An interesting intro in to an article about a military chaplain from the Fayetteville Observer:

When Father Luke pulls out his Bible, soldiers scatter.

So Chaplain (Capt) Lukasz J. Willenberg, also known as Father Luke, set out to reach his troops regardless — and it worked:

He started Holy Smokes – a lounge time after Sunday night mass…[at] Bagram Airfield…A division band played jazz in the background as Willenberg led casual conversations about anything the soldiers could entertain.

“We’d have over 100 people,” Willenberg said. “Here we are, in a deployed setting. We can build a camaraderie session. We’re building each other up so we can keep going with the mission.”

While Holy Smokes provided something for the troops, it also gave Chaplain Willenberg insight and influence over those troops — and access he wouldn’t otherwise have had.

Chaplain Willenberg subsequently further improved his credibility with the troops he served by setting a record in a 12-mile foot march:

Willenberg, a chaplain for 3rd Brigade Combat Team’s 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, recently broke the record for the fastest 12-mile foot march by any soldier to graduate from Fort Bragg’s DeGlopper Air Assault School. His time – 1 hour, 42 minutes – not only set a record for the school, it also beat times for soldiers competing in 3rd Brigade Combat Team’s elite Expert Infantryman Badge test.

Of note, just as the previous chaplains who went through Special Forces training, Willenberg was doing the same training as the other trainees — so he was carrying a weapon on the foot march. Uncomfortable with that, he was motivated to increase his pace so he could swap the weapon for the guidon at the front:

Because the leader of a foot march carries the guidon and not a weapon, Willenberg said he pushed himself to the front so he could trade his weapon for the guidon.

He stayed in front for the rest of the march, and now has professional credibility to back up his spiritual credentials.

Repeated at the Stars and Stripes.

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