It’s a small world in the circle of Navy chaplains who serve the Marine Corps.

The commander who will become the Headquarters and Service Battalion chaplain in March served as the battalion’s junior chaplain in the mid-1990s, alongside Chaplain Milton Gianulis, who is now Quantico’s command chaplain. That’s Cmdr. Gordon Ritchie, currently the chaplain for Marine Corps Recruiting Command.

Meanwhile, the commander who became Quantico’s deputy command chaplain in September, Cmdr. Robert Etheridge, preceded Ritchie at MCRC and came to Quantico after a tour on the USS Iwo Jima, where Gianulis served a few years earlier.

“I know any Iwo Jima sailor is a good sailor, and any Iwo Jima chaplain is a good chaplain,” said Gianulis, who hadn’t worked with Etheridge before his arrival at Quantico but said he has since come to know him as “very sensitive and a good listener” who “seems to be running a tight ship.”

As for Ritchie, who has also taken over as the Protestant chaplain at the Marine Memorial Chapel, Gianulis said, “I’ve known Chaplain Ritchie for many years, and I’ve always been impressed with his professionalism and his work ethic.” He added that Ritchie is “very proactive. He’s got a great head for creating programs that deal with a lot of the issues some of our young Marines are dealing with.”

Both chaplains have spent most of their careers serving the Marine Corps.

“I love being with Marines,” Ritchie said. “They’re motivating, and they know how to use their chaplain.” The Barry County, Mich., native said chaplains have a set of tools, including confidentiality, which enables them to be resources and force multipliers in ways that others can’t, and Marine commanders and personnel rely on them for that.

“The philosophy of ‘serve in leadership’ — you see it in Marine Corps leaders,” said Etheridge, adding that he appreciates the conservative, traditional nature of the Corps. He said his first Marine commanding officer made a lasting impression on him.

“He was a great CO and very supportive of chaplains and of his Marines being engaged in their faith,” Etheridge said. “Pretty consistently, that’s been my experience.”

A native of Salem, Va., Etheridge took a winding path to the chaplaincy, returning to active duty at the age of 42, just a year or two shy of retiring from the Navy reserves.

“Really, ever since I was young, I felt I would ultimately do something in the ministry,” he said.

After going through ROTC at Virginia Military Institute, he went on active duty in the Navy, but his now-wife, who he met on a tour in Hawaii, didn’t want him to stay on active duty, and he didn’t like the idea of long separations from family. He started working for his father, but a part-time job as a youth pastor “really confirmed that’s what God wanted me to do,” he said.

He went through seminary school and planned to be a missionary, but his first child’s health problems ruled that out. For nine years, he was the pastor of a small, Baptist church, and when he began considering the chaplaincy, his wife changed her mind about active duty service. His first day of work turned out to be four days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and military chaplains suddenly had their hands full.

Throughout his career, there has been one constant, he said. “My mission is to reach out to those who are not connected to God and to encourage those who are.”

Ritchie, too spent nine years as a civilian pastor before entering the Navy chaplaincy during the military buildup for Operation Desert Storm. His father, brother and uncle had served in the military, and, he said, “God just kind of used that and a retired Navy chaplain who was a mentor of mine” to draw him into the service.

Whether working as a chaplain or a civilian pastor, Ritchie said, “It’s more than the job. It’s a vocational calling that consumes you and that you give your heart and mind and soul to.”

He said he looked forward to being “more indigenous to the unit” as the senior chaplain for H&S Bn. Compared with working for the far-flung Recruiting Command, “It will be much more regular contact with the Marines,” he said. A junior chaplain is expected to join him around August.

Meanwhile, working at the chapel provides some welcome variety, with baptisms, marriages and funerals, as opposed to a battalion where most of the Marines are around the same age, he said. The pulpit there offers an opportunity to give spiritual guidance to rising leaders of the Corps, young Marines and senior officers while drawing on the heritage of the retired military community.

Etheridge said he enjoys the fact that his work helping to manage the chaplains and religious personnel of the base, Embassy Security Group, Officer Candidates School and The Basic School draws on his training as a line officer in the Navy. Like an officer, he said, his job is to train, motivate, coordinate and lead a team. However, he said he still enjoys going on calls to counsel Marines and family members in crisis, filling in to preach at the chapel and officiating funerals and other ceremonies.

“I could probably just manage [chaplains] and not do direct ministry, but I think that’s a mistake for any chaplain,” he said.

When he’s not tending to the Marine Corps flock, he said, he enjoys hunting — especially for waterfowl — and “anything to do with water,” such as swimming, scuba diving, fishing, waterskiing and boating. “The Navy fits me well,” he noted. He also likes to play Xbox with his two sons but said he’s not sure how much fun it is for them to play against such a novice.

Ritchie’s hobby is building elaborate birdhouses with found scrap wood, and he has galleries in two art centers for his craft and is considering moving into a third. The birdhouses, of which there are several around his office, are of all shapes and sizes and are designed to provide shelter for specific species of songbirds.

He said there is a symbolism in using reclaimed wood. “As in our lives we have blemishes, defects, God doesn’t throw us away. He can create beautiful works of art and masterpieces from our broken lives.”

— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com