The meetings and partings of war-time came home to me several times at Nevers. I was called to see a young man in the hospital, suffering from spinal meningitis. I found him a highly intelligent boy from Chicago who knew a number of my old friends there. I was able to do a few minor favors for him such as obtaining his belongings and notifying his unit that he was not absent without leave, but simply locked up in the contagious ward. But on his recovery the news went to his family in Chicago to get in touch with my wife and a friendship was established on a genuine basis of interests in common. At another time I was approached at the Y. M. C. A. by one of their women workers who had heard my name announced. She turned out to be a Mrs. Campbell of my old home town, Sioux City, Iowa, and an acquaintance of my mother through several charity boards of which they both were members. She was acting as instructor in French and advisor to the American soldiers in Nevers, while her husband, Prof. Campbell of Morningside College, was on the French front with the French auxiliary of the Y. M. C. A.
Another interesting incident was my meeting with Mr. Julius Rosenwald of Chicago, then touring France as a member of the National Council of Defense. The Y. M. C. A. secretary asked me to introduce him to a soldier audience in one of their huts. The first day I came, however, Mr. Rosenwald was delayed and the boys had to put up with a new film of Douglas Fairbanks in his stead, like good soldiers accepting the substitution gladly enough. On the second day Mr. Rosenwald himself was there and I had the pleasure of introducing him to an audience of about five hundred soldiers, as varied a group as ever wore the American uniform. His simple personal appeal was a direct attempt to build up the morale of the troops through a hearty report of the interest and enthusiasm of the people at home. He called for a show of hands of the home states of the different men, then responded by reading letters and telegrams from governors and other local officials. Mr. Rosenwald was one of the very few official travelers in France whose trip was not merely informative to himself but also valuable to the army. We in the army grew to dislike "joy riders" so heartily that it is a positive pleasure to mention such a conspicuous exception.
Another duty typical of the variety of tasks which welcomed me as a chaplain, was to conduct the defense of a Jewish boy at a general court martial. He asked to see me during the holydays, told me his story, and I stayed over in Nevers a few days to act as his counsel. Since that time I have frequently been called on for advice in similar cases, for an army chaplain has almost as many legal and medical duties as strictly religious ones. In this particular case circumstantial evidence seemed to show that the young man had stolen and sold some musical instruments from an army warehouse where he worked. He was only a boy, a volunteer who had falsified his age in order to enlist. According to his own story he was partially involved in the case, acting ignorantly as agent for the real criminal.
The trial was quite fair, bringing out the circumstantial evidence against him, and his sentence was as low as could possibly be expected. So, with memories of friendships made, of work accomplished, of a new world opening ahead, I left Nevers on September 20th after only eighteen days of service. I had to report at Chaumont again to receive my orders to join the 27th Division.
For two months after that no Jewish chaplain was stationed in the Intermediate Section, which covered the entire central part of France and contained many thousands of American troops, including everywhere a certain proportion of Jews. Then Chaplain Rabinowitz reported at Nevers temporarily and served for his entire time in France in various points in the Intermediate Section, at Nevers, Blois and at St. Aignan.
I had been thrust into the midst of this tremendous, crying need for service of every kind, religious, personal and military. I went to my division to find the same or greater need, as the situation was always more tense at the actual front. For three weeks I had ministered as much as I could to the Jewish men scattered about Nevers and all through the central portion of France. Now I left them for good. Their usual greeting on meeting me had been, "You are the first Jewish chaplain or worker we have met on this side." And unfortunately, the same greeting was addressed to me every time I came to a new unit or city until the very day I left France. The need among these two million soldiers was so tremendous that a hundred times our resources would not have been sufficient. As it was, we made no pretense at covering the field, but simply did day labor wherever we were stationed, serving the soldiers, Jews and Christians alike, and giving our special attention to the religious services and other needs of the Jewish men.