Rod Grams: “there are acts of courage and personal sacrifice that are so great that they should never be forgotten. There are acts…”

“there are acts of courage and personal sacrifice that are so great that they should never be forgotten. There are acts which decades--even centuries--later still reverberate, and touch our soul as a nation. Surely, the heroic deeds of the ``Immortal Four Chaplains'' count among such acts. These four Chaplains sacrificed their lives to save the lives of others when the Dorchester, a transport ship, was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Greenland on February 3, 1943. During the 18 minutes that the Dorchester was sinking, the four Army Chaplains--a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest, and two Protestant ministers--worked to comfort the frightened men and direct them to safety. They distributed life jackets, and when there were no more in the storage locker, the Chaplains removed their own life jackets and gave them to waiting soldiers. Rabbi Alexander Goode did not ask whether the soldier that he was giving his life jacket to was Jewish; Father John Washington did not ask whether he was Catholic; Reverend George Fox did not ask whether he was Methodist; and Reverend Clark Poling did not ask whether he was Dutch Reformed. The Chaplains simply took off their own life jackets and gave them to the next in line. The Chaplains were last seen on the hull, with their arms linked together in prayer, consoling the men who remained on the ship with a final service.…”