The Rev. Benjamin (Chaps) Shambaugh of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, who serves in the Coast Guard’s Auxiliary Chaplain Support program, became the branch chief of the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area East on Jan. 1. In that role, he will oversee chaplains who care for Coast Guard members and their families from Canada to the Caribbean and in Europe and other areas abroad, according to a release from his office.
Mr. Shambaugh is an auxiliary chaplain for Sector Long Island, and has just finished a term as branch chief for District One South, covering New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. With his new post, he joins branch chiefs for the Atlantic Area West and Pacific Area to support 50 active duty chaplains and more than 100 auxiliary chaplains serving the 43,000 active duty Coast Guard members, 8,000 reservists, and 30,000 auxiliarists around the world.
The Auxiliary Chaplain Support program is open to clergy of all faiths. They receive training in such things as “suicide prevention, spiritual resilience, and critical incident stress management.”
This fall, Mr. Shambaugh was deployed with the Cutter Vigorous as it completed an anti-narcotics mission in the Panama Canal and Caribbean. He was deployed with the Cutter Valiant doing migrant operations off Florida and aboard the Barque Eagle training Coast Guard cadets.
