CHRISTIAN SCIENCE IN THE WAR
your men are scattered and you cannot throw yourself into the little group in which you live, and feel justified in forgetting all the rest of the division. In a way the ordinary battalion chaplain has an easier task. His men are always right at hand and he can get to them at a moment's notice.”
As the 78th saw so much active service, our chaplain felt his first duty was to the men, and, although an officer, lived entirely with the “doughboys” in the war zone, eating, sleeping and marching with them. In one of his letters he says:
“Aside from the incessant whizzing of shells and breaking of bombs overhead, I was gassed several times. I was caught in a barrage four times—once being held between two barrages for two hours and another time being knocked down by the concussion of high explosive shells and being the only one of several to come out of the ‘salvo’ unharmed. You will know by this I did my duty and was not a back area helper. I went ‘over’ with the last attack at the Bois des Loges and followed our division for three days going from Grand Pré almost to Sedan where we were relieved.”
When the armistice was declared this chaplain was cited by Headquarters and chosen for duty with the 90th Division, having the freedom of the entire Army of Occupation for his field, however. He was located at Berncastel on the Moselle, where he soon secured permission to open a Christian Science soldiers' reading room which was utilized by many of the men. Later reading rooms where Christian Science literature could be obtained were also established under his supervision at Hillisheim, Daun, Zeltinger, Kinheim, Longkamp, Neumagen.
“I had the pleasure,” writes Chaplain Jackson, "of making the official picture for government record before a ‘movie’
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