"The Least I Can Do ..."

Every evening in Washington, D.C. khaki-clad men, unsteady on their crutches, struggle up a hill leafy with June. Other wounded soldiers, in dark red trousers and jumpers over their pajamas, creak along in wheel chairs pushed by white-uniformed nurses. The slow parade's destination is the grey stone chapel of the Army's Walter Reed Hospital. The wounded men go there to pray for the success of the invasion of Europe and for an early peace.

Last week Walter Reed's Roman Catholic vigil went into its second month. Since early spring, Catholic patients have filled the chapel (it holds 200) every evening. During the service, wounded from every front repeat a prayer for peace written by Pope Benedict XV: "Dismayed by the horrors of a war which is bringing ruin to peoples and nations, we turn, 0 Jesus, to Thy most loving heart, as to our last hope. 0 God of mercy, with tears we invoke Thee to end this fearful scourge; O King of peace, we humbly implore the peace for which we long. . . . During Thy life on earth Thy heart beat with tender compassion for the sorrows of men; in this hour made terrible with burning hate, with bloodshed and with slaughter, once more may Thy Divine heart be moved to pity."

One soldier seriously wounded near Palermo rides five miles by bus every evening from the convalescent section at Forest Glen, Md. He has missed only two services. "I was out there, he says. "I was with them. The least I can do for them now is to pray for them."

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