Combat Chaplain

Afterword

281 WHEN ISRAEL A. S. YOST enlisted as a chaplain, I was the infant daughter in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, he said good-bye to for over two years. I have no memory of the war years or of my father’s return after the war. However, as I was growing up, I heard stories about the men of the 100th Battalion and sensed my father’s deep respect and fondness for them. The stories he told were not about strategies of combat, but about cherished memories of the character of the men, especially their kindness to him, their bravery, and their sacrifice for each other and their nation. In 1984, three years after he retired from the ministry, he went through the journal pages and daily letters to my mother that he wrote during the war and produced this manuscript, which he titled “Chaplain of the 100th.” He dedicated it as “my gift to my children that they might have some understanding of their father’s experiences and feelings while he served in the military.” I believe he also wrote it as a tribute to the men of the battalion and hoped that some day it might be published to add to the historical record of the remarkable character and accomplishments of the 100th. I appreciate the hundreds of hours he spent first going through his letters and making typed copies of them, then writing the manuscript on an old typewriter (without benefit of a word processor), and then finally standing at a copy machine to make multiple copies, one for each of his children. Twenty years later, preparing the manuscript for publication has prompted me to read many of the original letters themselves, giving me the privilege of seeing both my parents as young adults before my memories of them begin. I have come to know them as a young couple in their twenties who were very much in love, shared a strong Christian faith, and had the courage to risk the death or serious injury of one of them in order to serve a larger good. A F T E R W O R D Monica E. Yost 282 COMBAT CHAPLAIN My father’s letters reveal the depth of his love for his family. I have been touched by his many references to me, the daughter he tried to picture in his mind as she grew from an infant to a three-year-old, and to his baby son whom he had not yet seen. They speak, too, about his dreams for his family’s life after he returned home, including the children he hoped to have in the future. The memoir Israel Yost wrote offers its readers a picture of the war, the 100th Battalion, and the life of a chaplain who is a stranger to most of them. For me, it is the gift of knowing better who my father was as a young man. I see his joys, his discouragements, his friendships, his commitment , his bravery, his soul searching, his compassion for the enemy, and his ability to see the beauty of the countryside around him despite the horrors of war.£ £ £ Who was this twenty-seven-year-old chaplain who became a beloved member of the 100th Battalion? What influences in his life made him the man he was? Here is a glimpse at his life, both before and after his time with the 100th. Israel A. S. Yost was born in Schuylkill County in eastern Pennsylvania in 1916, the third child of Ammon Henry Adam Yost and Lillie May Sassaman Yost. Six generations earlier, in 1738, Israel’s ancestor, Peter Jost, emigrated from the Palatinate in Germany to eastern Pennsylvania, fleeing religious persecution and the devastation caused by war. In all probability, Peter’s ancestors were Swiss Mennonites. In America, the Josts originally settled in Montgomery County, then moved to Schuylkill County, where they were farmers and owners of farm-related businesses. As members of the German Reformed Church in America, they gave their children biblical names such as Daniel and Sarah. Although they learned English, they also continued to speak a dialect of German interspersed with English words that came to be known as “Pennsylvania Dutch” (or as they called it, “Pennsylvanisch Deitsch”). To guarantee that English speakers pronounced their name correctly, they anglicized the spelling from “Jost” to “Yost” (the German letter “j” is pronounced like an English “y”). In 1905, Israel’s father, Ammon, married eighteen-year-old Lillie Sassaman , the oldest...