Crossing the English Channel xviii

 August 18:

I am packing my belongings, dress  uniform, etc.  in my foot locker, which will be stored in Liverpool I am sending my suitcase home and will leave tomorrow for Whittington and then be off to Europe.

I had an Army haircut for ten cents. 

I took a train to Warminster and passed through Bristol and Gloucester on our way to Southampton. Chaplain Van Houten returned in his former unit. I met him again, six months later in Kassel, Germany.

Chaplain Van met Chaplain Van Houten previously. Their meeting was noted then, too. The two Chaplain Vans shared a denominational background which made them feel like family, I'm sure.

He added the Kassel, Germany, obviously, long after the event happened. I can't help but wonder about the Van Houten note because it shows his later editing. I'm not accusing him of anything, only noting that when the Chaplain determined to do something with his diaries, he did some editing--how much, no one will ever know.

There are other moments when Chaplain Van becomes Editor Van and adds info he considered important to the story. That he adds this Kassel meeting here suggests how dear it was to him to run into another CRC pastor--family, really.

On August 18, what began was his trip to the European mainland. Finally, he is going to war.

At Southampton we boarded the Langibby Castle at 5:00 p.m.--a beautiful ship. WE had supper on board. I we went to bed early and slept soundly. The ship left for France at 3:00 a.m. Chaplains Tebow, Garrison, and Brenman are with me.

Earlier in the war, the Langibby Castle carried troops to South and East Africa before participating in transits of American troops--and other Allies--across the English Channel. In fact, on January 16 of 1942, it was damaged by a German U-boat while carrying a thousand troops from Scotland to Africa. Twenty-six troops died, but the Langibby Castle survived, as the diaries make clear.

It's hard to say what prompted Chaplain Van's next comment, in some way, a revelation somewhat unusual from the staunchly conservative Chaplain Van. It is,  in some way, the most expressive confession I've seen to this point. He's never been closer to an actual military front, closer to what every soul who made the passage over the English Channel had to feel--the prepping is history now; he's a landing away from the real thing. Maybe that reality prompts him to say what he does. Listen:

The war teaches one to love the brotherhood of all Christians. As a chaplain, you don't ask a soldier what denomination he belongs to, but rather if he is a Christian.

The next comment sounds more like him.

 The church must go on the offensive against every evil that threatens Christian living. Our Christian schools should be arsenals of offensive warfare against all that threatens the church--not merely arsenals of scholarship. On all fronts we must be fighting the good fight of faith. 

Telling, I suppose, that the largesse of the opening appeal--"the brotherhood of all believers" is preface to the kind of response we might well have expected from the Chaplain--"onward, Christian soldiers." Education in the Reformed tradition must be "arsenals of offensive warfare."

I can't help but think, for better or for worse, that I was reared in that kind of arsenal.

England and the war -- xvii

As many thousands of GIs learned at that time--post D-Day--their being in Europe,  in England, didn't mean immediate dispatch to the front. Thousands of Yankees waited for dispatch in England, and waiting, vets used to say, is maybe the worst part of serving in the military.

Waiting affords Chaplain Van the time to look around England a bit, visiting castles and noting, when he can, the look of this season's crops: "Every inch of soil is cultivated and the crops look good."

He reads the visitor's book in St. George Church at Whittingham, where strangely enough--and encouragingly, I'm guessing--he notes the name of someone from DeMotte, Indiana, where he preached before signing up for the chaplaincy, who happened to visit and sign the guest book. 

When the Saturnalia slipped into the harbor at Liverpool, they crossed paths with ships filled with women and children. He knows that England instituted significant programs to move non-combatants (women and children) out of the cities being pummeled by the Luftwaffe and into safer areas of the country: "Several sips filled with women and children passed by and waved frantically. Most likely they were being moved to a safer place." 

"Frantically" is an interesting adverb here. What the chaplain most likely notes is something far more than friendliness. Those passengers on the safety ships can't help but feel fear simply in being moved away from home and family, even though the purpose of their being moved is to keep them out of immediate danger--when they wave at the yanks being brought in, they do so "frantically."

August 6, Sunday

The ship chaplain, Rev. Huff, preached on "My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth." Christ gained peace for His people through suffering. His whole life was a life of suffering; yet he had the greatest peace in his heart.

Hitler is trying to get peace for the German people through war. It is resulting in the death of millions and the destruction of many cities. The ship's chaplain wished all the soldiers the peace of God, as they will soon part and receive different assignments in the theater of war. A tremendous number of soldiers attended this service. . . .

The American Army has made tremendous gains. It has cut off the Brittany  Peninsula and captured Brest. The Russians are in East Prussia. We will leave the ship tomorrow at 7:15 a.m.

It's important, historically, to remember that the whole idea of the U.S. going to war in Europe was out of the question for millions of American people, who distrusted FDR to begin with and would not forget the horror of WWI. "The American Army has made tremendous gains,"  is an argument in that discussion. Chaplain Van may well be speaking to a notion in his own mind, that all of this he's gone through really is worth it, despite the fact that the U. S. if so very distant from yet another war in Europe.

Another presidential election will soon be held in the United States. It will be between President Roosevelt and Mr. Dewey, the Governor of New York. Dewey opposes Lend Lease, Selective Service, the destroyer swap with England, and the the United States alliance with Russia. 

That he doesn't give equal space to Roosevelt's war platform suggests (I can't be sure) that Chaplain Van's own politics were decidedly Republican. Among most members of the Christian Reformed Church, especially in rural areas like DeMotte, political affiliation was decidedly Republican. 

