The Army is looking to strengthen soldiers’ abilities in the “spiritual domain,” which encompasses mental and emotional health. As such, the service rolled out a new Spiritual Fitness Guide this month to help soldiers develop greater internal resilience alongside physical endurance.
The Army released the new guide, and a “battlebook” to go with it, on Aug. 1. The nine-chapter guide functions like a physical fitness guide, but for the spirit. The new material comes as part of the Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness program, also known as H2F, a reshaping of the service’s focus on wellness and physical fitness.
The guide was developed in the fall of 2024, Sgt. Maj. Meaghan Simmons, the Army Chaplain Corps regimental sergeant major, said in a statement to Task & Purpose. Simmons said that the new guide offers a framework for how to train soldiers in what it calls the spiritual domain, “just as the Army has done for physical fitness.”
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“It is a practical, leader-focused resource highlighting the importance of spiritual readiness, defined as the ability to endure, overcome, and grow through adversity,” Simmons said. “The guide offers doctrinal alignment and inclusive approaches to spiritual development that can be applied at the unit level, regardless of individual belief systems.”
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The Army and the guide itself said that it does not follow any particular religious doctrine or line, but instead focuses on soldiers finding their own “source of strength,” which could be religious or not. Rather than faith-based prescriptions, the Army document treats spiritual development as a scalable part of military life, with suggestions for unit leaders on how to foster mindfulness and a greater sense of purpose. The Army had previously defined spiritual readiness as “personal qualities needed to sustain a person in times of stress, hardship or tragedy.” As such, the guide cites an array of motivational quotes, ranging from those of Gen. George Patton to President Abraham Lincoln.
It also lays out what the Army sees as the four stages of spiritual development. The first is the external, where identity is shaped by “external forces acting upon them.” From there, soldiers can develop to the “agency stage,” where they start to take direct control of their lives, then the “purposed stage.” The Army defines the final level of development as the “empowered stage,” “where concern for the big picture becomes paramount.”
Alongside the guide, the Army also launched a “battlebook” tied to the spiritual fitness aspect. The Army described it as a “field-ready manual” meant as a kind of hands-on companion to the Spiritual Fitness Guide.” It notes that a “fortified spirit” can help with keeping soldiers sustained in the field, even when they might be depleted of sleep or food. The guide includes examples of a “spiritual fitness plan,” where soldiers can lay out what they do to strengthen mindfulness and how aligned they are with those goals.
