Fort Pickett chapel dedicated in honor of fallen 29th ID chaplain - May 24, 2011

The last chapel currently in use at the Virginia National Guard Maneuver Training Center at Fort Pickett was dedicated May 24, 2011 to Chaplain (1st Lt.) Thomas McNeill Bulla who died from combat wounds in World War I. Maj. Gen. Frank E. Batts, Sr., commander of the 29th Infantry Division, and Col. Tom Wilkinson, commander of Fort Pickett, unveiled the new sign outside the chapel as part of the dedication. Several of Bulla's relatives also attended the event. Soldiers from the Portsmouth-based 2nd Squadron, 183rd Cavalry Regiment provided the gun salute.

Bulla was born near Fayetteville, North Carolina, on January 4, 1881. Soon after he graduated from Union Theological Seminary he moved to Emporia where became the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in 1911. Bulla volunteered to become a chaplain after a request by the colonel of the 4th Virginia Infantry, an element of the Virginia National Guard, and was appointed in the rank of first lieutenant. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion newly organized 29th “Blue and Gray” Division. The entire 29th Division sailed to France in June 1918 and first entered combat in the Alsace Sector in August but suffered relatively light casualties. That changed when, starting on October 8, the division took part in the massive Allied operation known as the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

It was apparently during the opening days of this attack that Chaplain Bulla repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire by moving across “no man’s land” helping wounded soldiers to safety. This was duty neither required nor expected of an Army chaplain. On the morning of October 15, the 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry was the lead element for yet another attack in the area known as the Molleville Farm. It was during this assault that Bulla, again helping wounded soldiers, was struck by enemy fire and mortally wounded. He was evacuated to an Army hospital at Petite Mejoy where he died of his wounds on October 17.

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