1. I Join the Army

There are some nine or ten million young men in the United States today who will argue the point with me; nevertheless, I insist that getting into the Army was a hard job. It may have come easy to some, but I worked at the assignment for nearly three years before I finally succeeded in getting them to take me in. It all started back in 1940, just a few months after Hitler had started the fireworks in Europe. At that time I was in my freshman year in seminary and had attained the ripe age of twenty-one . . . going on twenty-two. I do not claim that my zeal to become part of somebody’s army was prompted by any great patriotism or heroism. I am not self-psychoanalyst enough to know if it was bona fide patriotism, a yearning for adventure, an ambition to earn my own money, or the fact that I had just been rejected by a little blonde. I convinced myself that it was because of my ambition to help the cause of democracy no matter where that cause was imperiled.

Soon after the blonde sent back my high school class pin, I began sending letters to the Secretaries of War and Navy. I mentioned my age, my education, my family background, my abhorrence of Hitler, and my love of country, but not the blonde. Could they take me in as a chaplain? I asked. In due time the letters returned, not from the heads of the departments to which I had written, but from noncommissioned officers in the procurement branches. I was informed that the Army and Navy had to maintain some kind of standards, after all, and that for that reason they could not accept me. They also sent along a list of requirements for chaplains. From this I learned that I would have to complete my seminary training and wait until I could count at least twenty-four summers. And that was that.

I didn’t take well to the idea of letting this boiling passion for self-sacrifice bubble around in my breast for the next three years. If my own country wouldn’t have me, I thought, perhaps one of the Allies would. I sent letters to proper officials in Canada, and one to Lord Halifax, the British Ambassador in our country at the time. Canada candidly replied that if I wanted to join up there, I would have to cross the border, renounce my American citizenship and become a fullfledged Canadian. That cooled my clamor for Canada. Soon after this a letter came from Lord Halifax himself. He graciously thanked me for my offer but patiently explained that the British, too, had some standards to maintain.

Well, it looked as if all my efforts to get into the war immediately were pretty well knocked out unless I were willing to make some sacrifices that I wasn’t willing to make. I decided that the best thing for me to do was to go right on with my seminary work and wait until I was old enough to be accepted by the Army or the Navy. Anyway, I had just met a gorgeous little nurse, a brunette. There was nothing more that I could do but let nature take its course and hope that the war wouldn’t end before I got old enough to get in it.

In December 1941, when the United States was drawn into the war, I tried again. I wrote to the Army and Navy, suggesting that since we were in the war ourselves now, it might be the better part of wisdom if they relaxed their requirements just enough to allow me to get in. Again they informed me that, war or no war, emergency or no emergency, they wouldn’t lower their standards that much.

Seeing no way out of my dilemma, I graduated from seminary in June 1942, moved to Florida, joined the Methodist Conference of that state, and married the nurse in August. In September my long period of waiting came to an end; I celebrated my twenty-fourth birthday. That night I wrote to the Army, telling them their worries would soon come to an end. I had my degree and I had my age, and now I was giving them one more chance to acquire my services and assistance as a chaplain. Please make careful note of this fact. I sent them my application in September 1942. Not until August 1943 was I sent my commission and told when and where and how I was to report to the Chaplains’ School at Harvard University for a period of training. Of course, there were a good many things to take care of, such as my endorsement by my denomination, my physical examination, and a thorough investigation of my character by the F.B.I. to make sure that I wasn’t a spy and that I had never subscribed to the World Peace Newsletter. But from all the reports that came to me at the time, the need for chaplains was very great, and it seemed to me that I could have been received into the Army in less than eleven months. It surely didn’t take, that long to snatch some of the boys off the farms, out of the factories, and away from the schools. The trouble lay, of course, in the fact that I had volunteered. I should have known that would create suspicion.

To get back to where we were: When I received my commission I was given two weeks’ time in which to wind up all my church and personal affairs and report to Harvard. I immediately notified the church officials that I was departing and began to close shop. It was my plan to take the wife over to Daytona Beach, Florida, and let her stay with her mother and father while I was away defending home and country. We loaded all our worldly goods into the car, said our farewells to the people of Webster, and drove to Daytona Beach.

