Greetings all,

My name is Travis and I’m a Midshipman in ROTC.  I’ve recently thought about entering the Chaplaincy, though my commissioning source poses a problem: Navy ROTC commissions very few people into the restricted line billets (i.e.: Supply, JAG, Chaplaincy), except for doctors and dentists.  Does anyone here have more info about this?  If so, would it be better to enter a line billet and get a warfare pin before I go restricted?  Thanks for your help, I appreciate the work you all do on the site.

V/R
MIDN T

I can’t speak to the specifics of what career path would be best to becoming a USN Chaplain, but I can tell you that the Navy and the Army are very short on chaplains and will probably do whatever they can to get you in if you are qualified. I see that you are in ROTC, are you a Rabbi? You’re gonna need to be. You also need a master’s degree, or equivalent credit hours. Talk to Rabbi Harold Robinson at the Jewish Welfare Board. They are the endorsers for almost all Jewish Chaplains and he’s a former Navy Chaplain. I’m sure he can help you out. Here’s the website, you can find his contact info there.
http://www.jcca.org/JWB/
Hatzlacha raba!

Part of my question that I failed to communicate was: do the armed services pay for Rabbinical school, similar to how they have programs for Med School and Law School?

V/R
MT

Unfortunately no. There was an officer in my squadron that got into a law school program. He recieved full active duty pay and benefits plus a full scholarship to law school. No such program exists for any seminary, rabbinical or otherwise. Separation of church and state makes it problematic for the military to pay for religious schools. There are some scholarships available from various sourses. The military has a scholarship for around $3000 per year, there’s a scholarship available for JTS (conservative) students for $15,000 per year, and I know the Army Reserve has some decent money available for people who want to be chaplains in the Army Reserve but I’m guessing you don’t want that. Bottom line, if you want to go to Rabbinical school you’ll need to get some kind of educational delay after commissioning to do so and then find a way to pay for it either through scholarships or whatever. There is an Air Force Reserve chaplain, Chaplain Roffman, who did just that. He went to MIT on a ROTC scholarship and then decided to become a chaplain. He was granted a delay to go to school and then come back into the Air Force. Talk to Rabbi Robinson at the JWB and speak to your CO, they can give you all the info you need to make a good decision.
Mike