A Brief History of IPHC Military Chaplains
By Chaplain, Lt. Colonel, Hugh H. Morgan, USAF Retired
The International Pentecostal Holiness Church has been endorsing ordained ministers to the Armed Forces for sixty-eight years. In 1941, our church pledged its support of the United States government in war, while "decrying the evils of war." Our general officials created a National Servicemen’s Commission with a National Service Pastor by the name of Samuel J. Todd, a young evangelist from Georgia.
In 1943, a Chaplains Examining Committee composed of J. A. Synan, G. H. Montgomery, and H. T. Spence endorsed John Vinson Ellenberg to be our first chaplain to represent the Pentecostal Holiness Church in the U.S. Army. Other distinguished men followed and served in World War II and the Korean Conflict like Thomas Eugene Myers, Ervin L. Shirey, Sr., Freeman Mashburn, Julius Green, and Jacob E. Till.
The Vietnam War brought a new breed of chaplains like Hugh H. Morgan, Raymond Caulder, Richard S. S. Yi, Russell Gunter, and Rodney Callahan.
Others followed like Joseph Brookshire, Michael W. Haynes, David C. Sessions, Ervin L. Shirey, Jr., Ron Hilburn, Jerry O. Henderson, Wayne Priest, Danny Paul, Bob Lynch, Harvey A. Hennington, Vince Arnold, A. D. (Doug) Beacham, Sr., Roger Heath, Jerry Jones, Xuan Ngoc Tran, Phillip Chandler, Eva Christine Beatty Sorrow (our first female chaplain in the Air Force), Lonnie Dean Brooks, Victor E. Brown, James Workman, Mark Perkins, Timothy Baer, Greg Lewis, Kenneth Godfrey, Stanton Trotter, Terry Kesling, Suk Kim, Marc McDowell, Timothy Moore, Randy Sellers, William Jamie Braswell, Chad Bellamy, Sarah Tarpley (our first female chaplain in the Army), Timothy Sessions, Shane Marley, John Kwon, Kendall Taylor, Christopher Browder, James Paul Ward, Jr., and Matthew Brown.
Our chaplains have served during World War II, the Berlin Crisis, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Desert Shield/Storm, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom), and Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom).
It was Dr. Ronald W. Carpenter, Sr. who had a vision for a memorial to the chaplains. He called it, “The Corridor of Courage.” It was carefully designed and constructed. Bishop James D. Leggett presided over the dedication ceremony of this memorial in July of 1999 at the Resource Development Center in Oklahoma City, now called the Global Ministry Center. The Corridor of Courage is second to none. It honors active duty, guard, reserve, retired and deceased military chaplains, as well institutional chaplains.
In 1999, under Dr. Carpenter's leadership the institutional chaplains in the IPHC were organized as a vital part of Chaplains Ministries. When visiting the Global Ministry Center in OKC, you are encouraged to stop by and visit "The Corridor of Courage."
Posted on
Sat, June 18, 2011
by Hugh Morgan