"Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is an experience in process education which has been shaped by history and yet remains responsive to the present - day cultural developments which affect Pastoral formation. The heart of CPE is ministry with people and learning from that ministry through reflection, discussion, and evaluation with other ministry descriptions of ministry for supervision..."

The Clinical Pastoral Education training offered in the U.S. Army prepares the CPE graduates to provide quality ministry and pastoral care in any ministry setting, military or civilian. It provides a combination of academic discipline with intensive first-hand field experience including in-depth pastoral supervision and theological integration that is equivalent to any other professional development program in either military or civilian sectors.

The Clinical Pastoral Education program of the U.S. Army incorporates the concept of "Battle Focused" training. In order to be ready for a combat mission, soldiers and units require training in those skills and competencies required on the battlefield. Upon mobilization in time of war, the present philosophy of determining chaplain assignments calls for over twenty percent of all chaplains to be assigned to various types of Army hospitals. At some point ALL chaplains will face the reality of providing religious support to wounded and dying soldiers and the medical staff - who care for them. For these and many other reasons, the Army CPE Program is one of the best training environments for chaplains who will serve on the battlefield. CPE provides pastoral training in a peacetime environment, which most closely approximates the trauma, crisis, and stress found in combat.

In this crisis oriented environment one finds the spiritual crisis, feelings, and conditions also encountered on the battlefield: death and dying, faith, guilt, separation, despair and grief, and burns and disfigurement, to name only a few. As on the battlefield, patients and parishioners experience the loss of familiar surroundings, including family and friends. CPE in the Army setting offers training needed for the provision of pastoral care of casualties in addition to religious support for non-casualties in a high stress environment.