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Show HUMAN IE OF OUR GREAT ARMY Chaplain Is the Man Who Gets Nearest to the Boys. OVER THE TOP WITH TROOPS 4 Besides Ministering to the Spintuaf Needs of Soldiers, the Chaplain's Chap-lain's Place Is Wherever His Men Are. :rrora the Committee on Public Information. Informa-tion. WualiltiKton, 1 C.) By A UNITED STATES ARMY CHAPLAIN. CHAP-LAIN. 1 consider my Job the most Intcrest-.ng Intcrest-.ng in the army. No officer hits more rich inn) varied opportunities for service serv-ice thun a chuplaln. No officer's enl-endur enl-endur presents Krenter contrasts. It Is a chnpluiii'K duty to oversee the dis-poRltloiia dis-poRltloiia of his mobile Hock, na well na their souls, minds, amusements, morals, .'orrcspoiidcncp, nnd readinK matter. He must go from the hosing ring to t.,e hospital, nnd from the theater the-ater to the goanj house. He Is lu Jull ofteno.' thun uny other man In the icrvlce. Hut, If his work Is well done, he I there none too often to suit the li ceii. Last January General Pershing sent S cablegram to the aecretaf of war asking that (he number of chaplains la the army he lucrensed for the "war n an uveruge of three per regiment. Ills cablegram reads, In part, ns follows: fol-lows: ". . . . I believe the pcr-tioimci pcr-tioimci of the army nas never been r.qualcd, nnd the conduct has been excellent, but to overcome entirely the conditions found here requires fortitude forti-tude born of great COUrUfa fni lofty spiritual Ideas. Counting myself responsible re-sponsible for the welfare of our men lnt every respect. It la my desire to surround them with the best Influence possible. In the fulfillment of this solemn sol-emn trust. It seems wise to request the Hid of the churches from home. . . ." The chaplain la a commissioned officer, offi-cer, starting with the rank of first lieutenant. He Is always an ordained clergyman who has bad practical experience ex-perience as a pastor before entering the army. "The different religious bodies nre represented In the chaplaincies chap-laincies In numbers proportionate to the number of adherents of the different dif-ferent denominations In the country at lurge. Kach Is privileged to conduct religious services In the manner prescribed pre-scribed by his own church. Hut, when that has been said, I have expressed till the denominationallsm that there Is In the army. In this as in many other respects the army has set an example to civil life, for It has learned the Heedlessness and waste of many sectarian sec-tarian lines In the face of human need. Chaplain an Information Bureau. Some people huve the Idea that all a chaplain has to do Is conduct religious re-ligious services. At other times they think of him as enjoying u life of com-plata com-plata relaxation. The utter mistaken-Hess mistaken-Hess of tliis notion becomes evident ulter the briefest survey of the tusks assigned to a chapluit.. For one thing, he is the Information bureau tor his regiment, ll a soldier wants to know a street address, a telephone tele-phone number, or a train schedule, he goes to the chaplain's ollice. If he wants right Information on current topics he calls on the chaplain and asks him if lie has any late magii.ines or newspapers dealing with the iiucs-tion. iiucs-tion. On some of the battleships the na i .il chaplain! put out periodicals for the men. Some of these magazines are really excellent productions. Then, there Ik the whole problem of education. If there are men In the regiment lacking lu necessary cducu- thin the chaplain Is expected to or- , ganl.e classes In the common m, incites, so that they may Improve themselves along those lines, make themselves more useful to their country, and brighten their own futures. The chaplain chap-lain frequently gives lectures to recruits re-cruits on discipline and the relation of niornl cleanliness to health and efficiency. effi-ciency. He keeps a record of all the men ns they come Into the service, Including In-cluding their name, home address. next of kin, education, and other Items. ( The chaplain's day Includes plenty of humorous incidents. A fellow chaplain, chap-lain, now on duty at one of the buse boapltala, tells an amusing story of talking to an Italian who had been recently re-cently Injured. The man listened attentively, at-tentively, nil great brown eyes fixed on the chaplain's face. The padre did not know that the Injured man was an Italian and spoke little English, though n soldier hi the United Slates aricy. After suggesting a little prayer the chaplain added carelessly: "It makes no great difference between be-tween us, but . . . what la your creed?" Religion in His Foot. The injured man still looked