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July 26, 2011
Columbia, SC: Bishop George Visits the Military Chaplaincy School at Fort Jackson Army Base

On Monday, July 18, in conjunction with his archpastoral visit to the parish of St. Elizabeth the New-Martyr in Columbia, SC, His Grace George, Bishop of Mayfield, was given a tour of the Military Chaplaincy School at Fort Jackson.

The U.S. Army Basic Combat Training base Fort Jackson is named after President Andrew Jackson, who was also a United States Army General. Fort Jackson is the biggest Initial Entry Training Center of the United States Army, training thirty-four percent of all troops and sixty-nine percent of all women entering the Army every year (over 45,000 basic training and advanced individual training soldiers every year). It is also home to U.S. Army Soldier Support Institute, the U.S. Army Chaplains Center and School, and the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute. The fort includes more than 52,000 acres (210 sq. km) of land, as well as more than fifty field training sites and ranges and 1,000 buildings.

Priest John Malcom (cleric of the Church of the Entrance into the Temple of the Holy Virgin in Syracuse, NY), who was recently ordained to the priesthood by Metropolitan Hilarion, is an Army reservist and is spending the summer taking classes at Fort Jackson in order become a military chaplain, while serving at St. Elizabeth the New-Martyr Church with rector Priest Mark Mancuso. Fr John greeted Bishop George, Fr. Mark, and Deacon Jeremiah Davis (cleric of Holy Cross Monastery in Wayne, WV) at one of the fort’s main gates and led them to the Chaplaincy School. While there, Fr. John, along with one of the faculty members, Chaplain Craig Johnson (Major, U.S. Army), gave a tour of the classrooms, training laboratories, chapels, and the Army Chaplaincy Museum. Bishop George and the touring clergy were each given a merit coin "Faith is the Beginning of Valor" by Major Johnson at the end of the visit.

Media Office of the Eastern American Diocese