First Active Duty Buddhist Chaplain

Army News Service|by Marisa Petrich

Of all the branch insignia on uniforms at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, one stands out for a unique reason.

Chaplain (Capt.) Somya Malasri's dharma wheel is one of the most uncommon symbols in the military. He is the first - and currently, the only - active-duty Buddhist chaplain in the Army.
Now with the 593rd Sustainment Brigade at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Malasri is facing the challenges of being a good Soldier, a good Buddhist and a good leader to the Soldiers he came to help.

"It's good to be different ... We can all connect to each other," he said.

Originally from Thailand, Malasri entered a Theravada Buddhist temple near Phuket when he was 17 to study Buddhism and meditation. At 21, he became a fully ordained monk, and entered Mahachula Buddhist University to earn his bachelor's degree.

While he was there, he taught Buddhist philosophy and history to students, and did missionary work in China and India. He eventually became interested in a missionary program that sent monks further abroad.

He applied and was selected from among 200 candidates to go to the United States, serving at temples in Colorado, Utah and Las Vegas. This was where he encountered his first American Soldier.
While working at a temple near Salt Lake City, a Buddhist Soldier came to Malasri for a blessing before he deployed. Later, while he was working at a temple in Las Vegas, Malasri met another Soldier who told him there were no Buddhist services available on base. From there, the decision was made.

"OK, I want to be a chaplain," Malasri said of his thoughts at the time.

In 2005, Malasri applied to be a chaplain. Though he had to wait for an endorsement from the Buddhist Churches of America for his application to be accepted, he didn't wait to jump into Army life.

Instead he disrobed as a monk (in the Theravada tradition, one cannot be a monk and a Soldier at the same time) and enlisted to get an idea of what it was like to be a Soldier.