National Americanism Officer, CDCE Rep, and Sgt-at-Arms
Linda Varejcka
Remembering!
"Four Chaplains"
Early on the morning of February 3, 1943, the U.S. troop transport "Dorchester" was wallowing through icy seas off Greenland. Most of the 900 troops on board were asleep in their bunks. Suddenly a torpedo smashed into the Dorchester's flank. The troops milled in confusion on the decks.
In those dark moments of panic, the coolest men aboard were four U.S. Army chaplains: First Lieutenants Clark V. Poling, Alexander D. Goode, John P. Washington and George L. Fox. The four chaplains led the men to boxes of life jackets and passed them out to the soldiers with boat-frill precision. When the boxes were empty, the four chaplains quietly slipped off their own precious life preservers, put them on four young GI's and told them to jump.
The Dorchester went down 25 minutes later in a rumble of steam. Some 600 men were lost, but the heroic chaplains had helped save over 200. The last anyone saw of them, they were standing on the slanting deck, their arms linked in prayer to the one God they all served.
Far away in North Africa, Dr. Daniel A. Poling, distinguished American clergyman and father of Chaplain Clark Poling, was crouching in a foxhole when he leaned of the heroic death of his son and his three fellow chaplains.
REMEMBER:
George L. Fox was the oldest. In Vermont, they called him "the little minister" because he was only 5 feet, 7 inches tall. In 1917 he lied about his age and enlisted in the Marines as a medical corps assistant. He won a Silver Star for rescuing a wounded solder from a battlefield filled with poison gas, although he himself had no gas make on.
When George came home, he continued his education and became a public accountant. He was married and had two children. Then one evening he came home from work and told his wife he wanted to study for the ministry, and became a minister.
The war came again. "I've got to go," he told his wife. "I know from experience what our boys are about to face. They need me. "before he boarded the Dorchester, he wrote a letter to his little daughter. She received it after the news that the ship was torpedoed.
Alexander D. Goode was too young for World War I. While George Fox was winning medals on the battlefield of France, Alexander Goode was receiving medals in Eastern High School. Washington D.C. for tennis, swimming, and track. He led his class in scholarship too. He planned to follow in his father's footsteps and become a Rabbi, but that did not keep him from having a laughing, shouting, hail-fellow-well-met boyhood with all the Protestant and Catholic boys in the neighborhood.
He married his childhood sweetheart, and they had four children. After he got his synagogue, he felt he was still not worthy. He would know better how to heal men's souls if he knew how to heal their bodies too, so for three years, he drove every day to John Hopkins University, 45 miles away, until he won his medical degree.
Clark V. Poling was the youngest of the Four Men of God, Clark's first letter was written to his father. It was written in square block printing and addressed to his mother. The letter found Dr. Poling, February 1918, in a dugout on the Western front of another World War. The letter read: "Dear Daddy: Gee, I wish I were where you are. Love, Clark." And in exactly 25 years, that eager little boy received his wish. Clark was the seventh generation in an unbroken line of minister of the Gospel.
When the war came along, he did not want to go as a chaplain. "I can carry a gun as well as the next guy," he told his father. "I'm not going to hide behind the Church in some safe office out of the firing line."
"I think you're sacred, " the elder Poling joked. "Don't you know the mortality rate of chaplains is the highest of all? As a chaplain, you have the best chance in the world to be killed. The only difference is, you can't carry a gun to kill anyone yourself." And so Clark Poling became a chaplain.
Just before Clark sailed, he visited his father. They were alone in D. Poling's study when Clark turned to his father and said, "Dad, Dad-you know how much confidence I have in your prayers, but Dad, I don't want you to pray for my safe return --just pray that I shall do my duty and something more: Pray that I shall never be a coward. Pray that I shall have the strength and courage and understanding of men, and especially pray that I shall be patient. O Dad, just pray that I shall be adequate.
John P. Washington: In Newark, New Jersey, there was once a little Irish boy named John Washington. Things weren't always easy in an Irish immigrant family. But John had his father's Irish grin and his mother's Irish tick-to-itiveness, and John sold newspapers. Sure, he liked to play as the rest of the kinds in his block, but it took time off from his newspaper route, and he needed to take the pennies home to his Mom, There were nine mouths in the Washington household to feed. John loved music and sang in the church choir.
And John was always laughing, right through his training as a priest and after he was ordained. He played ball in the streets with boys from his parish. He organized baseball teams, and when the war came along and his boys went into the Army, Father John went right along with them as a matter of course. They say that when the Dorchester went down, he was still laughing - laughing and singing and praying to comfort those who could not reach the lifeboats.
And so, these four men - Protestant, Catholic, Jewish the country boy from Vermont, the city boy from Washington, the slum kid from Newark and the parson's son from New York City - met on the slanting deck of the Dorchester. It was rendezvous with God, too, and their voices rose above the cold, black churning water.
"Our Father ....which art in Heaven...hallowed by Thy name..." "Schma Yisroel Adonay Eoohenu Adonay Echod,""...Thy Kingdom come... Thy will be done..."
The hand of God plucked these four men from their parishes and set them together in that icy February fog. And all at once, the fog melted away and all about them there was light.
February 15, 2001, the "Chapel of the Four Chaplains, moved to: 1201 Constitution Ave. - Philadelphia, PA, the site of a 1942 World War II Navy Chapel.
Monday February 14th - Valentines Day. Start a resolution to be kind and treat everyone special "every day"!
Monday February 21st - Presidents Day - President's Day, also known as Washington's Birthday is celebrated on the third Monday in February. It is a federal holiday in the US. The day not only honors George Washington, born February 22, the first President of the US, and Abraham Lincoln, born February 12, whose birthdays are both in February, but honors ALL the presidents who have served in the US.
Wednesday February 23rd - Flag raised on Iwo Jima, 1945
Monday February 28th - Persian Golf War ceasefire, 1991
Linda
