Military history teaches us that large-scale combat operations (LSCO) impose extreme demands on the human will to endure and fight. Sustainment leaders must look past the face value of manpower reports and ask the harder question: Is this force spiritually and psychologically ready to win?
In World War II, fewer than 30% of psychologically wounded Soldiers returned to combat — and of those, many remained ineffective, lacking the fighting spirit necessary to return to active combat duty. On the surface, return-to-duty rates may appear promising. But if Soldiers return without that fighting spirit, sustainers at echelon may preserve manpower at the cost of combat effectiveness. That is why spiritual readiness matters to the sustainment warfighting function. Through anticipation and integration, sustainment professionals must account not only for the quantity of available personnel, but also for the moral endurance that allows formations to remain effective in war.
To address this reality, the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Screaming Eagles, has proactively developed, and closely measured, a spiritual readiness training program designed to prepare Soldiers for war and keep them in the fight longer. 1st Brigade Combat Team (Bastogne), 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), is one of the first infantry brigade combat teams to undergo the Transformation in Contact (TiC) initiative. TiC brings an influx of new personnel, and sustainers need innovative ways to build cohesive teams, preserve manpower, and deter high-risk behaviors.
The brigade optimized that transition, in part, by leveraging spiritual readiness training developed by the division chaplain, CH (LTC) Ronny Fisher. Eagle Mindset training consists of six lessons designed for easy execution by any leader, regardless of military occupational specialty, and builds spiritual readiness at echelon. Bastogne was the first full formation in the division to pilot the training. During its rotation in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve, the brigade began implementing this training through its unit ministry teams (UMTs) and measuring the results.
Introducing Eagle Mindset
Spiritual readiness has long been recognized as a key component in mitigating harmful behaviors. Spiritual readiness focuses on developing a sense of purpose, meaning, and connection to something larger than oneself. While spiritual readiness is a key pillar of holistic health and fitness (H2F), training in spiritual readiness is usually delegated solely to UMTs. We contend that leaders ought to own spiritual readiness as much as the other four domains of H2F; otherwise, a training gap is inevitable.
Eagle Mindset is a proactive spiritual readiness training curriculum that provides a pluralistically compatible worldview through six interactive lessons on stoicism and virtue ethics. The curriculum answers how a commander may address training spiritual readiness in accordance with Field Manual (FM) 7-22, Holistic Health and Fitness. The training format includes video-based discussion questions that progress through each lesson. Based on the Screaming Eagles’ experience with Eagle Mindset training, it has emerged as a valuable tool to improve a formation’s spiritual readiness while reducing harmful behaviors that all sustainers, trained by UMTs, can implement.
Department of the Army Pamphlet 165-19, Moral Leadership, equips chaplains to train moral and ethical leadership at echelon. Every chaplain holds at least a master’s degree, which ideally positions them to teach ethics curriculum and to equip subordinate leaders to do the same. In a world consumed by deontological (rules) and utilitarian (consequences) metrics, the chaplain attends to the interior life of the warfighter, namely his character. That is what Eagle Mindset cultivates: the character qualities that enable Soldiers to confront and surmount obstacles on the battlefield and in the everyday realities of garrison life.
Consistent with the Army Leadership framework of “Be, Know, Do,” Eagle Mindset goes upstream of merely doing the right thing or knowing the proper ethical calculus. It focuses on becoming the kind of ethical warfighter and leader the Army needs. Chaplains, as sustainment professionals, are familiar with this terrain. Their expertise concerns the soul of the warfighter. Stewarding and shepherding the hearts of Soldiers is a direct function of chaplains serving as the moral anchor of a fighting force. Training Eagle Mindset gives chaplains a critical platform to do what they do best: cultivate the virtuous reflex in the hearts and minds of America’s sustainment professionals, who are regularly confronted with the most complex ethical scenarios in extremis.