"The destroyer swap with England"  refers specifically to a move on the part of Roosevelt back in 194o, offering England aging ships in exchange for access to and control of some Brit foreign service bases. England got an addition to their own navy (protection from German aggression in blockades), while the U. S. found itself owning bases in far away areas.

Hard as it may seem to imagine, "the destroyer swap" was no slam dunk. Conservatives, back home, correctly argued that "the destroyer swap" only served to drag the nation into yet another world war. It did. "When Chaplain Van says "the American Army has made tremendous gains,"  he's speaking to what is likely the Republican soul within him.

The case for the U.S. joining the war effort was moot once Hitler sent his troops into Poland. The war in Europe had become a world war. 

Saturnia --the trip across -- xvi

 

The Saturnia, an Italian cruise liner, was recommissioned as a troop ship once Mussolini's reign ended in Italy. This is the Saturnia--Chaplain Van's transport for overseas duty.

At its most showy, it rivaled many luxury liners today, and it's size remains almost unimaginable (if you've never been on a cruise ship). Chaplain Van says it had a crew of 500 and carried 4500 GIs. Six chaplains were billeted in one of the ship's most exclusive rooms--"showers, wardrobe, air conditioning and an outside veranda." 

Which prompts a sermon in the diary. During the two-week trip across, more little sermons appear than did so during training. But Chaplain Van's own lower middle-class Calvinism went to work on what he almost certainly thought of as excess, crass materialism in the chaplains' accommodations.

I was reminded of I Corinthians 1:19 "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." 

This grand sailing ship now is simply a passenger train, which moves him to continue to preach. 

The sinful world, according to its own fundamental principles of knowledge and science, has sought to build and develop apart from God. The results are discord, hatred, war and destruction. How many more wars must be fought before the world turns to God?

It's a rhetorical question.

July 27:

We are about 36 hours away from New York  -- about 450 miles. It will be a long time before I will see my wife again.

One of few notes, thus far, about his wife. Then again, she'd been with him through long stretches of his training, living, often, in a nearby apartment. 

July 28:

. . .The ocean is vast. We don't know where we are and where we are going. We live by faith and not by sight. 

We have church services three times a day. Every chaplain must take his turn. Tonight Chaplain Lewis preached on John 3:16. A very orthodox sermon. The decks were crowded with soldiers. At the altar call several raised their hands. 

We sang: "Rock of Ages", "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"; "The Church in the Wildwood", etc. Men of the Air Corps, sailors, soldiers, and officers all sang reverently.

I said to another chaplain "If this is the way Uncle Sam goes to war, then all is well with the nation."

It's an unusual twist for him, to assess the moral condition of the soldiers so warmly--much less the nation they represent--as, well, redeemed. Clearly, once again, it's music that brings out positive assessments in him, that keeps the ornery Calvinist at bay.

August 1:

It was my turn to give the sermon. I preached on Galatians 6:1-4. "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." What an inspiration, especially under these circumstances, to see the decks loaded with soldiers and sailors. 

August 3:

We had a submarine alert last night at 7:00 p.m. All the ships suddenly made a 90 degree turn to the North and the convoy scattered.

August 4:

We are now strung out in a straight line of ships for we are passing through a mine field. 

August 5:

We are now anchored in the harbor of Liverpool. We will stay here until sometime Sunday. A large crowd assembled for Sunday services. The chaplains formed a choir. The singing was enthusiastic. When we sang "Blest be the Tie that Binds our Hearts in Christian Love", many soldiers sang with tears in their eyes.

August 6:

You shouldn't think he's gone through some awakening, however. Chaplain Van shows  his Calvinistic colors when responding to a joke.

The ship is being unloaded now. At the port, an English colonel gave us a speech about England and the United States cooperating in the war effort. He said something I did not like. He said that President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill came to the door of heaven and the door was locked. Roosevelt said to Churchill, "You break it down and I will pay for it.

It's not easy for Chaplain Van to take a joke; heaven and hell is not some goofy fantasy. 

D-Day invasion -- xv

Eighty years have passed since June 6, 1944. And, in the mind of someone like myself, born after D-Day, son of a veteran, it's rather surprising that that immensely important date doesn't merit more regard or foster more passion in the diaries. In addition to simply reflecting the character of the diarist, who rarely exposes emotions at all, what I remind myself is that the whole regiment have been in training forever, anticipating what will inevitably come. Maybe those months of training ironed out the kind of emotions that one might assume is here in Chaplain Van's diaries.

There's really not much.

May 17: 

Fifteen lieutenants ae being shipped for foreign service. Lt. Jordan complained that his order did not indicate a delay in route. I advised him to see Col. Bettenburg for this problem and have a delay in route inserted in his orders.

May 24:

Four officers who previously served our regiment were killed in action. One of them, Lt. L. . .roomed with me in my hutment* when I first was assigned to the 273rd Regiment. He used profanity freely and I warned him for it. He didn't like my  warnings and for a long time showed his dislike.

To Chaplain Van, some things are real Life-and-death matters.

May 26:

A large number of soldiers have been shipped overseas. . .

May 27: 

You might think it strange, but on this day and for no obvious reason, Chaplain Van gives the diary a short sermon. Once again, one might imagine that he'd do that quite often, given the way his mind--and the minds of all preachers--must work. But such sermons are rare, attributable maybe, this time, to the end of training and the advent of war???

Hebrews 2:8-9 gives much comfort for the times in which we are living today. "But now we see not  yet all things are under Him. But we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor."

This text is very applicable with a war going on, with all its cruelty, hatred, suffering and death. Thus it is evident that all things have not ben in subjection to Him.

