\u201cThe Miracle of Father Kapaun,\u201d<\/a> described their lives in prisoner of war camps run by the North Koreans and Chinese during the Korean War. These soldiers endured freezing temperatures, starvation, and blood-sucking lice, which caused their health to deteriorate even faster.<\/p>\nOne person who did all he could to keep these soldiers from death was U.S. Army chaplain Father Emil Kapaun. By the time he got to the POW camp, Father Kapaun already had a reputation as a fearless and holy leader.<\/p>\n
Courage Under Fire<\/strong><\/p>\nDuring an interview on \u201cChristopher Closeup,\u201d Wenzl explained, \u201d Father Kapaun\u2019s Eighth Calvary Regiment had been in a number of gruesome big battles. He ran around and rescued the wounded, almost recklessly, dragging them back to safety when they might have been shot pretty far outside the foxholes. That\u2019s part of the reason that people were so willing to follow him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another reason occurred soon after Father Kapaun\u2019s regiment was captured in November 1950. While the the American GIs were being marched to the POW camp, Father Kapaun saw a Chinese soldier with a rifle pointed at the head of Sgt. Herb Miller, who was lying in a ditch with a broken ankle. It was routine for the Chinese to execute enemy soldiers who were wounded.<\/p>\n
Wenzl said, \u201cFather Kapaun breaks away from his captors, strides over, brushes the Chinese soldier\u2019s rifle up in the air, then leans down right in front of him, picks the sergeant up and carries him away. And the sergeant\u2019s still alive; it\u2019s Herb Miller from Pulaski, New York. He says, \u2018I thought both of us were gonna get shot in the back as he carried us away but the Chinese soldier just stood there. He didn\u2019t know what to make of this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A Spirit of Defiance, Purpose, and Faith<\/strong><\/p>\nLife in the camp was brutal, but once again, Father Kapaun provided material relief, moral leadership, and spiritual guidance. For instance, the Chinese and North Koreans only gave their captives a handful of birdseed to eat daily. Despite starving himself, Father Kapaun often gave his seeds away to set an example of sharing.<\/p>\n
The Allies also didn\u2019t receive any water to drink from their captors, so they scraped snow and ice off the ground to hydrate themselves. As a result of ingesting unclean water, they often got dysentery.<\/p>\n
Because of his youth working on a farm, Father Kapaun found a solution. Wenzl said, \u201cHe took roofing tin from bombed out buildings and banged rocks on it and formed them into bowls that they could use as little cooking pots.\u201d That saved lives because it allowed them to boil water before drinking it. And for the soldiers who did suffer from dysentery, Father Kapaun would hand wash their underwear, demonstrating that absolutely no act of service was beneath him.<\/p>\n
Father Kapaun also boosted the Allies\u2019 morale by defying the brainwashing techniques their communist captors employed on them. \u201cHe would literally stand up,\u201d noted Wenzl, \u201cand say, \u2018What you\u2019re telling us is a bunch of lies. It\u2019s not true!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The practice of Catholic prayers and rituals became another way to defy the enemy. Wenzl said, \u201cThe guards banned any sort of religious services, so Father would sneak around at night, go into the huts and say the rosary. The Protestants and the Jews and the agnostics would pray the rosary because it was a way to support him. [Those prayers were] also a way to rally the men, to say, \u2018We\u2019re soldiers. We can\u2019t give up.\u2019 A lot of those guys committed suicide. They didn\u2019t have any coats or blankets and it was 20, 30, 40 below. All you had to do to commit suicide was roll away from your friends, get away from their warmth, and you were gone the next morning. He was trying to keep them alive by creating some sort of spirit of defiance and purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
