Padre on Front Lines

We were in Italy, and there were about ten of us, behind a bit of a brick wall and we were getting (inaudible) machine-gunned and lots of mortars flying around, and we were hiding behind this wall, and we were scared. I'm telling you we were scared, ‘cause there was so much happening. And I thought it was an American come walking, because he had that type of uniform on, a collar this way and a tie. He walked up there. The man's a stupid idiot, you know? Were cowering. He walked over calm as could be, and it was a pad, padre, and his name was Jones. I remember that, he was a preacher. I don't know what faith, ‘cause you're only in the army, we only had Roman Catholic or Church of England. So, he was Church of England, United or Baptist or something but, anyways, he wasn't scared at all. I don't know if he was too dumb to be scared, or what, but anyway, he wanted to know if we would like to have a little prayer. ‘Course we did. We were all cuddled there and he talked, said a few prayers, and he told this story about, told this story about the guy who was praying and he was wondering, if God was carrying him on the beach or walking with him on the beach, it was, and it was making tracks, and then all of a sudden there was just two tracks, and the guy was saying, how come when I got in trouble there, you deserted me? Geez, no more tracks. And he said, no, that's not why, I didn't desert you then. That's when I was carrying you. I remember him telling that story, and he had a few prayers and walked off. You know, when he went away, everybody was just as calm as we are sitting here now. It took this fear away from you. Nobody was scared of getting dying all of a sudden or... And he, he must of have been cause he obviously wasn't scared. I thought at the time, I thought... I remember lots of talk, lots of things about clergy and that, but that guy did a lot of good there in just a minute and he was right in the front lines there and he calmed everything down there and he wasn't scared. The fact he wasn't scared made you feel you weren't scared, and I thought and I remembered that story yet. I mentioned it a couple of times to those guys and they said, "Oh, yeah. We have that service every year." Some part of the service, there, but... I haven't heard the story since, but that's what it was about, making four tracks and then just two. I thought after for a preacher, who would think that, who would think that a preacher was doing anything in the war? What is a preacher doing, just burying guys? He did not, he was right up in the lines. War isn't like you... anybody that hasn't been in it, don't know what, what it's like. That was a nice thing.