As a child, Father David Hammond saw two options for his life: Join the military or be a priest.  

He never thought that he could do both.  

Until he met Franciscan Father Ken Cienik while studying at Franciscan University at Steubenville in Ohio.  

Father Cienik, a member of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, had served as a Navy chaplain for 24 years. He served tours in Okinawa, Japan, onboard the USS Wisconsin battleship during the Gulf War, and was stationed at the Pentagon on 9/11.  

“I was arriving at the Pentagon for the day when the plane crashed into it. So I became a first responder for 48 hours,” Father Cienik recalled to the Register. “I had to do a death notification for one of the people in the Pentagon. Now, every time I go to the World Trade Center or to the Pentagon, I see the 911 Memorial. I always pray for him because I see his name, and that’s a very memorable moment.” 

This is just one of the many memories that Father Cienik carries with him from his years of military service, years that he would not trade for anything.  

“I was much younger then, and I was fresh out of seminary and fully immersed in traveling,” Father Cienik said. “I loved being a military chaplain. You were immersed in the guys’ lives and were able to minister to them in their daily lives.” 

At his next assignment, Father Cienik handed on that love of being a military chaplain to the young men he ministered to in the discernment group he led. Now, two of them serve as military chaplains.  

“I met Father Ken Cienik, who was director of the priestly discernment program when I was at Steubenville, and he shared some of the stories of his ministry,” Father Hammond told the Register. “He had this big picture of the battleship Wisconsin on his wall, and it was signed: ‘To Father Ken, the best chaplain ever.’ It’s a really impressive picture.” 

Naturally, Father Hammond wanted to know how he could get a photo like it.  

“Father Ken took me to Norfolk for a retirement ceremony, and we visited the Wisconsin battleship, which is a museum now. I saw up close the work that he did as a chaplain and heard some of his stories,” Father Hammond said. “Then I became aware of the need, that there is a great shortage, especially for Catholic priests as chaplains. I thought, ‘Well, this is something that I can do. I would like to contribute to that mission field.’”  

So Father Hammond too took a leap of faith and has now been a military chaplain in the Navy for 11 years. These years have pushed him to go beyond his comfort zone and forced him into new scenarios.  

“The best way to describe chaplain work is it is a mission field that has a unique language, culture and social structure,” Father Hammond explained. “Since you are working with service members, you face some unique conditions and stressors that people go through and a unique way of life, that puts pressure on individuals, marriages and families. So part of that, as a priest, is learning how to address those unique circumstances.”  

Coming in with no prior military experience, Father Hammond quickly realized that there was a large learning curve to being a military chaplain.  

“There’s a pretty steep learning curve,” Father Hammond said. “Like any missionary preparing to go into a mission field, you have to learn that language and how to preach the Gospel in that context. As a Navy chaplain, we serve the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard. Each of those has its own culture and its own unique language heritage, which we have to learn as well.” 

Chaplain Hammond quickly learned that this service was a distinct ministry. Serving as an embedded priest has become one of the greatest joys of Father Hammond’s service.  

“The chaplains are part of people’s daily lives in a way that’s different from parish ministry. When we’re either going on deployments or life on a ship together, we are with these people day in and day out,” Father Hammond said. “We’re present in people’s lives, whether they’re Catholic or not, as an individual who can be trusted, who can be a source of support, of prayer. Living as a priest, it gives witness to the life of Christ and his mission.” 

As a Navy chaplain, Father Hammond has ministered on amphibious assault ships, ships that carry 1,500 crew members and an additional 2,000 marines to deployment areas.  

Ministry at sea presents a unique set of challenges and advantages, as chaplains attempt to minister to a small town that is operational 24/7. 

“Life on a ship almost follows a monastic schedule. It’s very predictable in some respects. We have stability because we’re stuck on ship, and it’s a 24-hour operation, so there’s always people constantly working,” Father Hammond said. “Finding times when to schedule daily Mass is important when some of the crew can attend, but also being present in different operations in the ship, just being there to pray for the safety of the crew, for the safety of an operation.”  

When the ships do arrive at a port, the chaplains have another task: to lead the sailors and marines to build community relations through partaking in charitable activities.  

“The chaplain is also responsible for leading what we call community-relations projects, where we’re taking sailors and marines out to the local area to engage in some community-service projects or nongovernment organizations,” Father Hammond said. “It’s a great way to get to know the sailors and marines off the ship and to see some of the aspects of service and works of charity going on in these other countries.”  

Currently, there are 47 Catholic chaplains (out of around 900 chaplains total) serving the roughly 547,000 combined members of the Navy, Marines and Coast Guard. Father Hammond hopes that more men will be open to serving as military chaplains.  

“If, God forbid, a parish closes, people could drive 20 to 30 minutes to get to Mass to have access to the sacraments. In the military, they don’t have that luxury of being able to travel to access the sacraments,” Father Hammond said. “If there isn’t a priest with them, then they go without the sacraments, and a lot of them are facing difficult situations and struggles.”  

Military personnel, Father Hammond says, face unique challenges. Yet, with the guidance and support of chaplains, they can encounter Christ in powerful ways.  

“People can lose their faith when they join the military if they’re not prepared for it; and if they're not supported, then it can actually be very harmful. The military doesn’t automatically produce saints,” Father Hammond said. “The military needs witnesses; it needs missionaries to be that, to bear that presence of Christ.”