Rev. John B. Isom
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Camp Croft, South Carolina
US Army Infantry Replacement Training Center

John B Isom
John Isom was born December 2, 1909 on Sand Mountain in northern Alabama.  In 1939 he graduated with a masters in theology from the Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1944, after serving as an Army chaplain during WW II he became pastor of the Saxon Baptist Church in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  Isom left the Baptist denomination in 1951 to become a Unitarian minister. John retired from the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines, Iowa in 1975.

His recollections below are taken, with permission, from his web site at:

 
Camp Croft was located five miles south east of Spartanburg, South Carolina.  Most of the buildings were two stories and weather boarded with white composition shingles.  The camp is spread out over rolling hills with paved streets and side walks.  Compared with Camp Croft one would have to say that Camp Sibert was a slum camp of the Army.

There were four regular chapels, complete with electric organs.  I was assigned to chapel one.  It stood on a small hill just inside the main gate to the camp.  On a rise a block west stood the camp headquarters, the post office, Post Exchange, and the camp library.  The hospital was just beyond and the officers club nearby.

I was the chaplain of the First Battalion.  Camp Croft was a training camp for foot soldiers - soldiers who actually aimed and fired their guns at "enemies" they could see, while being shot at by their enemies' counterpart.  We turned out a new batch of soldiers, who could do such things, every seventeen weeks.  Before coming to Croft some of them had never had a gun in their hands.  Even a greater number had never shot anything.  When they left Croft they were ready to kill and be killed.

The seventeen weeks training was capped off by a two week maneuver period.  The staging area was some miles from camp.  There we lived in tents and the war games were with live ammunition.  For one day you had to make do with one canteen of water.  This was really hard in the summer time.  For two days you had only emergency food, C and K rations.

The battalion marched to the staging area.  Two weeks later, leaving the staging area at twelve midnight we made a twenty-mile forced march back to camp.  I was not required to go on these maneuvers but I always did, marching with the troops both ways.  Mickey, my dog, and I always brought up the rear.

Just after breakfast on April 27th, 1944, I was informed by long distance that your youngest daughter, Mary Beth, had arrived in good shape.  Wish I could have been there to give her a fatherly welcome and hear her first comments.  They were loud enough, I later learned, if not too clear.  She was such a beautiful day old baby that the hospital took pictures of her to use in their advertising literature to prove what beautiful babies were born in the hospital.  I found a place for the family to live in Spartanburg.  As soon as they were able I fetched them.  It was blazing hot the day we made the trip, tiresome for all of us.

I had a sermon I gave to each new battalion of troops.  It began with the contention that war is hell and when you are in hell you have no choice but to engage in hellish business.  I confessed that I could believe the peoples of the world would have a better chance to create a better world after the war if the Allies won.  However, I made it clear I would not try to do the impossible - to justify our military activities by the ethics of the Christian religion.  Silently, that seemed to be the position of all the Chaplains I knew.  No soldier ever heard me pray for victory, or to make any claim that God was on our side, or that our cause was altogether just.  I did not pretend the war was a holy war.

I pointed out that on the law of averages more than ninety-five percent of us would survive the war and would have a chance to help reshape the post war world.  I encouraged them, while they were engaged in the hellish business of fighting the war, to be preparing themselves intellectually and ethically to engage in the non hellish business of creating a decent human world after the war.

Isom and Chaplains

Most of the men who took basic training at Croft were from the northeastern states.  It was never made clear what the purpose or motive was but the churches of those states sent visiting ministers to Camp Croft.  East visitor would stay a month.  The chaplains had a weekly meeting on Monday mornings.  These visiting ministers were always invited, and given the opportunity to be the guest speaker at one of the meetings.

One of the visiting ministers talked about a serious reading program for ministers.  He used his own as an example.  Before a book had a chance to be considered to be worth reading it had to be no less than a hundred years old.  Most of the books on his reading list ere much more than a hundred years old.  I had the same objection to his book list as I had for the list recommended by the Great Books Club.  I believed then, and still do, that any serious reading program should begin with the serious writers of the present - the 20th century.  I believe the knowledgeable and serious writers of every discipline is more capable of helping me to understand the realities of my world than the ancient writers, however great, who lived and died before my actual world was born.

I remember one other of the dear visiting ministers.  He was approaching retirement age, a kind and gentle soul.  One day in my office I was trying to pick his brain to see what kind of wisdom he had been taught through his many years of experience and study.  I was asking for his opinion and advice concerning the serious economic, political and ethical problems that my generation had to deal with.  He did not seem to have much aged wisdom to offer me about such matters.  In fact it appeared that he had yet to give much thought to the questions I was asking.  He did finally say, "Son, is not sin the cause for all our problems?"  That ended the conversation.

A poor country boy, born and reared some miles from Spartanburg, through some act of bravery became a war hero over night.  His parents were poor tenant farmers.  The editor of the daily paper of Spartanburg learned the hero was coming home soon and he and his childhood sweetheart were getting married.  The editor of the paper sponsored a movement to raise funds to outfit the young couple with a farm, home and essential farming equipment. [Webmaster note: the "poor country boy" was Thomas E. Atkins, Medal of Honor Recipient for action at Villa Verde Trail, Luzon, Phillipine Islands
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I sent in a small donation for the cause with a note saying, "I would rather contribute more toward helping to create a human society in which it would be possible for every young couple to begin their living together in their own decent home, be they a war hero, soldier or civilian."