BACCARAT
May 21st, 1918
The new regulations provide for a senior chaplain in each Division. I felt that General Menoher would appoint me for the job as I am senior in service, and I had a notion that my friend Colonel MacArthur would suggest my name. It has been a worry to me as I do not intend to leave the regiment for anything else on earth and I am afraid I may have to go through the war hanging around Division Headquarters. So I asked Colonel McCoy if he would back me in my refusal to accept the office if I had to quit the regiment, to which I received a hearty affirmative.
I received news of the outcome from McCoy a few days later. Colonel MacArthur had told him I was to be senior chaplain, but he was in entire accord with my wish to remain with a fighting unit. Our Chief of Staff chafes at his own task of directing instead of fighting, and he has pushed himself into raids and forays in which, some older heads think, he had no business to be. His admirers say that his personal boldness has a very valuable result in helping to give confidence to the men. Colonel McCoy and Major Donovan are strong on this point. Donovan says it would be a blamed good thing for the army if some General got himself shot in the front line. General Menoher and General Lenihan approve in secret of these madnesses; but all five of them are wild Celts, whose opinion no sane man like myself would uphold.
At any rate, Colonel McCoy was so satisfied with the result of the outcome in my case that he went further and said, “Now, if my chaplain is to be senior chaplain of the Division it is not right that he should remain a First Lieutenant. He ought to be a Major at least.” McCoy told me with twinkling eyes, “MacArthur said, ‘Now, McCoy, if I were you I would not bring up the question of the rank of Father Duffy, for I had serious thoughts of making him Colonel of the 165th instead of you.’ You are a dangerous man, Father Duffy,” continued the genial McCoy, “and I warn you, you won’t last long around here.”