The National Training Center (NTC) and Fort Irwin occupies 1,200 acres in a remote part of the Mojave Desert. Over 35 miles from the nearest town, the NTC is the only training area in the United States with enough land to conduct full brigade-on-brigade armored combat training. The area was designated as the Mojave Anti-Aircraft Range in 1941 and later renamed Camp Irwin in honor of Maj. Gen. George LeRoy Irwin, commander of the 57th Field Artillery Brigade in World War I. Fort Irwin has been pivotal in training the armed forces for every conflict since World War II and played an important role in the exploration of space. Today, the National Training Center at Fort Irwin serves as the premier training area for US forces preparing to deploy to combat areas anywhere in the world.

A century ago, as the United States prepared to enter World War I, the military chaplaincy included only mainline Protestants and Catholics. Today it counts Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Christian Scientists, Buddhists, Seventh-day Adventists, Hindus, and evangelicals among its ranks. Enlisting Faith traces the uneven processes through which the military struggled with, encouraged, and regulated religious pluralism over the twentieth century. Moving from the battlefields of Europe to the jungles of Vietnam and between the forests of Civilian Conservation Corps camps and meetings in government offices, Ronit Y. Stahl reveals how the military borrowed from and battled religion. Just as the state relied on religion to sanction war and sanctify death, so too did religious groups seek recognition as American faiths. At times the state used religion to advance imperial goals. But religious citizens pushed back, challenging the state to uphold constitutional promises and moral standards. Despite the constitutional separation of church and state, the federal government authorized and managed religion in the military. The chaplaincy demonstrates how state leaders scrambled to handle the nation’s deep religious, racial, and political complexities. While officials debated which clergy could serve, what insignia they would wear, and what religions appeared on dog tags, chaplains led worship for a range of faiths, navigated questions of conscience, struggled with discrimination, and confronted untimely death. Enlisting Faith is a vivid portrayal of religious encounters, state regulation, and the trials of faith—in God and country—experienced by the millions of Americans who fought in and with the armed forces.

The U.S. Army uses virtual systems for collective skills training. This report examines the needs for fidelity in simulators and associated costs to support effective and efficient collective training.