from the Humanist: (excerpted) Fort Hood houses the Spiritual Fitness Center, a facility functioning on the edict that all human beings are comprised of three components: the physical (body), the mental (mind), and the spiritual (soul). These three attributes are interwoven and interdependent, and the center operates as a contemporary shrine for religious leaders and the community as a whole to turn to in the search for serenity. But along with ministering to the immediate needs of Fort Hood, the center serves a greater purpose: it acts as a religious outpost for the Global Assessment Tool, or GAT, a roughly 200-question self-appraisal that’s part of the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program.
Implemented in 2009, the $117 million CSF program is founded on thirty years of research and employs various tactics to help evaluate and improve the physical and mental welfare of soldiers. The most notable is the GAT—a 105-question evaluation focused on five core dimensions: the physical, emotional, social, familial, and spiritual. The GAT is currently an annual requirement for all soldiers.l.
Statements such as, “I am a spiritual person,” and, “In difficult times, I pray or meditate,” are present. Another statement pushes the matter further: “I believe that in some way my life is closely connected to all of humanity. I often find comfort in my religion or spiritual beliefs.” If negative responses are provided, soldiers are given the following results: “Spiritual fitness may be an area of difficulty. You may lack a sense of meaning or purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your beliefs, principles, and values. Improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal.”
“Spiritual Fitness Failure”
An email with a subject line reading, “I Am A ‘Spiritual Fitness Failure,’” was sent to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) from a battle-worn soldier and subsequently posted at Huffington Post by Rodda (MRFF withheld his name and information to ensure his anonymity). The soldier had been deployed six times (at the time of this writing, he awaits his seventh) to Iraq and Afghanistan on heavy combat assignments. During his service, he has earned the Combat Action Badge, the Bronze Star, and multiple Purple Hearts for having been wounded four times, including a “traumatic brain injury.” And even though this soldier identifies as a Christian, he still failed the spiritual fitness test.
But confidentiality of his results wasn’t a privilege he enjoyed: upon completion, the First Sergeant of the soldier’s unit questioned his score. Because the test deemed him spiritually unfit, the sergeant ordered the soldier to schedule an appointment with a chaplain.
The chaplain didn’t offer counsel so much as a proselytizing lecture on evangelical Christianity. As the soldier stated in his email to the MRFF:
When this chaplain told me that I failed the [spiritual fitness test] because it was [Jesus’] way of personally knocking on my door as an invitation for me to come to Him as a [born-again, real Christian] so that I could be saved and not burn forever in hell for rejecting him, I thought of… the fact that I was already born a Christian and did not need to be born again… [and] I thought of my battle buddy… who took a bullet for me in his face during [battle]… and that he was the same kind of Christian as me and this chaplain is telling me that my battle buddy… is burning in hell for all time.”