Bringing God to Men: American Military Chaplains and the Vietnam War

Notes

233 notes Abbreviations Used in the Notes CMH United States Center of Military History, Fort Leslie J. McNair, Washington, D.C. NARA National Archives of the United States, Archives II, College Park, Md. RG 247 Office of the Chief of Chaplains Central File RG 472 Records of the United States Army Vietnam USACHCS United States Army Chaplain Center and School Library, Fort Jackson, Columbia, S.C. USMHI United States Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa. Introduction 1. The idea of certain groups or individuals operating in the literal and figurative space where two or more cultures meet is a common one in historical studies . Though several words are commonly used to express such ideas—“liminal,” “frontier,” “middle ground,” “cultural mediator”—the ideas themselves are similar, namely that there are some spaces in which cultural exchange takes place more readily than others and there are certain people who facilitate such exchanges. For the sake of simplicity and clarity, I have chosen “people in the middle” to designate this concept. The idea, however, is informed by a general reading of global history literature and American history literature—particularly in the areas of civil rights and religious movements. Some important works that have informed my conceptualization of chaplains as people in the middle are Lepore, “Dead Men Tell No Tales”; Lepore, The Name of War; White, Middle Ground; Morris, Origins of the Civil Rights Movement; Robnett, How Long? How Long?; Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights; and Nepstad, Convictions of the Soul. On the anthropological theoretical construct of liminality, see Turner, Rites of Passage; Turner “Liminality and Communitas”; Turner, “Passages, Margins, and Poverty”; and Karen J. Diefendorf, “The Military as a Ritual Society,” Army Chaplaincy (Summer–Fall 1997). 2. The distinction between a “priest” and a “prophet” is originally Max Weber’s. See Chapter 5 for an extended discussion of this framework. Anne Loveland has further argued that while mainline churches may have emphasized the prophetic role of the minister during war, chaplains viewed their roles as primarily pastoral, requiring them to minister to troops in Vietnam regardless of their personal attitudes toward the war. Toward the end of the war, Loveland claims, chaplains and the chaplaincy moved to a third model, one of institutional ministry, which made the military itself a primary focus for chaplain activities after the Vietnam War. See Loveland, “Prophetic Ministry.” 234 | Notes to Pages 3–7 3. For an extended discussion of role conflict and military chaplains, see Chapter 3. 4. See, for example, Kurzman, No Greater Glory, and The Immortal Chaplains Foundation, www.immortalchaplains.org (accessed 22 March 2013). 5. Official site for the Cause of Canonization of Servant of God Reverend Vincent Robert Capodanno, http://www.vincentcapodanno.org (accessed 22 March 2013). See also Mode, Grunt Padre, 77. 6. Full Metal Jacket (dir. Stanley Kubrick, Warner Bros., 1977). 7. “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition,” lyrics and music by Frank Loesser, Famous Music Corp., 1942. Later inquiries about the incident suggest that the chaplain in question, Howell Forgy, did not actually man the gun but instead had used the phrase to motivate the men along the firing line. 8. O’Neill, “True Story of the Patton Prayer.” 9. M*A*S*H (dir. Robert Altman, Aspen Productions, 1970); Vea, Gods Go Begging ; Melville, Billy Budd. The Father Mulcahy figure in the M*A*S*H television series is significantly more complicated, as his character develops over the course of eleven seasons to take on characteristics of all three archetypes. In this sense, the television version of the famous fictional chaplain may be as close to an “ideal type” as one might see in popular culture. 10. Bergen, introduction to Sword of the Lord. 11. Snape, Royal Army Chaplains’ Department. 12. See especially Deuteronomy 20:2–4. In 2003, Muslim chaplain James Yee was arrested for sedition and charged with passing classified information to detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The charges were eventually dropped, and Yee gained an honorable discharge from the Army. See Yee and Molloy, For God and Country, and James Yee’s official website, http://www.justice foryee.com (accessed 22 March 2013). 13. On the Canadian Chaplain Corps’ history, see “Canadian Forces Chaplain Branch” at http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/cfcb-bsafc/index-eng.asp (accessed 1 July 2013); on Royal Army chaplains, see Snape, Royal Army Chaplain’s Department ; on American Chaplain Corps’ history, see Williams, “Chaplaincy in the Armed Forces of the United States...