Religious Ministry Team Leverages Spiritual Readiness Data to Strengthen Warfighter Resilience

By Lt. Cmdr. Travis Hurley, U.S. Navy Chaplain, and the TACAMO Religious Ministry Team

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. - After eight suicides occurred within Strategic Communications Wing (SCW) 1 and its subordinate commands over 14 months\, the Take Charge and Move Out (TACAMO) Religious Ministry Team (RMT) launched a thorough\, evidence-based spiritual readiness program. They used the Navy Chaplain Corps' Assessment Battery for Spiritual Readiness (ABSR) to find areas of concern\, create targeted support\, and help Sailors build resilience while serving in one of the Navy's most challenging and important missions.

The Navy Chaplain Corps created the ABSR in 2025 to give chaplains a reliable, evidence-based way to measure six areas of spiritual readiness for both religious and non-religious people.

Instead of relying solely on personal observations, this tool lets RMTs gather real data, spot trends, plan targeted support, and track the effectiveness of their efforts over time.

For leaders at SCW-1, the assessment was a key part of a broader effort to understand what was affecting the team following a period of great loss. Even though operational readiness stayed strong, leaders saw that keeping the mission on track also meant supporting the spiritual, emotional, and mental health of the Sailors doing the work.

TACAMO delivers the nation's secure airborne nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) system. This ensures that national leaders can always connect with the country's strategic nuclear forces during a crisis. The mission requires high professionalism, constant readiness, and steady reliability, which puts special pressure on the Sailors who carry it out each day.

Seeing these challenges, leaders at SCW-1 increased chaplain support throughout the Wing and worked with the RMT to find out where Sailors needed more help. In the last quarter of fiscal year 2026, Lt. Cmdr. Travis Hurley, a Navy Reserve chaplain, joined the TACAMO RMT as part of a push to boost chaplain engagement across the command.

"A Sailor can become skilled at being hopeful, finding purpose and meaning, practicing forgiveness and staying connected to God," Hurley said. "We wanted our Sailors to understand these are not simply abstract spiritual ideas. They are disciplines that can be intentionally practiced and strengthened, just like the technical and operational skills they develop throughout their careers."

Hurley joined the TACAMO RMT, working with Command Chaplain Cmdr. Brian Kirschenbaum, Lt. j.g. Michael "Todd" Fletcher, and Religious Program Specialist 2nd Class Joshua McHenry. Together, they began developing a command-wide plan grounded in evidence, active involvement, and clear results.

Fletcher, who is a retired Coast Guard chief petty officer and now in his first active-duty role as a Navy chaplain, took on a new position created after the suicides to give extra support to Sailors across the Wing.

"I arrived in the middle of a series of all-hands meetings led by our commodore, Capt. David Gardner, where leadership developed a plan of action and milestones to help prevent tragedies like those we experienced in 2025 and early 2026," Fletcher said. "Even as I was settling into the command, it became apparent that expanded chaplain support was needed. After nearly every all-hands meeting, Sailors remained behind asking to speak privately with a chaplain."

These conversations confirmed what leaders had begun to notice: even though operational numbers looked good, many Sailors were facing challenges that standard readiness measures did not capture.

At the end of each all-hands meeting, Sailors filled out the ABSR. About 1,000 out of the Wing's 1,700 Sailors took part, using the ABSR's Screen and Triage method, which is one of four recommended ways to use the tool.

"We had a general understanding of the challenges our Sailors were facing," Kirschenbaum said. "The ABSR validated many of those concerns while also identifying areas we were not tracking as clearly. For the first time, we had objective data that allowed us to move beyond assumptions and better understand where our efforts needed to be focused."

The assessment found major gaps in four out of the six areas measured by the ABSR: hope, purpose and meaning, forgiveness, and connection with God or the Divine. Rather than seeing these results as final, the RMT viewed them as opportunities to engage with purpose.

