Chaplains Bring Guidance, Counsel to Future National Guard Officers
By Major (MD) Robert Hastings, Public Affairs Officer
BALTIMORE ( July 10, 2007) - Two Chaplains from the Maryland Defense Force (MDDF) recently spent their summer vacation supporting the Maryland Army National Guard’s Officer Candidate School at Camp Fretterd, Maryland.
For two weeks in June, Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Charles Nalls and Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Anthony Hollis, both assigned to Headquarters, MDDF, supported the two-week training exercise for Maryland’s Officer Candidate School (OCS) phase 1.
“The National Guard and Defense Force personnel worked as a seamless team throughout the exercise,” explained Nalls. “The MDDF chaplains are the dedicated chaplain support for the 70th Regiment.”
OCS is a mentally and physically challenging course designed to educate and train enlisted soldiers to serve as federally commissioned officers in the National Guard. The program is conducted in several phases. Phase 1 is two weeks long and focuses on military leadership, Army operations, planning and conducting training, and land navigation. One week is spent in the field and one week in garrison.
During the two-week training, the chaplains conducted worship services and accompanied the students in all aspects of their training.
“OCS is designed to be strenuous,” said Chaplain Nalls. “We’re growing leaders that need to be able to think and act under stress. One of the roles of military chaplains is to monitor that stress and to counsel young soldiers on how to deal with it, for both themselves and those they lead.”
Chaplain Nalls is the Director of MDDF’s Chaplain Services which currently has a strength of 10 chaplains and two chaplain’s assistants and is growing. “Our goal is to reach 20 chaplains and 20 assistants,” added Nalls. “We support soldiers and airmen of all faiths, and are recruiting chaplains from across the faiths as well.”
Support to annual training is just one of many missions undertaken by the MDDF Chaplain’s Corps. Additionally, they provide a wide variety of support to National Guard units including spiritual counseling during unit training, deployment and welcome home ceremonies; counseling for families of deployed Guardsmen; and post deployment stress counseling. Additionally, the chaplains provide counsel and support for students enrolled in Maryland’s Freestate Challenge, a National Guard-sponsored program for at-risk teens and in late 2006, MDDF chaplains were mobilized to provide support at BWI airport as hundreds of Americans returned to the U.S. after being evacuated from Lebanon.
The Maryland Defense Force, headquartered at the Pikesville Military Reservation in Baltimore, is a volunteer uniformed state military agency organized under the Maryland Military Department. Formally established by the Maryland legislature in 1917, the unit's heritage and traditions trace back to the 17th century. Its mission is to provide competent supplemental professional and technical support to the Maryland Military Department and the Maryland National Guard.
For further information about the Maryland Defense Force, visit www.mddefenseforce.org.
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