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thedrifter
11-14-07, 11:09 AM
November 14, 2007 - 03:33AM
Goodness shines through the darkness
By Barry Fetzer

Was there any more evil left in the world?

It could not have seemed possible to the grizzled veterans of the most costly battle in the history of the Marine Corps that another drop could be squeezed from that sulfurous, volcanic island.

Rabbi R.B. Gittlesohn, however, the Marine Corps’ first Jewish chaplain, discovered just a little more of it, its reeking odor oozing from the bloody battlefields of Iwo Jima early in 1945.

His job was to minister to Americans of all creeds, faiths and races in this hellish combat zone, not to just the 1,500 Jewish Marines that fought, bled, and died beside their non-Jewish comrades.

Gittlesohn was asked by Protestant Division Chaplain Warren Cuthriell to deliver the memorial sermon at a single religious service dedicating the 5th Marine Division Cemetery shortly after Iwo Jima was declared secure.

But some of the same hate that so many of the veterans of the epic battle had sacrificed their lives to eradicate, once again reared its ugly head. This time the hate was not in the form of hot metal tearing through human flesh. It was in the form of religious intolerance.

Many — some reports say a majority — of the Christian chaplains were unhappy with Cuthriell’s decision that a Jew should deliver this sermon. They refused to agree to a combined service, believing that it was unacceptable for a rabbi to preach a eulogy over Christian graves.

While three separate religious services were ultimately ordered, good found a way to overcome this evil. Several Christian chaplains boycotted their own ceremonies to attend Gittlesohn’s sermon in protest over the prejudice shown by their fellow chaplains.

And when his service was over, so impressed were the Marines with Gittlesohn’s sermon, that they passed scores of transcribed copies around their regiment. Copies were mailed home to families. The wire services picked it up. Magazines published excerpts. The Army transmitted his sermon around the world on Armed Forces Radio. The sermon was even entered into the Congressional Record.

Gittlesohn’s sermon, though given on a tiny volcanic island miles from home, gave solace to many thousands of Marines, sailors, soldiers and American citizens.

“Here lie officer and men, blacks and whites, Protestants and Catholics and Jews, together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color,” he said.

“Any man among us, the living, who fails to understand that, will thereby betray those who lie here dead. To this, then, as our solemn, sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: To the right of Protestants, Catholics and Jews, of white and black men alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them have here paid the price.

“When the last shot has been fired, there will still be those whose eyes are turned backward, not forward, who will be satisfied with those wide extremes of poverty and wealth in which the seeds of another war can be sown. We promise, by all that is sacred and holy, that your sons, the sons of miners and millers, the sons of farmers and workers, will inherit from your death the right to a living that is decent and secure.

“Thus do we memorialize those who, having ceased living with us, now live within us. Thus do we consecrate ourselves, the living, to carry on the struggle they began. Too much blood has gone into this soil for us to let it lie barren. Too much pain and heartache have fertilized the earth on which we stand. We here solemnly swear: This shall not be in vain! Out of this, and from the suffering and sorrow of those we mourn, this will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere. Amen.”

Gittlesohn had turned the prejudice he was subjected to into an inspirational eulogy against ignorance and greed that was heard around the world.

He, like so many veterans in our nation’s history have done, helped us turn our eyes forward to a better future for all humanity.

And like Gittlesohn and all our veterans who have inspired us to do so, we all can seek the good that can be wrought from the midst of evil.

Though the battles may be dark, we too can force goodness to shine through.

Barry Fetzer is a retired Marine whose column appears in the Havelock News every other week. He can be reached at fetzerab@earthlink.net.

Ellie