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Show Paratroops Boast First Jumping Chaplain lSS:vjT.kw'w.-w--ix,, f i . . n m AAwsitsV I 1 mSM INFANTRY SCHOOL PHOTO CHAPLAIN RAYMOND S. HALL Parachute troops at the In-i'antry In-i'antry School, Fort Benning, Georgia, boast of a literal "sky ! pilot." He is Chaplain Raymond S. Hall, former rector of St. John'i Protestant Episcopal church, Lowell, Lo-well, Mass., and the Army's first jumping chaplain. . Chaplain Hall is a quiet, husky young man inclined to regard his present assignment as the happy working of fate. When he was first assigned to Benning, there was no regulation requiring chaplains chap-lains to jump. Chaplain Hall soon ' fixed that. After a week of talk-' talk-' ing to the men he applied for , permission to take the gruelling five-week training course. He found it rough going. It had been more than ten years since Chaplain Chap-lain Hall was captain of Brown University swimming team and a member of the Ail-American swimmers, and life in the rectory had not prepared him for the enthusiastic en-thusiastic body-bending a parachutist para-chutist must perform in training. Today, as a qualified parachutist, parachut-ist, he looks forward to each jump with zest. He also speaks with modest satisfaction of the men's reaction to his jumping. "It increased in-creased attendance at church," he says. |