Serving Two Masters: The Development of American Military Chaplaincy, 1860-1920

Sea Power, Apr 2003 by Gardner, Sherry L

SERVING TWO MASTERS: The Development of American Military Chaplaincy, 1860-1920, by Richard M. Budd, Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, July 2002. 202 pp. $45. ISBN: 08032-1322-0. As a Lutheran pastor in Leeds, N.D., Naval Reserve chaplain, and Ph.D. in military history, Richard Budd is well suited to tackle a subject long ignored by historians.

Budd corrects this omission with a thoughtful history of the chaplains who sought to create a viable institutional structure for themselves within the U.S. Army and Navy. Despite a long history of association with the military there had never been a consensus on the chaplaincy's role. This was made more difficult because the chaplains, acting as members of one profession, operated within the specific environment of another and were faced with the question of whether they could or should integrate themselves in the military structure. Budd provides a history of the struggle to professionalize the chaplaincy and to obtain a working level of autonomy with the military bureaucracy. With nine black-andwhite photographs and index.