This focus meets the demand signal for strengthening the sustainment warfighter profession by fostering cohesive teams that can absorb constant change under unrelenting pressure in the crucible of combat. Forging the kind of character devoted to excellence, delighted by challenge, and loving the battle buddies on one’s left and right helps create the command climate on which success in battle depends.
Eagle Mindset’s development of the virtue ethics of the fighting force is as critical as a live fire or field training exercise. Attuning the Soldier to focusing on what they can control, and excluding what they cannot, sets the necessary conditions for ethical behavior in war. Much ink has been spilled over the need for jus in bello, or law in war, behavior in LSCO. As the Army works to sustain disciplined and resilient formations in LSCO, and as new technologies increase lethality across the force, we need more, not less, focus on the ethical execution of organized violence on behalf of the nation. Eagle Mindset foregrounds the development of an ethical conscience even in the most junior squad member of a sustainment unit.
This is why chaplains matter in war. They are not emotional support officers in uniform. They are the moral anchor of a fighting force. In a profession that asks Soldiers to bear extraordinary burdens and, at times, to exercise lethal force, chaplains attend to what no other staff section can fully reach: the soul, conscience, and character of the warfighter. Eagle Mindset gives chaplains a concrete way to do what their office has always required: cultivating virtue and moral resilience. The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) recognized the importance of spiritual readiness and therefore implemented and measured this training protocol.
Measuring the Impacts of Eagle Mindset
Approximately one year after Eagle Mindset was introduced, LTG Brett G. Sylvia, the then-commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), conducted an installation-wide survey. The division asked respondents to self-report if they had completed Eagle Mindset training. Over 6,000 Soldiers responded, and just over 4,300 responses were considered via resampling to ensure the sample was an accurate representation of units and matched the division’s demographic profile.
The survey revealed generally positive associations between Eagle Mindset and mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Respondents who self-reported completing Eagle Mindset expressed a higher internal drive to achieve their goals or mission, a higher propensity to accept things they could not change, and higher confidence in their ability to deploy. They also acknowledged that their job in the military was important to the unit and had enduring meaning at a higher rate, and respondents more strongly agreed with questions pertaining to their beliefs, values, and a sense of meaning in life. Based on these results, LTG Sylvia directed all 101st Airborne Division units to conduct Eagle Mindset training via his fiscal year 2024 annual training guidance.
At the same time, 1st Brigade Combat Team (Bastogne), conducted its own assessment of Eagle Mindset. The brigade had deployed in support of Operation European Assure, Deter, and Reinforce. During the final months of the rotation, 3,197 of 4,277 Bastogne Soldiers were trained in Eagle Mindset. Following redeployment, the brigade chaplain, CH (MAJ) Jay Burke, closely tracked the commander’s critical information requirements (CCIRs) and recorded the Eagle Mindset training status of each Soldier involved in CCIR incidents.
From January to June 2024, the brigade had 65 CCIR events. Of those, only five involved Soldiers trained in Eagle Mindset, while 60 involved Soldiers who were not trained in Eagle Mindset. The incident rate for Eagle Mindset-trained Soldiers was 0.156%, while the incident rate for untrained Soldiers was 5.56%.
Analysis of these data indicated a statistically significant difference in CCIR events between the groups. This means there is an extremely low probability that the difference in outcomes between the groups was due to chance. The analysis also demonstrated that, for every 19 Soldiers trained in Eagle Mindset, one CCIR event was prevented.
Although it is not possible to isolate the relationship between Eagle Mindset training and these outcomes, the results are very positive. Findings like these strongly suggest that Eagle Mindset improves Soldier resilience and decision making while reducing harmful behaviors.
Eagle Mindset and the Way Forward
The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) is now working to deliver Eagle Mindset more effectively at scale. In its early phases, UMTs provided all training to subordinate units. As a result, most units struggled to train more than 60% of their formation. When the battalion chaplain is the sole instructor, it becomes difficult to reach the entire unit. The curriculum also works best through open discussion in small groups. It is unrealistic for UMTs to train platoon-and-below formations without compromising other duties.
