There was Chaplain Jerry Autry, who was always in the field, carrying a CAR-15 and taking care of soldiers. There was Chaplain Heino, who was wounded at Tam Ky when a mortar round slammed into the B Co perimeter. There was Chaplain Gray, who wore a CIB and jump wings with two red stars because, as an 18 year old grunt, he had parachuted into Normandy and Holland in 1944. These were good men who knew why they were there and what they were supposed to do.
But there was another chaplain, who I will not name but whose performance needs to be confronted. I ran into him in the battalion rear toward the end of my tour and was not impressed. He probably did some things that were good and helpful; the battalion library collection was upgraded, he organized sports and other activities and he conducted Sunday services in a little chapel he had gotten built. All very fine for the rear echelon soldiers but to be honest, things that I pretty much ignored.
Then one day I was told by a soldier from my company, just in from the field, that the troops had not had a service out there in a long time. He wanted to know if I could talk to the chaplain and get something going in this regard. I understood this request and went to the chaplain immediately to ask him about it. He pointed to his foot, which was in a cast and told me with a chuckle that he'd just broken his ankle in a volleyball game but would gladly get out to the field to conduct services just as soon as he could get around without crutches.
That seemed reasonable and I said nothing further until I saw him going around LZ Sally, without crutches and on a walking cast. I casually brought the subject of field services up again a couple of times and got what I began to suspect was a series of blow-off responses. So I continued to harass him over the next couple of weeks, always in a public setting like the mess hall with lots of witnesses close by. His responses went from flustered, to annoyed, to totally pissed off.
On the final occasion he did his best to ream me out along the lines of, "Lieutenant, I'll get out to the field when I'm goddamn good and ready and not before. I'm sick and tired of hearing from you on this subject and I'm ordering you not to being it up again, or I'll have your ass. Is that totally clear, lieutenant?" Not bad for a chaplain, clearly I had rattled him and the audience was watching closely.
Chaplains, like doctors, came into the Army as captains so I said something like, "Yes sir, chaplain. Thank your for explaining this to me, sir. You see, before you clarified this situation, I assumed that the reason you weren't going out to do field services was that you were a fucking coward. I now understand everything."
It was not long before the chaplain and I were standing in front of the battalion commander, LTC Douglas A. Huff, two stars on his CIB, master blaster jump wings, a soldier's soldier. The chaplain told his story, accurately and shaking with anger. Colonel Huff asked me if this was true and I said, "Yes sir." Colonel Huff then nodded me out of his office and as I was leaving, heard him say, "So chaplain, one question. When are you going to conduct field services again?"
Nothing more was ever said to me about the matter and the chaplain was on a helicopter within a day or two, busily conducting services for the grunts in the field.
Donald F. Gourley
1LT (2-6); C Co, 1/501 INF
101st Airborne Division
RVN 1969
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