focused on the Army profession, ethical leadership and the evolving role of religious support in an era of artificial intelligence and multidomain operations.
Developed by the Office of the Chaplain and USAREUR-AF chaplain leadership, the training brought together U.S. Army major subordinate command chaplain section leaders and international allied chaplain leaders.
The event examined how chaplains and unit ministry teams could help commanders and Soldiers navigate the ethical, moral and spiritual effects of increasingly technology-enabled military operations. Training also addressed the role of artificial intelligence as a tool for ministry, leader development and decision support while emphasizing that human responsibility, judgment and care remained essential.
“Chaplains continue to nurture the living, care for the wounded and honor the dead,” said Dr. Matt Woodbery, multinational religious support interoperability and mobilization officer for the USAREUR-AF command chaplains. “AI is an amazing tool for chaplains, and this week we are learning how to use this new tool where we are not over-reliant, but also not underutilizing the technology.”
Dr. Anthony Randall, a retired U.S. Army colonel, president and founder of Vanguard XXI, served as the keynote speaker and facilitator. Randall’s instruction focused on preparing leaders and Soldiers for the moral weight of difficult missions, preserving organizational ethos and helping chaplains provide ethical and spiritual counsel before and after difficult decisions.
“AI will not replace human beings, but AI will replace the humans that refuse to use AI,” Randall said. “If you’re uncomfortable using AI, it’s time to get comfortable.”
Randall’s message reflected a central theme of the training: Chaplain Corps leaders must understand and be responsible to employ emerging technologies rather than reject them, while ensuring technology does not displace the human relationships at the center of religious support. As military systems process information faster and assist commanders with an expanding range of decisions, chaplains have to remain prepared to advise leaders on the moral and ethical implications of those decisions. They also have to be ready to care for Soldiers whose duties exposed them to moral and ethical injury, whether they operated in close physical proximity to combat or worked from a distance behind screens and unmanned systems.
The training explored the effects of accelerated decision cycles, including operations involving first-person-view drones and automated systems. In those environments, the speed of the operational process could exceed the time available for an individual to reflect on its moral consequences.
Chaplains are often present before and after major decisions, Randall said. That position gives them a unique responsibility to help leaders and Soldiers consider the human impact of military operations, sustain professional values and address moral or spiritual injury after difficult events.
“Our job is to protect the ethos and culture of the organization, so the organization can protect the ethos of the soldier,” Randall said.
Randall’s “Prepare, Practice, Protect” instruction examined how leaders could prepare Soldiers for demanding missions that might affect the soul, reinforce moral resilience during operations and provide care afterward. The session asked chaplains to consider how organizations preserve their ethos through relationships, shared traditions and other practices that remind Soldiers of their identities and responsibilities as members in the profession of arms.
For some Soldiers, the question following a difficult mission was not technical or tactical. It was personal: “I just need to know if I’m good,” Randall said.
The question reflects the uncertainty Soldiers feel about one’s moral compass after participating in or supporting actions within the “kill chain,” the end-to-end operational process of identifying, tracking, targeting, engaging and assessing the effects on a target. The chaplain’s role is not limited to responding after an event. Chaplains could help build resilient formations before a crisis by strengthening relationships, facilitating moral development and advising commanders on the human effects of their decisions.
The conference also addressed the multiple hats a chaplain has to wear – serving as pastor, person, priest and prophet. Chaplains can offer moral perspective to commanders and leaders while remaining faithful to their pastoral responsibility to care for Soldiers. Artificial intelligence, however, adds complexity to that responsibility. AI-enabled systems could rapidly analyze data, identify patterns and support decision-making, but they do not carry moral responsibility for the outcomes of their recommendations. Human leaders and operators remain accountable for decisions made in the use of military capabilities.
“We can make decisions in proportion to our faith, but AI will make decisions in proportion to algorithms,” Randall said during his instruction.
That distinction guided discussion about maintaining moral responsibility throughout a decision process. Whether a Soldier executed an action in the field or operated an unmanned system from a remote location, the emotional, moral and spiritual effects of the mission could persist long after the action was complete.
Training participants considered how chaplain sections and unit ministry teams could support Soldiers throughout that process, including how to provide religious support at the pace of operations that increasingly relied on automation and AI-enabled tools.
A hands-on exercise gave participants an opportunity to use AI tools to develop approaches for supporting Soldiers involved in fast-moving decision cycles. The exercise helped chaplains identify practical ways to use technology for planning, communication and ministry preparation without allowing it to replace pastoral presence, confidential care or professional judgment.
Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Christopher Bryan, command chaplain for Multi-Domain Command–Europe, presented instructions on integrating moral advice into automated targeting verification and algorithmic logic.
Bryan examined how unit ministry teams could provide commanders with moral advice as they worked through complex, technology-enabled decision processes. The framework included three elements: reliable and current data that identified legally available courses of action; guardrails or escalation rules requiring human input when confidence was insufficient; and an auditable, transparent process that allowed decision-makers to understand how a recommendation was reached. The framework emphasized that automation did not eliminate human review or accountability. Instead, it supported informed decisions made within established legal, ethical and command authorities.
During the three days participants looked into coaching frameworks for influencing leaders. Chaplains examined when to serve as coaches, counselors, consultants, teachers or mentors, depending on the needs of the individual and the organization.
That flexibility is particularly important when advising leaders who rely heavily on data-driven and AI-enabled decision-support tools. Effective chaplains have to ask the right questions, understand a leader’s agenda and offer tailored counsel that helps leaders consider the ethical and human repercussions of their decisions.
For chaplains, the challenge is not simply whether to use AI. It is how to use it responsibly while preserving the trust, presence and moral courage Soldiers expected from religious affairs professionals. As technology changes the character and speed of military operations, chaplains continue to provide a distinctly human form of support: helping leaders make decisions they could ethically defend, helping Soldiers process the burdens they carried, and caring for the warrior soul after difficult decisions have been made.
| Date Taken: | 09.04.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 09.08.2026 13:22 |
| Story ID: | 574092 |
| Location: | POZNAN, PL |
| Web Views: | 28 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, U.S., NATO chaplains examine AI’s role in religious support, ethical leadership on the modern battlefield, by SSG Logan Ubaldo Lechuga, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
