Bivouac - v

 August 20:

We're still at bivouac. Since many of the soldiers spend their Sundays playing cards and gambling, I advised the colonel to have ball games on Sunday to occupy the soldiers.

There are many disappointments in the army. Many had wanted to go to school and learn something more important than what the infantry teaches.

A soldier let me read a letter from his wife. She said the baby gets excited whenever a car rides on the yard. She said the baby thinks he is coming home.

Some soldiers have VD. The Army doctor sticks a two-inch needle into their buttocks. Wen they scream, he said, "Well, you asked for it." Dr. Simon said that they will need these shots for two years.

*

I don't think I ever saw it myself, but all those years later--when he was in his sixties and teaching classes at Dordt, there was a rumor around that Prof. Van Schouwen could sit on the floor, grab a rope from the ceiling, and, with his arms, pull himself as high as that rope would take him. Every male of the species I knew back then, understood almost painfully how much strength that took.

The bivouac portions of the diary remind me of that myth about the man. He was in his early forties when he left for the war, but he never, ever complains about bivouac, no matter how far he may have been from his chapel. He knew, he understood, that if his witness was to have any strength at all, it had to come from someone who went through every last exercise the men did.

Amazing. 

August 30:

I have received many letters from wives and mothers. The nation is being sifted, shaken in its very foundations. Parents worry about their sons, wives long to see their husbands, and husbands long for their wives. A prisoner in the stockade received a letter from his mother to request a discharge to help harvest the crop and to support the family.

I have now finished six months in the military. I have dealt with a tremendous variety of problems and have become acquainted with a large number of officers and soldiers. I am beginning to feel as if I  have been in the Army for many years.

*

The absolute fortress of Chaplain Van Schouwen's faith is remarkable. The diary is as full of detail as it is full of heartache, but the Chaplain himself rarely breaks. He remains steadfast as a Sunday School lesson.

The last line of this entry waivers only a bit and doesn't concede to the mental and emotional fatigue he must have felt but wouldn't--couldn't really--admit. Feels like a cliche, as I'm sure he must have thought: "I can't  help feeling that I've been in the military forever." He might have said that, but he certainly would not want anyone thinking he was weakening--and, let me be clear here, he's not. He's tough as steel. But its still refreshing to feel him considering the immense heft of his situation.