But He is the King of kings, crowned with glory and honor and is guiding and directing the affairs of men and nations to the glory of his most Holy Name.

It seems important to note that this pocket-sized sermon is not meant for an audience, or if it is, an audience of one--himself. AND, what should also be noted, is that it's occasioned by the immediate, danger-filled world around him, not to mention an invasion just ten days away.

June 4, 1944:

Chaplain Van is home. He has been given a 10-day leave. 

I attended the services at the Munster CRC. The Lansing CRC is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Rev. Zwier preached on Psalm 48: "Walking about the walls of Zion" and marking hr bulwarks, strength, and beauty.

I received a telegram from Col. Fagg indicating that I was being considered for overseas shipment and should be ready to on a 24-hour notice.

June 6:

The invasion of Europe has started. My father woke me at 7:00 a.m. to come and watch the news on television. I preached at Highland CRC. About 700 people were present.

July 19:

(Note: six weeks after the D-Day invasion.)

We are being processed for departure., I received a lecture on censorship. All soldiers and chaplains were issued impregnated clothing to be used in case of a gas attack. 

[The immediate switch to the beauty of nature is something of a surprise. He is fretting over his upcoming travail. Instead, and quite uncharacteristically, he lauds the immense beauty all around Camp Hamilton, where the train has taken him and hundreds of others. Camp Hamilton was--and still is--in New York. 

Strange word--"Impregnated"-- but impregnated" clothing is simply cloth that has been thoroughly treated with the chemicals needed to ward off chemical warfare.]

Suddenly, Van is greatly taken with his environs. 

The scenery is beautiful. The mountains are covered with forests and little villages.

[The scenery once again pulls him into a sermon, once again meant only for himself, a meditation.]

Even as Jerusalem is surrounded by mountains, so the Lord campeth around them that fear him. The work of creation is beautiful around here.

He pulls campeth right from the KJV.  

July 20:

There are 28 double deckers in our barracks downstairs and 28 double deckers upstairs. This building has room for 112 officers. 

Thirteen chaplains have been alerted and will leave before the others. They are restricted to the post and may go only to the theater. Even the PX and the officers' Quarters are off limits for them. Chaplain Miller's wife lives in New York, but he may not communicate with her in anyway.

I saw a beautiful film on England--The [White] Cliffs of Dover. It is a war picture about an American girl married to an Englishman before the First World War. the girl's father is adverse to the English and favors the American spirit of Democracy. The girl's husband is killed before the baby is born. The baby grows up and becomes  a soldier in the Second World War. Again American soldiers come to England in her time of need. The point of the film is to inculcate the idea that the Americans and the English have the same ethnic background and should therefore fight together in conquering the Germans. It depicted graphically the suffering and anxiety created by war. 

I must admit to being a little surprised that Chaplain Van went to a regular old movie, not an old one either. White Cliffs was a 1944 release, which means that the Chaplain is watching--and appreciating--a contemporary movie less than two decades after the denomination of which he is a part had warned its members to shun movies altogether, lest its young members fall for the "worldliness" the cinema offers and projects. There's no second-guessing the 1928 Synod's guidance. If he felt or showed any hesitancy to attend, it's not here. Instead, it seems he was moved--look how much space he gave to the movie. 

If we're determined to find the middle-aged pastor and conservative altering what may have been traditional views on things, we will have to look elsewhere. 

Beginning to go -- xiv

April 16:

Today it is my birthday; I am 41 years of age. 

Most often--I'm sure there were exceptions--Chaplain Van's GIs were significantly  younger than he was. I'm sure there were other 41 year-olds, but most of the men were in their early twenties. 

Just how that age gap affected the leave-taking they all knew was coming is hard to tell by the diaries. Chaplain Van, even in a medium as  personal as a diary, rarely show emotions. What was happening all around now is this leave-taking. Finally, his men were moving, most all of them overseas, and to war.

April 22:

A large number of soldiers are leaving for overseas shipment.  Many are apprehensive and anxious. A private  came to  my office to say good-bye and to thank me for my services. He said, "I will take my Lord with me, as I go across." It reminds me of the hymn we often sing in chapel. 

Lead, Kindly Light amidst the encircling gloom. 

Lead thou me on! 

Keep thou my feet. 

I do not ask to see the distant scene. 

One step is enough for me.

 We'll not second-guess Chaplain Van's not getting it exactly right. What he's facing demands all the grace we can give him. The lines actually go like this.

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th’encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,

Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

Chaplain Van rarely shows much emotion, even though he's talking only to his diary. Few moments of personal examination are recorded, no moments of real doubt. 

But this moment, so long awaited yet so much feared, is one of the great tests. The old hymn, a hymn I don't myself remember singing--is immensely precious if you listen to the choir (below) and read the lyrics as they sing, then put yourself in the Chaplain's place--a kind of father figure to many he's served in camp. He's watching hundreds of GIs finally move away from training into what?--into what the old hymn calls "the distant scene." All the hymn admits to desiring is one step into the unknown--just be with me, Lord, "for just one step--the next."

Chaplain Van's memory refreshes him with a hymn that is pitch perfect for the emotional moment he experiences.

Sunday morning meds -- from Psalm 32

“My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer”

 Yesterday, I mowed my lawn.  I thought it would be a quick job because I’d done it less than week before.  I am not one of those Dutch folk who believe that “cleanliness is next to Godliness” is found somewhere in Leviticus.  But in summer, when I spend hours and hours in the basement clicking computer keys, come mid- to late afternoon I love to get outside and do some honest, sweaty labor in the vineyard of our backyard, where we don’t, of course, have a vineyard. 

