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NEWS FROM THE FRONT 

 DATE: DEC 16 

 

 

Author: CH (MAJ) John Mark Sedwick
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The Sacramental Staff Officer

By CH (MAJ) John Mark Sedwick

Army South Plans/Operations Chaplain

CH (MAJ) John Mark Sedwick serves as the Operations/Plans Chaplain at Army South (Joint 

Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, TX). The opinions expressed in this article 

are his own and do not constitute an official position of the United States Army or the United 

States Army Chaplain Corps.

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”

Saint Augustine

As the Plans/Operations Chaplain for Army South, I enjoy the privilege of traveling 

extensively in Central and South America to coordinate religious support with partner nation 

Army chaplains during multinational exercises and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief 

operations, and therefore I have been blessed to read many pages from the metaphorical book 

that Saint Augustine describes in the above quote. Most recently I accompanied an Army South 

contingent of approximately 40 personnel to Santiago, Chile to participate as part of the 

Combined Forces Land Component Commander (CFLCC) element of the multinational exercise, 

PANAMAX, from 24 July to 7 August 2016. My mission included providing religious support to 

Army South personnel and, just as importantly, establishing a productive working relationship 

with a Chilean Army Chaplain to advise the Commander and respond to injects involving 

religious support at the CFLCC level. My Chilean counterpart, a 62-year-old Roman Catholic 

priest, fit the description of the prototype partner nation Army Chaplain that I routinely 

encounter in Central and South America: a dedicated, well-educated, and overworked and multitasked servant leader who quite capably fills the sacramental role of bringing God to Soldiers 

and Soldiers to God, but struggles to embrace the role of a staff officer who advises his 

Commander on matters of religion, ethics, and morale. And my first challenge during 

PANAMAX in Santiago, Chile entailed the same challenge I frequently face when interacting 
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with partner nation Army Chaplains for the very first time: to convince my counterpart comrade 

non-combatant that I am also a dedicated, well-educated, and overworked and multi-tasked 

servant leader who struggles to thread the needle between sacramental and staff officer 

responsibilities.

CH (MAJ) Gutierrez, who in addition to his duties serving as the Command Chaplain for 

two Chilean Army divisions, also teaches every evening at a nearby Santiago seminary. I 

mentioned earlier that Chaplain Gutierrez is well-educated, and he has in fact studied above and 

beyond the Masters of Divinity level in Germany, in Israel and at the Vatican. He speaks 

Spanish, Italian and German fluently. CH Gutierrez normally wears a black shirt and white 

clerical collar as his “uniform,” and spends his days (when not participating in PANAMAX with 

his wild and crazy Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod counterpart) fighting the rigors of 

Santiago traffic to visit the Soldiers serving in his two divisions. The Chilean Army Soldiers 

participating in PANAMAX (and indeed all of the partner nation Soldiers who descended upon 

Santiago, Chile from Belize, Peru, the United States, Panama, Jamaica, Canada, Guyana, 

Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic) rejoiced at 

the opportunity to receive a blessing from a Roman Catholic priest on a daily basis as each 

section from G-1 to G-9 reacted and responded to the stressors of new injects and requirements 

placed upon them by higher headquarters.

Because all Chilean Army Chaplains are Roman Catholic priests, Chaplain Gutierrez did 

not know what to expect from a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor, and he politely but 

resolutely interrogated me about the value of my Masters of Divinity degree. Upon learning that 

my seminary education consisted of four years of study (including Hebrew and Greek immersion 

in order to read the Old and New Testaments in their original languages), he invited me to 
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participate in a daily morning prayer office for the Soldiers and civilian employees in the 

PANAMAX headquarters complex. And indeed each morning Chaplain Gutierrez and I would 

take turns attending the Commanding General’s Battle Update Brief (BUB) and offering the 

Morning Prayer in Spanish to our multinational forces attending PANAMAX. As I have alluded 

to earlier, Chaplain Gutierrez initially shied away from attending the BUB because he was not 

accustomed to the role of fielding questions from the Commanding General about religious 

support. I encouraged Chaplain Gutierrez to take the initiative to brief his general because a 

Chilean Army Lieutenant General was serving as the Combined Forces Land Component 

Commander for the first time during PANAMAX, and the daily BUB provided a wonderful 

opportunity for both the Commander and his Chaplain to grow comfortable in offering and 

receiving guidance from each other. 