The WACs had taken over Daytona Beach . . . the hotels, the stores, the streets, and what men were available. And it so happened that my introduction to Army life came by way of these WACs. The day after I arrived in Daytona Beach, I went down to the WACs’ headquarters to meet their chaplain. I was still dressed in civilian clothes, so that walking past a group of WACs gave me no qualms whatever. The results of my visit to the WACs* chaplain were: I was assured that I must buy a uniform immediately, complete with silver bar and insignia. Also, I was introduced to a little military courtesy. The chaplain, who was a major, informed me that I should walk on his left; and that I should go ahead and open the door for him, and wait until he had gone through the door before I followed, except when we were getting out of a car—in that case, I was to open the door and get out first. Officers always got in on the right-hand side of a car, he continued, and always sat on the back seat. (This particular rule was not followed too closely, however, since most of the drivers were WACs.) At the end of the interview the chaplain insisted that I buy a uniform that day and meet him at one of the WAC encampments the following Sunday to assist him in a religious service. Since he was now my superior officer, there was no choice for me but to agree to come.

When Sunday came, I leaped out of bed at five o’clock in the morning, gulped down a cup of strong coffee for reinforcement, and took up a job that I had started the night before. I was trying to get my insignia on my shirt collar just the way the book said it had to be. The chaplains cross had to be on the left side of the collar wing, just so far from the edge and so far from the seam, and slanted at just the right angle. The first lieutenant’s bar had to be placed in exactly the same manner but on the right wing of the collar. I had started this little job with my shirt off and got the insignia looking just right. But whenever I put the shirt on and buttoned the collar, one or the other of the insignia was always out of line. So off the shirt would come for more arrangements and alignments—then back on again for another try. This process was repeated without success until I collapsed and my wife had to drag me off to bed. But I was at it again at daybreak the next morning. I worked frantically up to the last minute before I gave up. I never did get those insignia matched evenly.

Kly wife drove me downtown to the WAC encampment, where I was supposed to meet the chaplain. I got out of the car in front of the gate leading into the encampment. My wife waited to see if I would be allowed to go in, before she drove on back home. I felt so flustered and scared, this being the first time I had appeared in public in my uniform, that I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I wouldn’t have felt more conspicuous if I were walking down the street naked.

There were two WACs on duty at the gate. When I had stumbled up to within about ten feet of them, they leaped to attention and slung me a salute that would have done honor to General Marshall. Now, by gum! I claim that wasn’t a fair way to get your first salute. I was still a civilian, uniform or no uniform, and when a couple of ladies jumped up and started saluting all over the place just because I had walked up, it took all the military wind out of my sails. I stood there for a moment, just gawking at them. Then I remembered that I was an officer in Uncle Sam’s Army and was expected to act like one. But I had been a Boy Scout too long, and when I returned their salute, it was a genuine Boy Scout salute that I gave them. I knew that wasn’t right, so I started all over. This time I used my left arm. That didn’t work either. I wound up by doing what I knew I should have done at the start. I took off my cap and asked them if this was the place where the chaplain was supposed to hold a religious service. Those girls didn’t laugh at me, bless their little hearts! They said I was in the right place and could go on into the chapel. I turned to call to my wife that she could go on, but she had been watching me and was now laughing so hard at my embarrassment that she couldn’t see me. Indignant that she should find such side-splitting humor in my pathetic situation, I stalked into the camp without telling her good-bye.

I made it through the day without receiving any visible wounds, but inwardly I was crushed. If I hadn’t already signed my name to the dotted line I would have called the whole thing off right then and there.

Instead of calling it all off, I went down to the railway station and made reservations for my trip to Harvard. The following Monday afternoon all the family came with me to the station to see me off. It was a grave occasion. You see, I had recently received a communication from the adjutant of the Chaplains’ School informing me that it would be wise for me to make all possible final settlements of my property, draw up my will, and see that my insurance was paid, and mentioning a few other details that a person ought to check into before leaping off the Empire State Building. You can imagine how that struck me—new, raw, uninitiated recruit that I was. I didn’t have any better sense than to believe just what the adjutant said. And of course I had to read into his letter something that wasn’t there but that he meant for me to read into it just the same: “Pack your grip, bub, you won’t be in this country long!” With all these things buzzing around in my new Army bonnet, you couldn’t exactly expect me to be doing handsprings from joy. I struck one of those strong, silent, sorrowing poses and held it pretty well. My wife wasn’t any too gay herself. After all, she was expecting. (Now, isn’t that a heck of a term? Expecting! She could have been expecting the mailman, the delivery boy, or her sewing machine; or expecting me to start giving her a little spending money. But who am I to quibble with terms? That’s the way it has always been said, so I will say it that way too.) The idea of my going overseas just to get mixed up in a little ol’ war while she stayed at home and had the baby all by herself made her feel like a martyr. I tried to tell her there wasn’t much I could do about the baby now, anyway, but she remained angry at Uncle Sam. And so we sat, silent and sullen, until we heard the train whistle blow. Then I started scrambling around like mad, getting my things together and trying to say all the things I had been trying to say to her for three years, only this time I had only three minutes. I wound up by saying, “I love you.” I thought that was pretty silly, then—not that it was silly that I loved her, but that I couldn’t think of a more romantic way to say it. Now I know that when you blow all the chaff away, those three words are the kernel of the whole business of life.