earnestly ear-nestly upward, ami the chaplain repeated re-peated his question. The soldier caught only the questioning intimation and llashcd it brilliant smile. "Oh, eet ee8 In my foot!" he said, in an explanatory tone, and Immediately Immedi-ately piil led buck the covers of the bed, displaying a much bandaged limb. The chaplain must be a good mixer. This Is especially necessary because he la much concerned with the recreational recrea-tional life of the men. He must be capable ca-pable of participating actively In manly man-ly sports and of organizing such games as will appeal to the tastes of all the men. The social life of the regiment Is one of his responsibilities. The movies, the boxing matches, the volley-hall volley-hall games, and the wrestling bouts tire all within his province. He writes letters, too. for men who are sick or v.tnindcd. In case of difficulty or death It is the chaplain who must Impart Im-part the message to the loved ones who gave the man Into service. Heciiuse he has access to every one, the chaplain becomes involved In many delicate problems of conduct. 1 once received a rather pathetic note from the mother of one of the men. Uklng whether her boy was still at the post. I happened to know that he was In the guardhouse. 1 went to See the boy and asked him why he had not written writ-ten home. The whole story came out Immediately. During his Christmas furlough the soldier had married a girl whom his mother did not approve of, and. In n lit of temper, his mother had said she wished never to see or hear from him again. Before the conversation was over the chaplain had persuaded the boy to write. Thus the difficulty wns smoothed over, and a difficulty smoothed over la a chup-laln's chup-laln's duty done. Go Over the Top. So far I have said nothing about the work of the chaplains In the Held, which, for the present war, means chiefly "over there." My own experience expe-rience has not yet extended thither, but I can answer briefly some of the questions that people ask. The query Is often put to me: "Do chaplains go Into the front-line trenches?" The answer Is, yes, of course. Frequently they go over the top with the men. A Chaplain's place Is wherever his men ure. and when they are in danger he Is, too. A chaplain who Is not willing, If necessary, to lose his life In the performance per-formance of his duties Is false to his trust and does not deserve his commission. commis-sion. As a matter of fact, many have been killed. The mortality among Chaplains on the western front has n as high as one a day, which la a high percentage when the small totul number of chaplains is considered. The chaplain has this additional test of nerve that he !s obliged to -o unarmed. By the terms of the Qtnara convention, chaplains are not permitted permit-ted to carry arms. Of course, In return re-turn for this, the person of the chap- lain l supposed to be sai-ros-incf. ft in everyone knows that to the llu the safeguards of the donors convention are as obsolete as the Sermon hi the Mount is to them. A Brother to the Wounded The hospital Is one of the principal fields for the chaplain's endeavors. As one chaplain puts It: "In the hospital, hos-pital, they can't get away from me." Hut there Is a more powerful element In the chaplain's success among the sick boys. As soon as they feel helpless, help-less, they reach out Involuntarily for a friendly band, ami It Is ran- for a man In a hospital not to lx glad to see the chaplain. The most Impressive story I have heard was given to me by a friend of mine who is a chaplain. He had become be-come greatly Interested In one of the men who was seriously 111 nnd not expected ex-pected to live. Every time trie chaplain chap-lain came to see him. the fellow would ask him to "say Just one little prnyer, won't you?" Toward the ehd they thought that he would be delirious. Hut he was not. The chnpltttn came, nnd the soldier whispered his customary cus-tomary request for a prayer. The chaplain prayed. When he had finished fin-ished he asked : "Did you understand me then, Oray?" "Yea," the dying man whispered. "I understood. I can understand anything abOUl Ood. It's wonderful." Those were his last words. The army has lenrned that men mny worship Ood In different ways, but they all need the same kind of broth-erlng. broth-erlng. So the army chaplain looks nfter nil his hoys alike, whether they have a faith or whether they have none. He knows, better than any other officer, tlint Uncle Sam's boys are not mechanisms, but men. Because he comes so close 'n touch with the human side of the army he Is In n C sltlon to stimulate Hint morale without with-out which fighting men nre powerless to win bnttles. |
