Los Banos Rotary Club History
Castle Chaplain Talks Communism; Need For Blood

Why are the American boys fighting and dying in Korea? The one word answer, declares U.S. Air Force Captain J. W. Johnson, chaplain at Castle Field, is Communism – a sinister threat to American that would do away with our right to believe in God, do away with our loved ones, and do away with everything that we hold dear, including our country.
Speaking before the Los Banos Rotary Club Tuesday noon, Capt. Johnson put the Korean war on a home front basis, declaring that the American lives that are being lost there and the American dollars that are being spent in pursuit of the war, are this country's only bulwark of future existence.
The chaplain should know whereof he speaks. He has been with U.S. Armed Forces for the past ten years, first with the infantry in the European theater during World War II, and now with the Air Force. He returned home last winter from Japan and Korea, after spending more than six months with the men on the battle front.
"There are too many people at home," the chaplain said, "who are entirely too complacent about the Korean situation, and about Communism in general. It behooves us, as citizens, to realize the danger that exists; to support the adequate defense program that is necessary to insure the future safety of our country, and to realize that American men who are fighting and dying there are making the sacrifice to protect the lives of you and me!"
The same shameful complacency, the speaker said, applies to the attitude of many people toward the Blook Bank program. "That program," he said, "is one in which everyone, young and old, can share, and there should be 100 per cent participation. Even from a strictly selfish standpoint, it is for your own good, because if they die over there you can be sure you are going to die here."
Briefly reviewing the recent service in the far east, Johnson praised the Japanese as a wonderful people whom we should cultivate as friends. As to the recent Communist demonstration in Japan, he said that element constitutes a small but determined minority and that we should know and remember that the majority of the Japanese people are all for the United States and the democratic freedom it represents. From a religious standpoint, he said, only a comparative few are Christians and that there is an important field for missionary work by all denominations.
He praised the United Nations troops who are waging the war against Communism in Korea, and explained the handicaps under which they are working, "Our boys are doing a wonderful job," he said, "and we can well be very proud of them."
August 8, 1952

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