When I got on the train and found my Pullman car and section, I was elated to discover that there was an Army captain sharing the section with me … I saw that on his baggage, which was addressed to Mitchell Field, New York. But the captain was not in at the moment. This will be fine, I said to myself, I will have all the way to New York to talk to this fellow about the Army. I was sure that he would be able to give me some good hints and suggestions. I made up my mind that I was going to tell him I was a greenhorn. There was no use pretending otherwise. Anybody could tell I didn’t feel right in a uniform. Even the newspaper boy in the train station had startled me by calling me a “shavetail,” whatever that was. There wasn’t the slightest reason to hope that I could banter Army slang around with a captain.

After the train had pulled out of the station, the Army captain returned to his seat. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that “he” was a she. My section companion was a WAC captain. Oh, brother, and after that mixup I had just had with the WACs the day before! That knocked my plans for a general confession-and-sharing session out the window. I had a pleasant trip to New York with the lady captain, but I hadn’t then learned to view lady officers as officers and not as ladies. And being an old line Southern Gentelman who hardly speaks to a woman unless he is formally introduced, I didn’t get too chummy with this lady on the trip. (By the way, a year and a half later I myself was sent to Mitchell Field, where I learned that this particular WAC officer had been promoted to the rank of major and had promptly committed suicide. I never could figure that one out.)

Chaplains’ School turned out to be an ordeal. I had to get up at five o’clock in the morning, make my own bed (Army style), put on a spanking-clean uniform (complete with insignia, properly placed), and rush out into the yard, where we were inspected by a sleepy-eyed corporal. The whole six weeks of my time at Chaplains’ School was one great confusion of classes, drills, exercises, marches, sore feet, aching backs; learning that all drill sergeants know four words of Latin, which they use in giving cadence for marching soldiers; and having the fear of superior officers, especially commanding officers, drilled into me. I finally came to the conclusion that God himself would have to get permission from the commanding officer of a camp before He held a religious service or rendered moral assistance to a soldier. This belief was backed up by a certain story that was1 told around the school. In a certain camp there was a commanding officer who came to chapel services not to worship but to see if the chaplain said anything in his sermon that was contrary to the commanding officer’s policies and opinions. During his prayer one Sunday the chaplain asked that God pardon His people for their mistakes. Whereupon the commanding officer leaped to his feet and bellowed at the chaplain, “I’ll have you know I don’t make any mistakes!”

This fear of superior officers was given a humorous touch on the final day in Chaplains’ School. It was graduation day, and I learned that all graduating classes, from those composed of Army chaplains down to the senior class in the little red schoolhouse on Possum Creek, Alabama, have to get their pictures taken. We new chaplains were corralled on the drill field, and along with the faculty of the school, were told to form in ranks six deep. The tallest men were told to get in the back row and arrange themselves from left to right according to their height. Now, it so happened that we had one chaplain from Florida who was very tall and who also thought he was very funny. When the taller men started taking their places, this chaplain, who was just a first lieutenant, went to the, head of the line without even looking to see if any other man there was taller than he was. Another chaplain then came over and took his place ahead of the Florida chaplain, thus indicating that he thought he was the taller man. It was impossible for the Florida chaplain to see the other chaplain’s insignia before he blurted out, “Why, man, what are you talking about? Get on down in the line where you belong. I’m so much taller than you, I could lick molasses off the top of your head!” The chaplain to whom this banter was addressed turned so that all could see his insignia, and calmly replied, “I believe I am the taller.” And he was. He was a colonel.

When I got back to my quarters that evening, I learned that orders had come in for me. With trembling hands I opened the envelope and read my doom. I had been assigned to the Fourth Air Force and was to report there immediately. The headquarters of the Fourth Air Force was in San Francisco, and I was pretty happy over the opportunity of getting to go out and see what California looked like. So one fine morning in late September 1943 I found myself walking down the streets of San Francisco, gawking at the funny little street cars, the many Orientals, and the women. But I couldn’t tarry long. I had business to attend to in the office of the staff chaplain of the Fourth Air Force.