Before describing the evolution of this relationship further, it’s important to examine the 

expanding role of the Chilean Army in the hemisphere during the last two decades. Chile has 

consistently provided a brigade combat team to deploy to Haiti as part of the United Nations 

sanctioned peace and stability operations there. The Chilean military leadership elected to 

embrace NATO doctrine after their first deployment to Haiti in order to communicate and 

operate more efficiently with other partner nation armies serving in this same mission. Their 

adoption of NATO doctrine impacted all missions conducted by the Chilean Armed Forces, and I 

experienced their fluency with NATO doctrine firsthand while attending the Command General 

Staff Officer College (CGSC) at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation 

(WHINSEC) at Fort Benning, GA from June 2014 to June 2015 with a number of extremely 

intelligent Chilean Army Officers, including students, instructors and the Deputy Commandant 

at WHINSEC. Indeed, the Chilean Army commitment to NATO doctrine provided Chaplain 
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Gutierrez and I with the capability to navigate through some uncharted shoal waters that, up until 

now, Chaplain Gutierrez had neither contemplated nor confronted.

Prior to the official commencement of PANAMAX (while all participants attended 

academics training), Chaplain Gutierrez and I received word that we would be part of the J-1 

section. It is also common practice in the United States Army to place the Unit Ministry Team 

(Chaplain and Chaplain Assistant) under the administrative control of the G-1 or S-1, so this 

development was not a new challenge for me. Therefore, our first task was to politely but firmly 

explain to the J-1 (a very capable Lieutenant Colonel from Peru) that we did not work for him. 

Joint Publication 1-05, “Religious Affairs in Joint Operations,” describes the Chaplain as a 

“special staff officer, the chaplain advises the commander and other staff members on moral and 

ethical decision making, on morale as affected by religion, and personal issues.” With the initial 

challenge of establishing the independent role and relationship of Chaplain Gutierrez with his 

commander accomplished, the hard work of religious advisement to the commander on a 

doctrinal matter soon emerged.

Lieutenant General Chamorro, the Chilean Army General who served as the CFLCC, 

thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed the opportunity to interact with Chaplain Gutierrez and I on 

a daily basis and displayed a genuine interest in the U.S. Army practice of providing chaplains 

for many different faith groups. Unfortunately, this “genuine interest” compelled him to 

announce during an afternoon Commander’s Update Brief that his chaplains would provide 

religious support to displaced civilians who, as part of the exercise, were forced to leave their 

homes to flee the violence perpetrated by the guerillas who operated in an area adjacent to the 

Panama Canal. During the BUB that took place the very next morning, I tactfully explained that 

joint doctrine restricts religious support provided by military chaplains to their military members 
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and to authorized civilians. I further described the benefit of coordinating religious support with 

local religious leaders and Non-Governmental Organizations (both of whom would maintain an 

enduring presence long after our Soldiers had re-deployed). The Chilean Army attorney affirmed 

the validity of my presentation of joint doctrine, and the matter was settled without further 

incident.

I included the previous two paragraphs with great fear and trepidation that the reader 

might infer that PANAMAX served as nothing more than opportunity for Chaplain Gutierrez to 

learn how to conduct himself in the unfamiliar role of serving as a staff officer. The reality is that 

I learned just as much from Chaplain Gutierrez as he learned from me. Having graduated from 

CGSC at WHINSEC and then immediately reporting for duty as the Plans/Operations Chaplain 

at Army South, I comfortably gravitated towards my duties as a staff officer while failing to 

adequately acknowledge my sacramental responsibilities to my Soldiers and their family 

members. In other words, I need to devote just as much time to Word and Sacrament ministry as 

I presently do to creating the perfect Power Point slide on religious support. While serving as 

special staff officers, chaplains serving in multinational exercises and operations need to devote 

equal time to advising the commander and to bringing God to Soldiers and Soldiers to God.