The camp\u2019s communist commanders saw Father Kapaun as a threat, so they capitalized on the situation when he grew weak and sick. Wenzl said, \u201cThe Chinese had this thing that they called a hospital, but the soldiers called it the \u2018Death House\u2019 because the Chinese used it to isolate prisoners who were on the verge of death anyway. That\u2019s what they did with Fr. Kapaun; they isolated him. He died a couple of days after they did that. But when the Chinese decided to cart him off to the Death House, the allied soldiers tried to fight at first. Father told them to stop. He didn\u2019t want them getting in trouble. Then the soldiers volunteered to carry him, as sort of an honor guard themselves, to his own death. And on the way in to the doorway of the Death House, Robert Wood \u2013 one of the soldiers I interviewed \u2013 was one of these guys carrying him. Father\u2019s hand came up off of the stretcher and he blessed the Chinese guards who were participating in his murder and he asked their forgiveness, and then said, \u2018Father, forgive them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Christ Was His Role Model<\/strong><\/p>\nWhere did Father Kapaun find the strength and character to do this kind of thing? For Wenzl, the answer is obvious: \u201cWhen you read his early sermons as a young priest, it\u2019s clear he had spent a lot of time reading the New Testament. So all of these actions \u2013 showing by example, the specific things that he said to people \u2013 it was clear that he had in his head long before he went to war, that if there was ever some sort of world disaster where people really needed somebody that they could count on, that it would be him. And he already had in mind how he would do that which was, not with a lot of words, but by example. So I think Christ was his model.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though it took Father Kapaun\u2019s friends 50 years to get him posthumously recognized with the Medal of Honor, it finally happened in 2013. In addition, the chaplain is also on the road to sainthood after several seemingly-incurable patients were healed following prayers for his intercession. Wenzl notes that many of the people supporting Father Kapaun\u2019s cause for sainthood are Protestants who are \u201cbaffled about why this guy hasn\u2019t been named a saint.\u201d It seems that even in death, Father Kapaun is crossing denominational lines just like he did in life.<\/p>\n
Wenzl believes that Father Kapaun\u2019s influence will continue because of the way he lived. He concluded, \u201cHe would climb into holes and dig latrines without saying a word. He would get right beside these guys and get dirty with them, and then run around and rescue the wounded. People saw this and they thought of him, not as a captain, which he was \u2013 and not as a priest, which he was. They thought of him as \u2018He\u2019s that guy that we\u2019ll do anything for because he would do anything for us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
(To listen to my full interview with Roy Wenzl about \u201cThe Miracle of Father Kapaun,\u201d<\/a> click the podcast link<\/em>):
\nChristopher Closeup podcast \u2013 Guest: Roy Wenzl<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEvery day was the day you were going to die. It was pretty much a place of hell and despair with no hope.\u201d That\u2019s how the former Allied soldiers, interviewed by Wichita Eagle reporters Roy Wenzl and Travis Heying for their Christopher Award-winning book \u201cThe Miracle of Father Kapaun,\u201d described their lives in prisoner of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":488,"featured_media":4817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,44,10,50,40,33,46,32],"tags":[99,113,89,118,111,107,114,106],"class_list":["post-4827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-catholic","category-christopher-awards","category-christopher-closeup","category-inspiration","category-leadership","category-military","category-prayer","tag-books","tag-catholic","tag-christopher-awards","tag-christopher-closeup","tag-inspiration","tag-leadership","tag-military","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\n
No Act of Service Was Beneath Him: Father Emil Kapaun's Biographer on the Chaplain's Legacy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cEvery day was the day you were going to die. It was pretty much a place of hell and despair with no hope.\u201d That\u2019s how the former Allied soldiers,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christophers\/2014\/06\/no-act-of-service-was-beneath-him-father-emil-kapauns-biographer-on-the-chaplains-legacy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"No Act of Service Was Beneath Him: Father Emil Kapaun's Biographer on the Chaplain's Legacy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cEvery day was the day you were going to die. 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<\/a>\u201cEvery day was the day you were going to die. It was pretty much a place of hell and despair with no hope.\u201d<\/p>\n