Yesterday, I received an email from Peter Lovenheim, an author based in Rochester, NY—just 60 miles from where I grew up. He’s currently working on a book slated for publication in 2027 that tells the story of The Four Chaplains. Peter reached out to speak with me about my grandfather, Rev. George L. Fox, who will be featured in one of the chapters.
He shared his impressive credentials, including several published books and a long history of reporting on meaningful stories. One of those stories, about The Four Chaplains, is especially fitting to share today—Veterans Day. I encourage you to take a moment to read it. Stories like this deserve to be remembered. They transcend a single tragic night or battle and remind us of the enduring power of courage, sacrifice, and humanity.
To our Veterans—thank you for your unwavering service. And to those who never made it home, like The Four Chaplains, may your legacy forever light the way.
This is a special tribute from PETER LOVENHEIM |At the Rochester Tribune, honoring the Four Chaplains
It was while visiting the graves of my parents and sister one day recently at White Haven Memorial Park in Pittsford that I noticed a monument called “Memorial to the Four Chaplains.”
It’s a tall, stone obelisk. Around the base, etched in stone, it tells this story: In World War II, when the troop carrier on which they were sailing to Greenland was hit by a Nazi torpedo, four U.S. Army chaplains of different faiths—a priest, a rabbi, and two Protestant ministers—voluntarily gave up their life vests to soldiers who had none and together went down with the ship.
(Photo by Elisa Siegel)
Our parents’ and grandparents’ generations knew all about the Four Chaplains. Accounts of their heroism by sailors who had survived the sinking were widely reported. Each chaplain was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Purple Heart. A U.S. postage stamp was issued in their honor. Each of them was awarded a special Congressional Medal of Valor. At the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., at the Pentagon, and in more than a dozen cities across the country, memorials—stained glass windows, monuments, whole chapels—were dedicated to their memory. In Rochester, dignitaries including Sen. Kenneth B. Keating, R-N.Y., spoke at the 1959 dedication of White Haven’s Four Chaplains Memorial.
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