# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S745
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS 745

bers representing the Board for Parish Education and the Board
for Higher Education and our Teachers Colleges, for the purpose
of ‘recommending appropriate plans for the observance of the
centennial.

Report of the Armed Services Commission
(Report 419)

The political situation in our world has forced our country
onto a permanent military footing. Whereas, formerly during
peacetime the number of men in uniform seldom exceeded 200,000,
today, and for the past decade, the number has hovered around
three million. Over half our Federal tax dollar is spent to provide
the costly modern panoply of war. And the end is not in sight.

Our church has reluctantly been brought to the same status
in its ministry to its members and the unchurched in the military.
What was originally classified and supported as an emergency
activity in the days of all-out war has today become an ongoing
and integral phase of the 20th-century ministry. The expenditures
of the Armed Services Commission were included in the annual
synodical budget by resolution of the Fiscal Conference meeting in
St. Paul in 1955. It is to be emphasized that this action was taken,
not because the program of the Armed Services Commission had
contracted to a minimum peacetime holding action, but rather
because it showed no evidence of such a decrease. The Fiscal
Conference acted reluctantly, but of conviction.

That the needs have not abated can be demonstrated by major
comparative statistics.

During the Korean “police action” our American military
forces numbered about 314 million men. The names on file in the
Commission’s Washington office bore out the rule of thumb that
1 per cent of a given group of American citizens will be Missouri
Synod Lutherans. Over 35,000 names and addresses were listed.

The military has since then reduced its manpower — not nearly
to the extent that newspaper headlines have frequently predicted
-~but the number today lies somewhere between 2,700,000 and
2,900,000. The number of names on file with the Commission has
dropped accordingly. In 1953 it was 32,000; in 1954, 30,000; in 1955,
25,000. The decrease is greater than the rule of thumb would war-
rant. This is, in the main, because of a tragic neglect by local con-
gregations. They fail to inform the Commission of their members
entering the military. Spot checks by Lutheran chaplains at mili-
tary installations around the world always reveal more Missouri
Synod Lutherans in the ranks than the lists sent them by the
Commission.