By using the ABSR's Tailored Interventions method, chaplains created a focused plan aimed at the areas where Sailors needed the most help.

"The strength of our Wing rests entirely on our people," Gardner said. "To truly safeguard our Sailors and prevent the tragic losses we've experienced, I asked the team to look beyond surface-level metrics and understand what was happening beneath them. The ABSR gave us a way to do exactly that."

With Gardner's backing, the RMT started Mission 100: A Chaplain-Led Roundtable Discussion. This command-wide effort aimed to foster open conversations, encourage reflection, and provide Sailors with practical tools to build their spiritual resilience. TACAMO chaplains—supported by Navy Reserve chaplains, Air Force Reserve chaplains, and Capt. Matthew Weems from Naval Air Force Atlantic—facilitated 80 small-group discussions involving 821 Sailors representing every pay grade from E-1 through O-5. Hurley led development of the discussion guide used throughout each session.

Instead of using lectures, the guide focused on open-ended questions that encouraged real conversations about hope, purpose, forgiveness, and connection with God. It also highlighted practical ways to develop each of these areas.

"I think there is a tendency to see spiritual matters like hope, purpose and connection as things beyond our control," Hurley said. "Through these discussions, we wanted Sailors to recognize they can intentionally cultivate those qualities. Developing the skill of hope, refining a sense of purpose, practicing forgiveness and strengthening one's connection with God can change the trajectory of an individual's life while positively influencing the climate of an entire command."

To reinforce those and keep conversations going outside the classroom, the RMT created a QR code that links Sailors to an online library. This resource included videos, devotional materials, and practical tools for each discussion topic, which were collected, and the team immediately began implementing Sailor recommendations.

"The RMT has reinstituted Sunday morning worship services specifically for the command," Fletcher said. "Each month, our chaplains intentionally rotate through hope, purpose and meaning, forgiveness, and connection with God so that we continue building on the conversations that began during the roundtables."

Master Chief Naval Aircrewman (Avionics) Jake Miguez admitted he initially questioned the value of attending the chiefs' discussion.

"These suicides affected us as leaders, too," Miguez said. "We all needed this opportunity for self-reflection."

Building on the progress from Mission 100, the RMT is adding more tailored support. Upcoming plans include monthly safeTALK suicide-alertness training, Warrior Toughness classes, tabletop wargaming, relationship-building courses, and Religious Lay Leader training to help boost resilience across the force.

Looking forward, Kirschenbaum said the team plans to use the ABSR again in six to nine months with the Track Progress method. This will help measure changes in spiritual readiness and see how well the interventions are working.

He also believes the work accomplished at TACAMO has implications well beyond SCW-1.

"The discussion guide and accompanying resource page have the potential to become valuable resources for Sailors, Marines, Airmen, Soldiers, Coast Guardsmen and Guardians serving in today's increasingly complex operational environment," Kirschenbaum said. "As our military continues executing short-fuse, high-stress and no-fail missions around the globe, these evidence-informed approaches can help Religious Ministry Teams strengthen spiritual readiness across the joint force."

For the TACAMO RMT, the mission extends beyond the call; it is about more than just gathering data or administering surveys. Their main goal is to help each Sailor build the resilience needed to handle both personal and work challenges. Rebuild, repair, and strengthen the Wing's spiritual resilience—person by person, soul by soul.

Gardner said the initiative reflects a broader understanding that spiritual readiness is inseparable from mission readiness.

"Assessing true spiritual resilience and readiness is not just a box to check," Gardner said. "It is the vital work of understanding the human condition behind our mission. We cannot hope to eliminate the root causes of suicide unless we build a culture of trust where our warfighters feel empowered to address their deepest struggles, ensuring their spiritual and mental readiness remain as sharp as their operational readiness."

SCW-1 consists of three squadrons and a Wing staff that employed over 1,300 active-duty Sailors and 100 contractors to provide maintenance, security, operations, administration, training and logistic support for the E-6 Mercury aircraft.

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