By Monica Elizabeth Yost, Michael Markrich
"Who in 1943 can have foreseen Lutheran pastor from rural jap Pennsylvania will be blessed to stay and inform this sort of tale?" In October 1943, twenty-seven-year-old strive against infantry chaplain Israel Yost arrived in Italy with the a centesimal Battalion, a little-known nationwide safeguard unit of typically jap americans from Hawaii. Yost used to be frightened while he discovered of his project to this strange unit composed of squaddies with whom he felt he had little in universal and who have been quite often Buddhists. yet this may quickly swap. prior to lengthy, Yost discovered himself dwelling and dealing shoulder to shoulder with those males below enemy hearth in freezing temperatures and mountainous terrain. in the middle of the problems and hazards, he had many possibilities to adventure and notice the generosity of the warriors towards himself and others, together with the Italian peasants they encountered. He wrote to his spouse in their obsession with discovering clean foodstuff to complement their C-rations, their mostly unintelligible Island pidgin, and his friendships with Captain Katsumi Kometani, the battalion’s morale officer and dentist; Captain Jack Mizuha, later a Hawaii best court docket justice; and Lieutenant Spark Matsunaga, who might cross directly to serve many phrases as a senator from Hawaii. For the subsequent nineteen months on the frontfrom Salerno to Monte Cassino to Anzio to Bruyeres, FranceYost assisted medics, retrieved our bodies from the battlefield, buried enemy squaddies, struggled to reinforce morale because the variety of casualties rose larger and better, and wrote numerous letters of condolence, all as well as gratifying his ministerial tasks, which incorporated preaching within the foxholes. even supposing his sermons received few converts, Yost’s tireless power and main issue for others earned him admiration from his fellow squaddies, who frequently grew to become to him as a relied on pal and non secular consultant. on the war’s finish, no different battalion could obtain as many and honors as! the one hundredth. Yost lower back to Pennsylvania and the lifetime of a small city pastor. 40 years later, with assistance from the letters he had written virtually day-by-day to his spouse and his box diaries, he wrote of his wartime studies within the hopes that they may someday be released as a list of the amazing personality and accomplishments of the one hundredth. wrestle Chaplin offers this heartfelt memoir intact with the addition of images and next letters and speeches by way of Yost and different veterans.