CHAPLAIN'S CORNER .(Continued)'- """
on 28 November 1775 authorized the
position of ship's chaplain. Today is
the 185th anniversary of the act of
Congress authorizing chaplains.
Of those nearly 4,000 who have for
varying lengths of service been a part
of the Chaplain Corps, who may ' have
wondered if they should have left that
shoreside church, who mayhave wondered
if this is the place for a preacher,
they have found out, "The affinity be
tween religion and the sea is an anci
ent one and the seafarer is one of the
most religious of men." They have
been proud to serve with "those who go
down to the sea in ships", with those
who fly, and with those who "have fou
I ght our country's battles on the land
as on the sea",.
j
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The idea for this column was born a
number of years ago, one bitter-cold j'
snowy evening a few days befgre Christ
mas, Your reporter was home on leave,
when, after a day of shopping with the
wife, we pulled into a gas station on
the edge of town.
At first we didn't recognize each
other, when a aad sack huddled up in
an old mackinaw came out to pump the
gas. When he looked through the side
window he yelled, "Cheez! Ed Fiske,
where the hell did you come from!"
(For the purposes of this column your
reporter is known as Ed Fiske.) Then
it downed on us...this guy was a kid
l we * d known for years, only he wasn't a
5 kid anymore. He was a few years older
| than us, in his late thirties, and we
(hadn't seen him in many a moon.
We jumped out to grab his hand. But,
as ha said, "Glad to see ya, Ed," he
added, "Don't get dirt on your mit
shaking hands...I been greasin' that
ijalopy there on the rack." We grabbed
his hand anyway, saying, "What're you
doing here? Last we heard, you were
in the Navy too, Storekeeper, weren't
you?" "Yeah," he said, "I was in for
a hitch..." his voice trailed off as
(continued next column)
___
he paced to the rear to pump the gas.
We couldn't help noticing his shabby
appearance — his expression went with
it, but we remembered him as a happy
go-lucky guy who us kids looked up to,
back when.
"Yeah," he continued,"I didn't ship
over, had an offer of a real good job
in Pittsburg...and it was a good job
too, that is, for several years. But
then the outfit was bought out, and
they moved the whole shebang down south.
And it turned out that there wasn't a
job for me . aw hell, it's a long
story. How are YOU doin' Ed?"
Other cars were pulling into the
station, and one guy was asking to have
his chains put on, so we had to get
going. We asked Charlie (We'll call
him "Charlie", although that isn't his
name. ) "How about coming out to the
house over the holidays? Call us and
we'll arrange it ..... how about it?
We'll toss off a few!"
Well, Charlie did come out, and we
had quite an evening...
A few days later when we were leav
ing to report back to the ship, we
went by the gas station and stopped
for a moment. Charlie looked over my
Chief's uniform, and said, "Boy, do
you know how lucky you are? Ya know,
if I'd of stayed in I'd probably be a
chief now too, an* with no more'n a
couple of years to go for retirement...
what a foolish guy...I've been...right
now, if I lost this cotton-pickin job
I'd be up against it."
We didn't know what to say, and mum
bled something. How do you say any
thing to a guy who is on the losing
end of life? There's no real way to
cheer him up. But that's when the idea
for this column got its fuzzy start.
We got to wondering how many in the
Navy would become Charlies over the
years just because they listened to
the sea lawyers instead of the facts.
The sea lawyers saythe Navy is just
doing a fast selling job when they urge
a good man to ship over, but believe
someone who knows, we sure thank our
lucky stars we listened to the facts
and not the scuttlebutt. We shudder
when we think of being in Charlie'shoots.