Yesterday, the grass out front was long enough to call in the sheep.  So I mowed, and the clippings—our yard is thick with maple seed whirlybirds right now—filled up the bed of my son-in-law’s big pick-up. The rainfall this spring has been magnificent.

By late July, I likely won’t be able to walk barefoot on my grass because what’s left will be yellowed cactus points.  By July, I’ll cut the lawn once every three weeks at best, and then mostly weeds, the only verdure that prospers once the rains stop.

Only once in the near thirty years that I’ve lived here have I seen a black cloud rolling in, a storm of dust.  Only once.  But that day I won’t forget because it prompted fear from a memory I don’t have—a vision from the Dust Bowl that turned prairie into the Sahara not all that far west from here.

By November, 1933, dust storms had roared by for years already, in the middle of a drought that went on for ten years.  People were actually accustomed to hacking up mud from their throats, to enclosing drinking water in Mason jars to keep it from turning brown, even in the house, to knead bread inside drawers drawn just wide enough to allow their hands inside. 

 But what came on Armistice Day that November was like nothing else. 

In 1923, about two hours northwest of here, a man named A. Karstrom retired and went to town, leaving his son the 470-acre spread that made Mr. Karstrom a good living.  What followed was thirteen progressively bad years and the Black Blizzard, which broke his son’s heart and back, the air an image of midnight.  In the heat and dust, the farm blew away. Four years later, a new owner took over a place that hadn’t been lived and moved five tons of sand from the acreage.  Five tons.  That’s how dry it was just northwest of here in 1933.  That’s how lifeless.

The NIV, in verse four, holds on to a bit of what the KJV used to say.  “My moisture is turned into the drought of summer” has been changed to “my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.”  Sapped is the link, as if the sap, the fluid, of David’s soul has dried up by the torturous heat of his own sin and misery.  What’s in him is drought, dust.  When he looks up from his anguish, all he sees is a black blizzard.

His spirit and strength is as lifeless as that Karstrom farm.  Even if the weather turns, he can’t move in the tons of choking dust that rises in his heart and throat. 

What he needs is someone to carry away all those tons of dust, to bring him back, to refresh him with living water. 

 And that’s the story of Psalm 32, his story and ours.  Black blizzards turned miraculously verdant by the living water of God’s own forgiveness.  That’s the story all right. And what a story!         

Easter on the firing range --xiii

In early spring of 1944, the emotional agony must have been impossible. What would happen on June 6, in just a few months, was in all likelihood not only unknown and really unimaginable, except for the fact that they had to know--all these infantry GIs--that something was coming, something big, something, I'm sure they thought, to end the war, maybe by way of themselves. 

Meanwhile, everyone simply waited, expecting their own call up front at any time.

March 18:

'A soldier requested a transfer to a lighter job. He is 16 years of age and has gonorrhea six times. He  now has arthritis. I talked with him at length about righteous living, the need of Christ, prayer, and the church. I told him that he was killing himself and if he did not quit his evil habits, he would eventually end up in an insane asylum. He said, "That is precisely my problem. I cannot feel sorry for the life I  have lived." I said to him, "In that case there is no hope for you." I tried to get him transferred to the Motor Pool."  

Chaplain Van was a straight shooter. This particular story is somewhat unique in the diaries because it shows him essentially throwing in the towel on this kid as he tells him there's no hope. 

What's amazing is that somehow Chaplain Van manages to administer justice, but not without mercy. Look at the last sentence. While he tells the kid that there's no hope for him (justice), he still acts on the kid's behalf (mercy): "I tried to get him transferred to the Motor Pool." 

One of the principle questions about Chaplain Van was how was he able to ascend the military ladder the way he was. Perhaps one answer is in this particular story. He administers the kind of justice that characterizes, or caricatures, his strict Calvinistic faith; but he tempers that justice with mercy--he tries to get the kid into the motor pool. Didn't work, but he tried. 

Here's another reason, perhaps.

April 9:

About 20 - 30 soldiers come to my office every day with problems, marital problems, checks to be cashed, etc. I have been in my office every night this week until 10:30 p.m. to deal with soldiers and their problems.

April 10:

During Easter services, my regiment had the largest church attendance of the entire division. Two hundred attended my 9:00 a.m. service and 150 the 11:00 service. I preached about the resurrection of Christ. Col Olson provided transportation for all those who wanted to attend chapel services. On Monday I went to the firing range and practiced shooting the 50 mm machine gun. 

Amazing juxtaposition, handled easily, it seems.

I keep remembering the stories told to me by Marcella LeBeau, an army nurse who, at this very time, was dealing with GIs who were so fraught with worry that they were incapable, emotionally, of doing anything. That any of these hundreds--in fact, thousands--of men could keep going, day-to-day, while waiting, patiently or impatiently, for a tomorrow that promised the kind of live action they've been forever training to handle, is amazing. On Easter Sunday, he says, wonderful large crowds of soldiers at both worship services; that afternoon he practiced using at 50 mm machine gun.

These immodest claims I found on-line:  

When we think of the firearms used by U.S. forces during World War II, the AN/M2 .50-caliber machine gun doesn’t exactly jump to the front of the line. Nevertheless, it was in action from Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, through Aug. 18, 1945, when the gunners on two B-32 Dominators used it to fire America’s final shots of the conflict. During the 1,350 days in between, the .50-cal. AN/M2 served in the air, on land and at sea, and it was a part of every major battle in every theater of operations around the world. That is something that cannot be said about any other U.S. military firearm that was in service at the time.

