Episcopal Priest Receives First Army Reserve Components Medal
Diocesan Press Service. January 10, 1975 [75011]
WINTER PARK, Fla. -- For the first time the Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal has been awarded by the Chief of Army Chaplains. The recipient was the Rev. Donis Dean Patterson, rector of All Saints' Church in Winter Park, Fla.
Chaplain (Major General) Gerhardt W. Hyatt, Chief of Army Chaplains, presented the medal to Fr. Patterson at a service at All Saints' on Sunday, December 22. General Hyatt was preacher at the service. Also participating was the Rev. Charles L. Burgreen, a non-parochial priest of the Diocese of Central Florida and Assistant to the Bishop for the Armed Forces, New York City.
Fr. Patterson received the award for his 16 years of service as a chaplain (Lt. Col.) U.S. Army Reserve with the Office, Chief of Chaplains, Department of the Army in Washington, D.C. as a Mobilization Designee.
During his two weeks of active duty each year with the Chief of Chaplains, Fr. Patterson has undertaken many projects. He has served as a speech writer; coordinated details for the Annual Command Chaplains Conference; prepared statistical studies on Army chapels worldwide; and as Budget and Fiscal Officer in Chaplain Administration and Management.
Fr. Patterson received his Army Reserve commission as a Second Lieutenant from the R.O. T.C. upon his graduation from Ohio State University in 1952. He was called up for active duty in 1952, and served in Korea with the Eighth Army on the 38th Parallel. A Transportation Officer, he was charged with responsibility for convoys between Inchon and the front.
It was in Korea that he first became aware of his calling to the ministry. He received instruction for Confirmation from the Rt. Rev. A. Cecil Cooper, Anglican Bishop of Korea, and was confirmed in the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Nicholas in Seoul on St. Patrick's Day 1954. Upon his return to the United States he entered the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass., and graduated in 1957.
Fr. Patterson has remained in the Army Reserve throughout his ministry. He has served parishes in Southern Ohio, Massachusetts, Southwest Florida, and has been rector of All Saints' in Winter Park since 1970.
Fr. Patterson's citation reads, in part:
"He accepted the responsibility for numerous significant and unusual projects well outside the area of his military occupational specialty to promote the total pastoral program of the Army. The outstanding work he has so consistently demonstrated in the U.S. Army Reserve Chaplaincy places him in the highest echelons of capability, productivity, and is a distinct asset to the U.S. Army as a whole."