Editor’s Note: For now over 75 years, The Baylor Line has been publishing vivid storytelling from across the Baylor Family. I don’t think our archives full of deep, inspirational features should live solely on shelves, so we are bringing them back to life in BL Classics. This September-October 1969 Classic article tells the story of Capt. Eli Takesian, a Baylor graduate and chaplain during the Vietnam War who brought God to others in the most unlikely of places. Takesian, who passed away in May 2014, served two tours of duty in Vietnam, spent 20 years as a senior chaplain, and became Chief Chaplain of the Marine Corps at Marine Corps Headquarters.
Esquire Magazine was reporting on the battle for Hue, taking a group of 60 Marines and telling of their experiences. The battle lasted 27 days and in that time American forces drove the North Vietnamese and Vietcong out of the Imperial City in what has been called the hardest and bitterest battle of the Vietnam war.
The writer of the Esquire article compared the offensive to other memories, some of them vicarious ones taken from the pages of Life Magazine or from old movie newsreels. He describes the Marines as “each of them like the hardest man on the block” and refers to their training, their personalities, the intense feelings brought on by the war.
In the midst of them was a chaplain. The writer of the article brings him into the story like this:
“After the Catholic chaplain was killed, the Protestant had to give communion. His name was Takesian, an Armenian from Boston, one of those hip, blunt clerics who loved to talk, as though talking itself contained ritual powers of redemption.
“He wasn’t one of your grizzled battle chaplains, but he was very brave, and very much affected by the particular ugliness of the Hue fighting. It was not the physical fear that put him off, but the mood of bitterness that no one seemed to lie able to shake, and he would sit for long stretches by himself, staring at the wounded through his thick steel-rimmed glasses.
“He was using sliced C-ration white bread and canteen water to deliver the sacraments . . . .”
Lt. Cmdr. Eli Takesian, chaplain’s service, U.S. Navy, is a Baylor man who also attended Princeton and Edinburgh and he won the Bronze Star for his actions while serving with elements of the Fifth Marine Regiment, First Marine Division in Vietnam from April 1, 1967 to April 1968.
He also received the Gallantry Cross from the Republic of Vietnam.
The citation for the Bronze Star, presented him by the Marine Corps uses phrases like “with complete disregard for his own safety” in describing how he “repeatedly moved into the field with combat-committed units in order to provide ministry and impart spiritual strength and comfort to the wounded.”
The citation said his actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps, but his ministry in Vietnam is for Eli Takesian something more than tradition.
In his own words Takesian describes his role like this:
“I’m an infantry chaplain in Vietnam. My troops have been in the middle of bloodshed. I preach the gospel as I understand it: The sin of war; love for all men. My Marines attend church in large numbers. I have preached against war, even the war in Vietnam. The pulpit from which I preach has been free, is free, and always will be free. Command has never called me down — Command, in fact, attends church.”
In reference to the battlefield communion at Hue, Takesian said:
“The elements were not bread and wine but, rather, broken bodies and shed blood. Many who survived the holocaust will never again be quite the same. They have come to know the bitterness of mankind’s alienation, the enormous price of sacrifice, the futility of war and the absolute need for reconciliation.”
Eli Takesian, now 37 years old, came to Baylor from Massachusetts in the fall of 1954 as a transfer student and graduated in the class of 1957 with a B.A. He majored in history and religion and minored in philosophy.
One of his Baylor professors remembers Takesian as having been something of a wanderer as a youth. “Somewhere along the way,” the professor said, “he sort of fell into a storefront Baptist—or some kind of evangelical gospel—emporium and had a religious experience which was valid, meaningful and permanent. Later he decided to devote his life to religious ministry. He was the nicest, most decent sort and he had a quiet courage.”
Chaplain Takesian ‘s interest in Marines stems from his own service as an enlisted man in the Marine Corps.
“A man’s faith can become very real and personal in combat,” Takesian said. “It’s the confrontation of life and death, the moment of truth. There are no facades when a field Marine attends church. The man knows he’s a sinner. He offers God no argument, no defense, only himself, as he is, humbly praying for God’s grace.
“He is acquainted with death: Christ’s, his buddy’s, that of the VC he’s killed, even the possibility of his own. Pilate, Roman soldiers, the penitent thief, Jesus’ disciples, Christ—he identifies with them all. In partaking of bread and wine lie knows precisely what he tastes: death and life, judgment and hope, bitterness and salvation.”
After college and preparation for the ministry Takesian returned to service as a chaplain. After discharge he held a pastorate in Amsterdam, Ohio, and in 1964 was recalled to active duty. He served mainly on ships before being assigned to Vietnam in 1967.
Takesian came away from a year’s duty in Vietnam with vivid memories. He recalled one Marine corporal who was wounded only slightly but who lay on a stretcher with his eyes closed, sweating profusely and shaking. Shock had set in and the Marine not only needed spiritual comfort but he needed to be calmed down.
Takesian asked the Marine if he would like him to say a small prayer and the wounded man opened his eyes and smiled from ear to ear. “From then on he was okay,” Takesian said.
A more grim account of combat was the Marine who was dying of a gaping wound in his chest. He was young, about 20. Takesian said the dying youth told him to comfort his wife and to tell her “not to feel too heavy about this.” The Marine told him, “She has given me herself, joy and a fullness of life. Please tell her.”
“It’s horrible just watching them die,” Takesian said. “Just horrible.”
The chaplain who lives with men at war recognizes the problem of war and develops his own attitudes toward war.
“Unfortunately,” Takesian said, “the nations of the world are not mature enough to beat their swords into plowshares. I don’t know if we ever will be. But my prayer is that one day all mankind, in accord, will finally learn that to know peace one must first love peace, and to love peace, one must first love.”
A professor at Baylor remembers Takesian as the kind of person who felt strongly but didn’t impose his views on others. Neither did he want others to impose their views on him, the professor said.
This is seen in a letter that arrived from Takesian in mid-September. He had volunteered for another tour of duty in Vietnam and was on his way there.
“Even in war there is reconciliation,” the chaplain once said. “God can be found in places where people least expect him.”