Still waiting --xii

The advent of spring must not have changed much. Chaplain Van's bunch were still in a holding pattern down South, still doing exercises to build discipline and readiness for a future they all knew would offer them each moments of life or death.

An old friend, an army nurse, started her WWII tour of duty at Palm Springs, California. Sounds east street. Gets worse. The army had taken over a big resort to treat a certain difficulty--the numbing fear that so many young men felt at this particular time, a time when they were driven each day by endless training that wasn't sufficient to ease their fears. Some went around the bend, far enough, in fact, to fill a resort/hospital.

In March, Chaplin Van took a weekend off, a short leave that didn't make life any easier for preacher. 

March 5:

The regiment finally arrived at Beloxi, Mississippi, located on the Gulf of Mexico. The colonel called a meeting of all the officers and placed the entire regiment in the hands of the chaplains [of which Van was head]. The soldiers, after their hectic march, will be given a two-day vacation at Beloxi, Pasagola, and Gulf Port.

I told the chaplains that our mission will be to keep the soldiers out of trouble with the police and the civilians. I placed Chaplain Howington at Gulf Port, Chaplain Fiedorcyck at Pasagola, and myself at Beloxi.

Some of the soldiers in these places went on a drinking spree and became drunk. The MP helped us. They went into the taverns, picked up the drunks and threw them into any nearby Army truck. When the truck was filled with drunks, the MP brought them back to the bivouac area and placed them in bed in their pup tents. Walking the streets of Beloxi, I saw some  of the most cockeyed salutes I have ever seen. 

I worked that night until two in the morning.

If my military discipline is accurate, by this time Chaplain Van was a captain, and would be recognized as such--as an officer!-- by GIs lower on the military totem pol. Drunk as skunks, they would have had to salute him the moment he got into their view--and they knew it. So they did, some of them "cockeyed."

Let's be clear here. Chaplain Van Schouwen was not a big man, not even husky. While it's true that I knew him only when he was an old man, it's fair to say that he was hardly a formidable human specimen. What I'm saying is that as an enforcer, he was blessed by his place in the chain of command. Here's what I see. 

It's 1:15, Chaplain Van walks into a bar down on the coast. When he does, his men scramble to their feet. Some don't, but those who do stand as tall as they can to salute him. Van doesn't giggle, but inside he's falling all over himself at their antics.

I like the image. I would have loved to hear him tell stories.

March 12: 

I spoke with a number of officers about adultery, divorce, and the evils of liquor.

March 25:

Thursday I took the 8:15 a.m. Illinois Central train to Camp Shelby [he'd been given leave to go home to Chicago for a weekend classis meeting]. Our regiment has received a large number of ASTP men. These men had received specialized training in various colleges and universities but were now transferred to the infantry. The Army needs a lot of soldiers for the impending invasion of Europe.

The designation ASTP was given to certain GIs who scored especially high on whatever tests were then administered. These men went to school at universities around the country after being drafted or having enlisted. Their training may have been so specialized that they that training, at least initially, made them unique among recruits. The Chaplain is right: The need for infantry meant that ASTP people, no matter what their flashy skills, were brought to places like Camp Shelby simply because people like Eisenhower--the top military brass--had no doubts about needs, once the invasion of Europe would begin. The Army--the U. S. of A.--needed its own "boys," thousands of them, even millions, for D-Day, whenever that would be.

Like all of them, the inevitable lays out there, just beyond their campfires. They know what's coming, but can't really identify it. In many ways, what they see out there beyond them is death itself.

To me, it seems that it would have been impossible to live with that reality, but they did--thousands of them.

The Reverend Van Schouwen -- xi

 

March, 1944

The N. . .family had three sons in the military located in widely separated Army units. It so happened that two of the sons received a furlough at the same time. Bartalan, the third son, assigned to our regiment, requested a furlough so he could visit with his brothers whom he had no seen for several years. I arranged a seven-day furlough for him.

The following day his CO called me and said that Bartalan had gonorrehea and his furlough was canceled. I said to the CO, "Send him to my office" I said to Bartalan, "You have not only sinned against your wife and family, but above all you have sinned against God." With tears in his eyes, he asked, "Will God forgive my sins?" I said, "Yes, if you confess them to God wholeheartedly and keep his commandments."

The next day his CO told me that Bartalan had asked him to be restricted to the company area indefinitely so that he could not go female hunting again. Thus I was consistently reminded of the words of Numbers 32:23, "Be sure your sins will find you out" and Galatians 6:7: Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

March 2:

I gave a talk to the Anti-Tank Company and the Canon Company on "A glass of beer." I visited the stockade.

March 4: 

I hiked 18 miles this morning and the regiment went into a bivouac situation. Chapel services for all the  units will be held this afternoon. I arranged the following chapel services. 

What follows is a listing of Catholic and Protestant Services, where those chapel services will be held and at one time--seven in all, Chaplain Van holding forth at four of them.

Then, to the end of yet another bivouac Sabbath, this particular one more than a little special.

In the evening, I made arrangements for a hymn sing in the woods. Chaplain Howington directed the singing and I played the organ. About 200 soldiers  attended the hymn sing.

[No one can accuse Chaplain Van of being flowery. For him, adjectives and adverbs need not exist. But here, at the end of the day this particular Sunday, even though he and his men are surrounded by vivid reminders of what lies ahead for good guys and bad, this single sentence and the touch of a metaphor suggests exactly how good this particular Sabbath was to Cornelius Van Schouwen, always the preacher.]

