Christian Soldiers

There is a new look among G.I.s, and it is a spiritual one. The man who has reached this conclusion ought to know; he is Major General Ivan L. Bennett, the Army's Chief of Chaplains. Speaking to the Little Rock, Ark. Rotary Club, Chaplain Bennett, a Southern Baptist, said flatly that never in his Army experience had fighting men "responded so freely to the things the churches have taught through the years."

"Thirty years ago," said he, "we were concerned only with what religion could do for the soldier. Now the soldiers make practical application of their religion, too." Exposure to the effects of Communism in Europe and Asia, he feels, has helped mightily. "The men in the Army have learned what an atheistic ideology, backed by violence, can do to a country."

One symptom of the "awakened interest" in religion, said Bennett, is the attendance at religious services. Each chaplain in Korea has an average of 1,500 men a month at services, an average which compares favorably with a clergyman's listeners back home. Equally significant, General Bennett believes, is the record of G.I. generosity and compassion. Examples:

P: The men of the 25th Infantry Division have contributed more than $130,000 for an orphanage in Osaka, Japan, and many of them visit it on leave from the-front.

P: In one month (May 1951), more than $1,200 was raised in the ist Cavalry Division for "Operation Mascot," a project for the placement in Korean orphanages of Korean children who had served as mascots for the division.

P: The artillery of the 24th Infantry Division has instituted an "Adopt-an-Orphan" plan in which pictures of individual orphans are posted in G.I. chapels and clubs for soldiers to "adopt" for $5. All the orphans in one orphanage have been adopt-"fathers" send them presents take them to an occasional movie.

P: Last Christmas the 21st Infantry Regiment raised $2,347 to provide parties and presents for 996 orphans and 16 families.

P: Ihe 1st Corps has contributed approximately $85,000 to buy artificial limbs for Korean amputees.

P: Protestant members of an engineer combat group are raising money for a Korean church and school, and the 45th Infantry Division built the first church in Chitose Japan.

P: G.I.s in Japan raised more than $900 to buy a round-trip ticket for a Japanese girl who wanted to study at Baptist Way-and College in Plainview, Texas. In Korea more than $500 was contributed to educate a Korean theological student and support his family.

General Bennett also reported that many soldiers are turning to the religious Hie. His figures show that 1,400 ex-servicemen are studying to be Roman Catholic priests. No comparable figure is available for Protestant ministers but it has been estimated that about 50% of the students at Protestant seminaries are ex-servicemen.

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