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.
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