To address this problem, CH Andrew Schmitz, the 1-320th Field Artillery Battalion chaplain, adapted the program to a train-the-trainer model. Platoon-level leaders received instruction from UMTs and then delivered Eagle Mindset in smaller groups. This nests with FM 7-22, which assigns leaders responsibility for supporting all five H2F domains. In this model, the battalion chaplain serves as a force multiplier by equipping leaders across the unit to train spiritual readiness.
The division continues to assess Eagle Mindset through deliberate measurements of performance and effectiveness. Current measurements of performance include the number of leaders trained through train-the-trainer, the lessons taught, and the number of Soldiers trained. Measurements of effectiveness include CCIRs and their relationship to Eagle Mindset training, along with pre- and post-training surveys on spiritual readiness and interpersonal relationships.
Eagle Mindset equips leaders at the tactical level to help Soldiers build the psychological and moral endurance required for decisive action. In a fiscally constrained Army undergoing major structural change, it offers other formations, especially tactical units, a cost-effective way to improve spiritual readiness.
Conclusion
Across the continuum of competition, crisis, and armed conflict, sustainment professionals face increasing complexity as war’s exigencies intensify. Developing the moral conscience and ethical reflexes of the formation is neither ancillary nor optional. GEN George Washington himself, in his General Orders of July 4, 1775, set a high bar for the spiritual readiness of his fighting force when he ordered:
“The General most earnestly requires, and expects, a due observance of those articles of war, established for the Government of the army, which forbid profane cursing, swearing and drunkeness; And in like manner requires and expects, of all Officers, and Soldiers, not engaged on actual duty, a punctual attendance on divine Service, to implore the blessings of heaven upon the means used for our safety and defence.”
That moral logic remained visible in later American warfighting thought. During the Civil War, General Orders No. 100 by President Abraham Lincoln, April 24, 1863, stated the principle with striking clarity: “Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.” Taken together, these texts show a consistent conviction: the profession of arms does not set morality aside in war but demands it all the more.
Spiritual readiness training strengthens the sustainment warfighter profession. LSCO demand practical ways to preserve moral responsibility while sustaining combat power. Eagle Mindset’s metrics indicate that the protocol can mitigate at-risk behaviors that remove Soldiers from the fight and reinforce the ethical discipline required for resilient formations. Its measurable results, including a 97.2% relative risk reduction, suggest that spiritual readiness deserves serious attention as a practical means of sustaining disciplined, lethal, and combat-effective formations amid rapid change.
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CH (MAJ) Andrew Schmitz is the incoming bioethicist at the U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence. He previously served as the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) division chaplain section’s chief data analyst. He deployed as the battalion chaplain with 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, to Nineveh Governorate, Iraq, in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. He holds the Army skill identifier 7S Combat Medical Pastoral Care Specialist. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the Distinguished Honor Graduate in his Chaplain Captains Career Course. He is currently a PhD student in Ethics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
MAJ Erin Williams has served as the division operations research/systems analysis for the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). She previously served as an engineer officer in the 20th Engineer Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, and 101st Airborne Division, in addition to serving as an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy (USMA) at West Point. She has completed Sapper school, Jumpmaster School, and Air Assault School. She holds a master’s degree in data science from Harvard University, and degrees from USMA, Missouri University of Science and Technology, and Command and General Staff College.
CH (MAJ) James Burke has served as the 1st Mobile Brigade Combat Team chaplain in the 101st Airborne Division. He previously served as the 1st Brigade Combat Team chaplain during their Operation European Assure, Deter, and Reinforce deployment to U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Battalion chaplain in EUCOM for Operation Atlantic Resolve during the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War. He was commissioned from The Citadel: Military College of South Carolina in 2009, has conducted six combat training center rotations, and has graduated from Airborne and Air Assault School. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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This article was published in the summer 2026 edition of Army Sustainment Professional Bulletin.
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