The service set a goal in 2023 to assign one chaplain per destroyer by 2025 in hopes of filling a shortage of emotional, mental and spiritual counselors aboard those ships. The goal meant creating 48 new permanent billets.

As of September, the Navy had a dedicated chaplain serving aboard 29 of 31 East Coast-based destroyers and 27 of 45 West Coast-based destroyers, leaving 20 billets to be created in the coming year.

“But they will all be filled in fiscal year 2025. That is when the funding comes online for the unfilled billets,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Todd, chief of the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps.

The Navy began focusing on mental health resources and quality-of-life initiatives in 2022 after a spate of 10 suicides and at least two suicide attempts aboard the aircraft carriers USS Ronald Reagan, USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS George Washington. The service documented 71 suicides in 2022 and another 69 suicides in 2023, according to the Defense Suicide Prevention Office.

While the Navy Chaplain Corps already has permanent positions aboard larger vessels such as aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships and guided-missile cruisers, chaplains have historically supported destroyers at the squadron level, with two assigned to accommodate multiple warships spread across an area of responsibility. The difference between a squadron level chaplain and a dedicated destroyer chaplain, Todd said, is all about accessibility.

“If you have two chaplains per squadron, they are always a visitor,” he said. “They are somebody that is not part of the crew, not part of the ebb and flow of the ship’s life.”

Putting a chaplain onboard a ship full time, Todd said, fosters better relationships between the chaplains and the crew. Chaplains serve as religious advisers and routinely assist sailors with operational stress, family problems and coping with life at sea.

A dedicated chaplain was aboard each East Coast-based destroyer that deployed to the Middle East in the past year as the Israel-Hamas conflict reached a boiling point and Iranian proxy forces launched relentless attacks on merchant shipping vessels in the Red Sea. Conversations between those chaplains and their crews included the sensitive nature of combat, Todd said.

“There were issues like, ‘Oh my goodness, what I am doing has a potential of taking another person’s life’ — in firing missiles at enemy combatants. So, how do we work through that?” Todd said.

In 2023, destroyers with a chaplain on board averaged 31 counseling sessions per month, compared to just three per month for those without chaplains. That data has held consistent throughout the process to place more chaplains aboard destroyers, Todd said.

To meet sailors where they were, destroyer chaplains go to the combat center of the ship, where missiles are fired. Since January, U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, has reported almost daily instances of U.S. forces destroying attack drones, land-based missile systems and enemy support vehicles.

“Having those kinds of important conversations along the way are encouraging and helps people have a sense of meaning to what they’re doing,” Todd said. “Do you count that as a counseling appointment? Probably not, but it is an important engagement.”

Now that the Navy is nearing the finish line of assigning a chaplain to every destroyer, Todd said, the service has its eye on frigates, as well as adding more chaplain billets for the Marine Corps and Coast Guard, both of which fall under the Navy Chaplain Corps. The service is also exploring ways to recruit chaplains from within its ranks.

The service has prioritized at-sea billets in recent years, assigning more chaplains to ships. Doing so, Todd said, came with the risk of leaving shore-based billets empty. In September 2021, the Navy had 886 billets with 877 chaplains on active duty. As of August, the number of billets had increased to 932 while the number of chaplains held steady at 877. A comparison of shore-based billet vacancies was not available, the Navy said.

“We need to recruit more — that is the challenge right now,” Todd said.

The Chaplain Corps is aiming to recruit 100 new chaplains in the coming year.

To become a Navy chaplain, an individual must have a master’s degree or equivalent and be endorsed by a religious institution. Once selected, the candidate must pass the Navy’s physical fitness test and complete officer development school and chaplain school, which take about eight weeks.

While there is still work to be done, Todd said, putting chaplains closer to the deck plate has given the Chaplain Corps a sense of what drives service members — “feeling like they are doing something important.”

“That’s kind of a spiritual thing — to sacrifice for the greater good, to really be part of something bigger than themselves,” he said. “That is why they joined [the military].”

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The future USS New Jersey, a fast-attack submarine, will become a deployable part of the Navy’s force during the ceremony at Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey on Sept. 14, culminating five years of construction that represents a historic shift in how Navy submarines are designed.

The New Jersey is the 23rd Virginia-class submarine, but it is the first of its kind — designed from the keel up with specific modifications for gender integration.

“The submarine community is a fully gender-integrated warfighting force,” said Vice Adm. Robert Gaucher, commander of Submarine Forces Atlantic.

Modifications included obvious ones — more doors and washrooms to create separate sleeping and bathing areas — and some that are more subtle — lowering some overhead valves and making them easier to turn and installing steps in front of the triple-high bunk beds and stacked laundry machines.

The design changes were made to accommodate the growing female force of submariners. In the past five years, the Navy has seen the number of officers and enlisted sailors in the submarine force who are women double and triple, respectively, Gaucher said.

As of August 2024, 730 women were assigned to operational submarines — serving as officers and sailors on 19 nuclear-powered, ballistic-missile and guided-missile submarines, and 19 nuclear-powered attack boats, according to Submarine Forces Atlantic.

The increase follows the 2010 lift of the ban that barred women from serving aboard submarines. A decade later, in 2021, the Navy announced a long-term plan to integrate female officers on 33 submarine crews and female enlisted sailors on 14 submarine crews by 2030.

“To support women serving onboard submarines, the submarine force, starting with [the Pre-Commissioning Unit] New Jersey, is building all future [nuclear-powered attack submarines] and the new Columbia-class, [ballistic-missile submarines] gender-neutral from the keel up,” Gaucher said.

Construction on the New Jersey began in 2019 at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding division in Virginia. The warship was christened in 2021 and delivered in April to the Navy at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia.

Before construction of the New Jersey, the Navy retrofitted existing Ohio-class submarines with extra doors and designated washrooms.