The beautiful words of the hymns floated through the night air. The end of a glorious Sunday.

Waiting -- xi

Somehow I remember my dad's friends, way back when, talk about the tedium of waiting in the military. What I remember about their comments was that waiting seemed interminable. It must have seemed especially so for those GIs stateside who were waiting for almost inevitable warfare.

One almost gets that sense from Chaplain Van's reminiscences and diaries. Now it's the reader who's forever in a stall. I know, for example, that the good chaplain--and my old religion prof--went to Europe somewhere along the line, but it seems like forever before his troop ship would depart. 

Meantime, what the men do is train, and training always brings with it immense discomfort--days are hot, nights are cold, rain is wet, etc., etc. Someday he'll go--you know that; but when?--who knows?--not even Chaplain Van.

Still, when I remember the almost programmed old man who stood up in front of classes 50 to 100 strong, a man almost oblivious to what was going on outside of his lecture notes, it seems a stretch to think of that man lecturing 150 men on sex, how, and more importantly, why, specifically, to refuse it.

February 8, 1944

Instruction: Aircraft recognition.

It rained last night but I had a goodnight. I received a box of candy from my wife and I studied a text for Sunday services. 

Col. Bettenburg said to me "At Division headquarters HQ they say that you are doing a h. . . of a job [his punctuation, not mine] as regimental chaplain.

The military has confirmed my ideas on the importance of discipline, the importance of faithful church attendance, catechism instruction, the Christian home and school.

It still seems a little premature for  him to so categorically maintain the benefits of military life, but he knows what he thinks. We'll see if any kinks ever appear  down the road. 

What the army appears to have taught him spiritually and morally is what his parents and church certainly did when he was a boy. It's hard not to get the feeling that Chaplain Van's piety didn't alter one bit during his days in the military. Even though what life threw at him was often another world altogether. He "kept the faith."

February 17:

There had been so much to do during the "D Series" [of bivouac] that I did not take my clothes off for three weeks. The nights were cold; but I had enough blankets to keep warm. Spring conditions are here in February.

It's clear that an ordinary soldier's understanding of the general scope of the war effort is generally limited, some news gets out.

An American troop transport was sunk by a submarine, 1000 soldiers were drowned. The American army south of Rome is having a difficult time. The Russians have defeated ten German divisions at the Denieper Bend and are driving forward on all fronts.

_________________________

For the record, Denieper Bend was one huge operation and a win for the Russians, as Chaplain Van says. One of the largest operations of the war, it involved almost four million troops at one point and stretched over a  870-mile front. Over four months, the eastern bank of the Dnieper was recovered from German forces by five of the Red Army's fronts. Hitler determined he couldn't fight Stalin offensively in the southern Ukraine, so he ordered a series of fortresses along the river. Driving Hitler's forces out of Russia required those fortresses to be taken. Soviet soldiers used floating devices of every kind and shape to cross the river, and did, not without immense casualties. 

2,650,000 Soviet troops--amazing!--were in the battle Chaplain Van correctly suggests was a Soviet victory. Such stories from the Eastern Front at this time must have buoyed the hopes of the GIs still waiting for their own troop ship. In Russia, Hitler's otherwise dominating forces were receding.

The tragic loss of a troop transport, on the other hand--likely the Rohna--was certainly not good news. The Rohna was downed by the Luftwaffe firing a new "radio-guided glide bomb." The Rohna was a reconditioned troop ship moving through dangerous waters but surrounded by many other ships. 

The event was, for the most part, kept under wraps. That Chaplain Van even knows about it is somewhat surprising. American military command determined that knowledge of this new and obviously dangerous weapon was not something ordinary Americans needed to know.

Not until the 1960s was the sinking of the Rohna fully described to the general public. 

No Kings March--Sioux City

 Ja, sure, maybe there were more people elsewhere, but just to be out there on the street in Sioux City yesterday was a whole lot of joy.

To be sure, the Inflatables were card-carrying communists, the little family were Hamas, that woman in the print dress (I'm not making this up--third picture) had" ANTIFA" written boldly across her chest, and the Winnebago were fomenting outright rebellion.

A good time was had by all.

Sunday Morning Meds from Psalm 32

 

“When I kept silent,

 my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long”

 I’m not sure I know why myself—and I’m not sure I want to know—but one of the first novels I read that simply wouldn’t exit the chambers of my heart was Alan Paton’s Too Late the Phalarope, a novel of sin and self-righteousness, set in apartheid South Africa.  The pulsating portrayal of Pieter van Vlaanderin’s guilt simply wouldn’t let me alone.  I became him—like I said, I don’t know why.

 Van Vlaanderin, a police officer sworn to uphold laws which keep races apart, has sexual relations with a black woman.  His marriage is cold and stultifying, but he knows very well that his sin is not his wife’s fault.  In the face of his own overwhelming desire, he falls.  But he doesn’t get away with it, and the truth comes out. 

 The real horror of the story, however, is his inability to find forgiveness.  The sorrow in his heart just won’t go away.

 Too Late the Phalarope put me through agonies more terrifying than any I’d ever undergone myself when, as an undergraduate, I read the novel.  When van Vlaanderin kept silent, his bones wasted away through his groaning all day long, and so did mine.  Reading the novel was excruciating, and that’s why it was so memorable.

 And that’s why, perhaps, Too Late the Phalarope comes to mind when I read the third verse of Psalm 32:  I can’t help thinking of the bone-wasting agonies of Pieter van Vlaanderin, a man from supposedly God-fearing family who couldn’t find forgiveness.

