US Army Chaplain Kevin Wainwright wrote a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal after reading the Atheist in the Chaplain’s Foxhole. His comments highlighted one of the themes of the article:  the seemingly bumbling and apathetic attitude of Navy Chaplain (Lt) Terry Moran to his physical safety (and, by extension, that of his immediate comrades). 

I attribute my survivability and sanity both to my faith and to the technical and tactical expertise of my chaplain assistants and the other noncommissioned officers whose guidance and example kept me alive. I can hear right now the coaching, teaching and mentoring I would have received from my battalion command sergeant major if I had chosen to ignore the “suggestions” of his infantry soldiers while I moved outside the wire doing ministry.

As for Chaplain Terry Moran, who is doing his best, he should rethink his focus on miracle-based apologetics and shift it to tactics. By refusing to take cover and listen to the battlefield experts on survivability, Chaplain Moran puts everyone at risk by increasing his chances of becoming a casualty…

On matters of life he needs to remember an old Marine Corps saying, which I often repeat to our basic trainees when I give them my chaplain in-brief: “If you want to save your soul, talk to the chaplain. If you want to save your backside, listen to your gunnery sergeant.”