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CHAPLAIN SCHOOL WILL GRADUATE 150 OFFICERS

300 More Ministers To Follow Them Soon

Ready for duty with the United States Army, the 150 members of the Army Chaplain School will receive their diplomas in a ceremony here tomorrow morning. Their place will be filled by 300 new students, sent to Harvard for the 28 day course.

Graduation will take place in Sanders Theatre, following a review behind Andover Hall. The chaplains, all commissioned officers, will march to the theatre where Chaplain (Col.) William D. Cleary, commandant of the School, will present diplomas.

Must Be Ministers

During their brief stay here, the chaplains, all of whom have been ordained ministers for at least three years, have received training, which, when added to an already adequate theological knowledge, will prepare them for Army life. This is accomplished by grounding them in the customs and practices of military affairs.

The military training of the chaplains has included everything from foot drill to grave registration. Map reading, de-fence against chemical warfare, and military law, in addition to a chaplain's duty at the front, has been taught them.

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They must have sufficient knowledge of Army habits to enable them to act as part of a regimental staff. They must not be soft, so conditioning classes and drill have been part of their training. Army life in grim reality has overtaken them, for reveille sounds each morning at 6:30 o'clock.

The chaplains, as the spiritual advisors for enlisted men, are the only officers to whom a soldiers can go with his problems. They must be prepared for any type post, from a hospital to the front lines.

Size to Increase

Previously located at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, Harvard's Army Chaplain School, the only one in an American college, started graduating 150 at a time, but will increase in size until 450 are graduated every 28 days. All the students live in Perkins Hall, while classes are held in Andover Hall and the Germanic and Semitic Museums.

Their legal training was augmented by a moot court-martial in which members of the School tried one of their number for conduct unbecoming an officer and attempted to prove that he had charged enlisted men for performance of the marriage ceremony.

Graduation ceremonies will begin with an invocation by Chaplain (Lieut. Col.) Ralph C. Deibent of the Chaplain School Faculty. An address will be delivered by Brig. Gen. Thomas E. Trolane, commandant of the M. P. battalion of the First Service Command. Chaplain (Col.) Cleary will then present the diplomas and the program will be concluded with a benediction by the Right Reverend Monsignor Albert F. Hickey, of St. Paul's Church in Cambridge.

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