 Post Bathsheeba, David’s bones shook with horror and guilt at what he’d done.  We know that’s true, after all, from Psalm 51.  “My sin is always before me,” David says, after Nathan let him know the truth. Full of misery, David asks the Lord for forgiveness: “Let the bones you have crushed rejoice.”   

Some scholars speculate that Psalm 32 should really be Psalm 52.  The 32^nd Psalm seems, after all, a kind of retrospective poem David might have written to explain exactly what happened when finally he found the forgiveness he was looking for in Psalm 51.  “This is how it went,” he seems to say.  Then he explains how it was that he acknowledged his sin and confessed.  David’s songs—both 32 and 52—record the reality of God’s forgiveness only because they first acknowledge the reality of his sin, or so it seems to me.       

 But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  Psalm 32 begins in defining blessedness as the condition of the forgiven, the state of mind and soul of those who know that every last inch of the blackened corners of their hearts have been scoured, those who don’t try to cover things, those who conceal nothing from the watchful eyes of God—as if they could.

 I sometimes wonder whether those who confess faith in God can really know his grace if they haven’t known their own sin, if they haven’t felt the groaning of their bones, as David says, if they haven’t felt something of to the horror that Pieter van Vlaanderin knew—as did David. 

Answer me this:  how can anyone know grace without knowing sin? 

The Tabernacles of the Lord -- x

December, 1943

December 2:

We left the bivouac area for  Camp Shelby at 7:00 p.m. We had to travel in black-out conditions  through a dark woods and long narrow winding roads with steep ditches on both sides. This was the most scary ride I ever had. I was afraid that we would land in the ditch at any time.

I visited the hospital this afternoon. Leonard Dowdie said, "I followed your advice, and now I go to chapel service every Sunday. I wrote my mother about it, and it made her very happy." He had spent 45 days in the hospital.

I talked with Morris Weinberg, a Jew. We talked about Christ as being the Messiah. He said what  a wonderful world this would be if Christians would only live like Christ wanted them to live. "Why is it," he asked "that Christians do not live in accordance with the principles of Christianity? If they did, it would be much easier for us Jews to be persuaded about the reality of the Christian faith. But I hear profanity every day from those who profess to be Christians."

That Chaplain Van lets that go by without substantive comment suggests that he shares the perception. He's developed a methodology with Jewish soldiers simply through repetition (there are other such encounters earlier). It seems that just then--early December, 1943--his chaplain's corps was without a Jewish rabbi for Jewish GIs. If Chaplain Van tried to wrestle his way out of the soldier's denunciation, there's no record. Instead, there's this, almost an apology for "Christian" soldiers:

I was sorry that I had to tell him that many so-called Christians are Christians in name only and that many Christian churches have departed far from the fundamentals of Christianity. So it is also among the Jewish people. They too have orthodox and liberals. I told him to make a good study of the Old Testament and then he would, by grace of God, begin to see that Christ was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. 

That he doesn't quite know what to do with the Jewish soldiers in his company doesn't surprise me. What he believes is that every last one of them need a savior; what he doesn't know is how not avoid being a weapon himself.

He's much more at home wrestling with the record of standard sexual sins.

I talked with Capt. Storm about divorce, marriage problems, and adultery. I had a very interesting conversation with him. 

December 4:

Col. Bettenburg called me to his office and informed me my promotion had gone through all the required channels, and my Captaincy was approved. 

He asked me what could be done for the recreation of the soldiers during bivouac exercises. The CO is responsible for all the religious services of the regiment, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish, even though the chaplains have charge of the services.

I've never been in the military. My chaotic heart kept me out in 1970. I don't know exactly how people like Chaplain Van--or any soldier at the time--would take promotion, but it's clear that this man doesn't glory in it. There's no celebration, not even an exclamation mark. My guess is that his promotion to CO had been in the works for some time, that it wasn't a particular surprise. Regardless, that he doesn't celebrate it even a bit--not even in his diary--suggests how incidental it was to him, how huge the war's imminent dangers sat in his mind and heart. A promotion--he's now Captain Van Schouwen--almost escaped mention entirely. The next day, "the temp was 75 degrees at noon." 

That's how important the promotion must have been to him. 

 

December 5: 

The temperature is 75 degrees at noon. I purchased Christmas decorations for the chapel. I tried to purchase some phonograph records to play during bivouac exercises but had no success.

Chaplain Van doesn't speculate frequently about his own life after the war. Fear doesn't possess him. I can't believe he is obsessed with the danger he's facing, that it's impossible for him to project himself into a world where there is no German tanks, but he doesn't. He doesn't say much about his wife, for instance, who is living nearby Camp Shelby, close enough to be deeply appreciated. I don't think his not mentioning her suggests some estrangement or even some wartime effects on his ability to love her. Chaplain Van has too much to think about really, too much to worry about in the immediate days ahead. His promotions adds even more to the list of responsibilities he carries in his notebook in his soul.

So it's a little odd for him to say what he does in the diary on December 5 because what he envisions projects his story into a future where there is no war. It's a vision, and it's sustaining, I'm sure. It's what he wants his future to be.

Once again, I'm speculating here, but what brings on this bout of visions of the future is Christmas. He decided to pick up some Christmas decorations for the men, and just for a minute he's drawn back to life before the war. What specific memories were there? He doesn't say. What he does say is that he's learning something important about taking hold of the blessings he maybe hadn't really appreciated before. He doesn't do that often. He couldn't.

