Another Colonel In the Church

As my ankle began to heal and Pegi began her two week orientation training for her job as a clerk typist at HQ, we just knew there just had to be something more to God’s plan for our lives!  Had we traveled thousands of miles to drive trucks and type reports?  To add to our disorientation, the RWS was about to introduce ranks for their female members.  Pegi was being considered as possible officer material because she had a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.  Now that I was off the path that would have sent me to Officer Training School in Gweru, not only would she soon outrank me, but we would not be allowed to “fraternize”! 

You might remember from my previous chapter on Berachah Church, that military service was considered equivalent with missionary service.  [See:  Jewish Hippie to Texas Conservative ] 

From our first day in Rhodesia, we had considered ourselves “missionaries for Bible Doctrine” as expressed in this excerpt from our letter published in the Berachah Church weekly bulletin for July 17, 1977:  [Click on the text to open it in a larger window.]

[As I read this today, I find it hard to believe that I could have been so totally committed such extreme beliefs.  I really thought that Bob Thieme's teaching of "bible doctrine" was the best way to understand history.  I wonder what in the world I was thinking when I said that I could show this to people from the "Word"!  It makes me shake my head.  But, Pegi and I thought we believed this stuff.  It would take some real life to break through and show us just how wrong we were about so many things.]

One evening in the barracks before I had been injured, I was chatting with a 17-year old Rhodesian recruit who was really struggling with his decision to join RLI rather than serving in one of the territorial units.  He was a slightly tubby redhead who turned beet red in the sun.  Suffering from sunburn and exhaustion from the grueling pace, he was on the verge of going AWOL to South Africa.  My South African “thief” friend and I sat down with him privately to encourage him to stick it out.  We were successful in convincing him to stay, at least for that crisis.  As we spoke, he said something that I dismissed at the time.  He said, “I am going to get out of RLI and become a ‘padre’.”

His hope was to join the Chaplain Corps.  Of course, as a Catholic layperson, that was a totally vain hope.

But now, as I considered my own future, his comment came back to me.  Maybe since I couldn’t complete my infantry training . . . maybe I could get assigned to be a chaplain and continue to spread bible doctrine in the Army?

It just so happened that the Chaplain General of the Rhodesian Army was supposedly a “taper” who was listening to Col Thieme’s Bible lessons.  I had tried to meet him during the three weeks before my training, but he had been out of the country.  However, our “taper” Baptist pastor friend, Eugene Wiseman, had advised Col Wood that I was now at RLI. 

Col Wood visited me at Cranborne Barracks and informed me that there would, in fact, be a place for me in his command.   He advised me that I could not be made a Chaplain with officer rank, since I had not been ordained by a major Rhodesian denomination.  [I had no real pastoral training, neither had I been ordained at that time.]  However, I could serve as a Chaplain’s Assistant with the rank of sergeant. 

All of a sudden, God’s plan seemed to be getting clearer.  And, two weeks later, after a service to ordain me to the “chaplaincy” at Eugene Wiseman’s church in Gatooma, I received orders to report to Col Wood at King George VI Barracks, just one mile from our home in Alexandra Park. 

Arriving at Col Wood’s office, I was sent over to the HQ Quartermaster where I was issued a black beret, a purple and black stable belt to denote the chaplaincy, and sergeant’s stripes.

[This link will show a brief into a video made about the Rhodesian Chaplain's Corps called Chaplain to the Forces.]  

               Sergeant Wasserman

 In one morning, I had gone from no rank to sergeant.  And as the first Regular Army Chaplain Sergeant, I was treated with deference by enlisted and officer alike. 

It was a pretty “heady” experience.

My duties as a chaplain were largely undefined.  Of course, there were the inevitable casualty notifications.  But, since I was only a sergeant, the death notifications were normally left to the officers.  Col Wood and I were the only Regular Army chaplains.  The rest of the chaplains were Captains or Sergeants from the Territorial regiments.  They served periodically, depending on their age and unit requirements. 

As it happened, my first official duty was later that week.  An RLI soldier who was in the “Box” (RLI’s jail), had requested a chaplain’s visit.  I don’t know what he was expecting in a chaplain, but I am sure I didn’t fit the image he had.

Next:  Stand at attention when you talk to me!