After the war I want to preach a sermon on "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord." We begin to see the great blessedness of the church and church life when we are away from it for some time and are deprived of Sabbath day services. David knew what it meant to dwell under the wings of the Almighty--covenant blessings, covenant fellowship, covenant music, and covenant message. I have never understood these words sufficiently about the tabernacles of the Lord.

Beginning to move -- ix

 

The staff at Camp Shelby -- Chaplain Van front row, far right.

October, 1943

At times during the preparation for printing, Chaplain Van must have determined that the storyline needed a few editions. One of them appears here when he stops the diary entries--without clarification--to give a more removed historical sense to his day-to-day recitation.

After the Battle of the Bulge (early spring of 1945 and not "October  of 1943"), the 69th Division was sent to Europe and soon thereafter I was sent to the front. Some of the officers I  had learned to know and appreciate were killed. The 69th Division was the first American unit to meet the Russians at the Elbe river. 

The dreaded troop movements, fearfully imagined during the long months of training, was beginning in October, and some understandably difficult moments resulted between the chaplain and his boys. 

October 6:

About 1000 soldiers were alerted for shipment overseas. Pvts  Richard Moore and Pugh came to my office to say good-bye. I am really sorry to see them go. They were faithful in their chapel attendance and the Bible study hour. Moore wants to study for the ministry. I recommended Calvin College and Seminary for his preparation. Pvt. Hugh subsequently was wounded in the landing at Anzio Beach, Italy. At that time he wrote me a letter stating that he read his Bible every day. And that was his only comfort both in life and death.

Pvt. Hugh's correspondence was also a late addition to the diary, as is obvious--it happened after the diaries were written. Notable here is Chaplain Van's use of the phrase "his only comfort," a phrase with great resonance among his denominational members.

October 8:

You might want to consider that at the time of the exercises he describes, Chaplain Van was not a young man. Born in 1903, he was forty years, maybe two decades older than most of the others.

We went through the infiltration course. Two machine guns shot bullets over our heads while we were creeping along 100 yard to the end of the course. Dynamite charges along the course exploded, blowing large masses of earth into the air. Barbed wire fences were stretched through the course and we had to get under and through them without raising our heads. If any of us  would get excited and stand up, we would be killed instantly.

October 11:

I went on a twenty-mile hike, and on the last mile the colonel, in his jeep, picked me up for a ride. My feet were very sore, but I did not have any blisters.

October 24, Sunday

I preached on "I have kept the faith." 

. . .The Russians have broken through the  German army at Melititopol. The Germans are also cornered in the Crimea and in the Denieper Bend. Some say that the war will be over by Christmas.

For the record, it's this widespread attitude among U.S. forces that made Hitler's sudden and surprise attack during the Battle of the Bulge as successful as it was. Eventually, that massive movement ground to a halt with brutal
hand-to-hand combat during the early days of the winter of '44. The Allies had begun to think the war would be over by Christmas. It wasn't. 

Ending the war included the incredible loses and gains during and after D-Day.

World Communion Sunday viii

October, 1943

Van Schouwen's church--and mine--practiced "close" communion, which is to say that the table is there in front of the church, but when the bread and wine are spread only those whose hearts are free of guile, whose determination is to live for the Lord, only the righteous can partake of body and blood, "close" communion. It's a tough rule, and in the church where I worship it's long been abandoned. I'm sure in 1943, however, having the table "open" to anyone, without professions of faith, would have been--how should I say it?--"frowned upon," if not rejected out of  hand. That's the hesitancy that's between the lines in this short addition. 

October 2, 1943

Sunday will be International Communion Sunday. Thus far, I have not served communion in the Army. In view of the fact that some of those faithfully  attending my chapel services had desired a communion service, especially now when they are leaving for overseas service, I decided to have a communion service this Sunday. The situation is exceptional and therefore I felt that an exception should be made to the rigid rules of my church. 

Once upon a time, I was appointed, denominationally, to serve on a committee whose mission it was to say something, denominationally, about children at the Lord's Supper. Seems to me it may have been the very first synodical committee to meet with that topic as the sole agenda. 

I'll never forget what a learned pastor warned in our first meeting--we'd better be sure of whatever it was we forwarded to the denominational synod because there were few things really "sacred" in the Christian Reformed Church, few things we honored the way Catholics, for instance, honored the mass, building huge cathedrals around it. The only "sacred" thing in the CRC, he said, was communion, and if we weren't careful we'd ignite an uprising: people don't like their sacred things toyed with.

He was right. It took at least a couple of decades before "children at the Lord's table" was okayed, and I'm sure our congregation isn't the only one who allows or practices allowing everyone to partake, but many will not or cannot. 

When I remember who potent the idea of the Lord's Supper once was--people would and did express their anger, their frustration, their distance from the Lord by not partaking--and they'd even let others know--when I remember that, then contrast it with three-year-olds sipping the grape juice, it's amazing how a fellowship can undergo such an incredibly drastic change and still survive. When it comes to communion, one of just two sacraments in the life of the CRC, there's been a sea change.

I say all of that because it's hard not to remember what once was when we read the diary entry for World Communion Sunday. What Chaplain Van is giving up here is not wrestled from him lightly, I'm sure. That he'd even characterize the practice so central to worship as "rigid" is quite astonishing. Chaplain Van, one  notices early on, is not one to bend the rules. When it happens--as it has with Sunday observance--we see a man whose faith was a fortress, lower the walls, at least a bit:  The situation is exceptional and therefore I felt that an exception should be made to the rigid rules of my church. 

Honestly, I would have expected more of this in his memoir, more rule-bending, more reshaping of his profession of faith. But what did I know of this man, really, a man we sometimes mockingly called "Mr. Magoo."