A Salute to Soldiers: The Battle of the Bulge Through the Eyes of One Who Was There

June 1944. A twenty-five- year- old man from Vermont kissed his wife and babies goodbye and went off to war.

 His graduation from basic training “consisted mainly of a parade and a talk by a general. I never forgot the feeling I had when he said many of us would be dead before Christmas. It did not seem possible. 

However we were Infantry Replacements and that meant we were going right into the fighting. He was one hundred per cent right. Many of the fellows I trained with were dead before the New Year.”

  

In honor of my father and the soldiers of his generation who fought on various shores during WWII, and soldiers of freedom all, this week I am departing from usual blog in order to post several  excerpts from Dad’s personal record, The Battle of the Bulge: As Seen Through the eyes of One G.I. Who Was There.

Some of his words are rough. He was a rough man. He hadn’t even made it through basic training before he got into a fight with a leader from another squad who had ripped one of his men’s bed apart before inspection.

  “Had to clean the latrine every night til lights out. I also lost my Assistant Squad Leader rating . . . On my record is the notation, Not recommended for the Good Conduct Medal. I never did get it.”

He did, however, receive the Bronze Star and the coveted Combat Infantry Badge for his dangerous service as rifleman/scout. Maybe he needed that feisty spirit in the trenches more than good conduct after all.

In his words:

I fought in the Battle of the Bulge as a private with Co. E. 2^nd Battalion, 11^th Infantry, Fifth Division from December 1944 to February 1945. During much of this time, I acted as Platoon and Company Scout. Most of our fighting was done at nite. Several times I have been unseen within a few feet of the Enemy. On one occasion I could see his breath coming around the corner of the building I was behind. He was within one foot of me. I fully believe that only the Grace of God and some of the skills I learned hunting deer in Vermont brought me through.”

From Camp Dix in NJ

We were loaded onto ships. There were no other ships around when we sailed. However, the next morning . . . we were in a large convoy. At times the D.E.s would come tearing through the convoy. I still hear them. Ruuuup, Ruuuup. We were on a Victory ship holding about 5000 men . . .stacked in holds six to eight high in hammocks.

Saar River Basin, December 1944

We marched for eight to ten hours going down into the Basin. We were under shell fire for a goodly part of the time. I remember lying in a ditch with shells bursting around me wondering what the h---I was doing.

We relieved a platoon that had just lost their lieutenant. He had been standing in the doorway when a mortar shell hit and killed him. He was the first dead soldier I had seen.

In the morning everyone seemed to be doing their morning duties in the corners of the cellar. As we were eating breakfast there, also having just arrived from the States I did not think much of that and went up the stairs outside and backed up to a wall in the alcove. . . . . I had just bent over when there was a shot. The bullet hit exactly where my head had just been. It showered me with mortar and pieces of brick. I made one jump and was back down the stairs. That was about as close as I ever came to being killed.

I was now a combat veteran.

We could not go outside the buildings as the Germans had the areas under fire. A lot of houses were built so close together you could blow a hole in the wall and enter the next house. We were using twenty pound T.N.T charges on a stick. These charges had a tab that you would pull. You then had twenty seconds to run back about three houses and wait for it to go off.

Once I went back for more charges. I had to cross a driveway under fire. I had a charge in each hand. I ran across the drive and caught a tab on the doorway. I had no idea whether it pulled hard enough to go off. As the house was full of men I had no choice but to get rid of it. I started back across the yard. I was sure I would either be killed by the Germans or the charge would blow up.

I dropped it about halfway and ran like hell. I recall praying the prayer that kept me, “Thy will be done.” The charge did not go off and I guess the Germans were bad shots or surprised to see me running at them.

We had been in Fraulautern for about 4-5days when we got word we were to be relieved. We could not imagine why. We were making good progress.

We marched for 10 hours, under shell fire a good part of the time. It was mid-morning when we reached the trucks. Soon there were trucks everywhere. The entire army was moving. Tanks. Guns. Men. 

We did not know where we were going or why.

                                                    ************** 

Next up (Monday) The Battle of the Bulge    

As we enter this important week for those of us in the United States, may we pray for our leaders and remember, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord--Psalm 33:12

The veil between this world and that

This week, believed by some to be the time the veil between earth and the underworld is breached, draws an unlikely mix of celebrants around the world. Séance-saturated wiccans, kite-flying Mayans, purgatory-praying intercessors, and ruddy- cheeked candy collectors, whether intentional or not, all celebrate this fascination with death, dead, and darkness.

 For some it is a time to ward off evil spirits, for others, a favorable time to commune with the Lord of Darkness, and for some, a time to communicate with their departed.

While we were in Guatemala, our language school arranged a field trip to Santiago Sacatepequez, a town famous for its Barrilete, Kite Festival. This festival coincides with All Saints Day (because an eight-century pope aligned it so).

For the first and last time while in Guatemala, I boarded the bus (think rattley, recycled, turquoise school bus) which although it did get stuck in off the shoulder mud, delivered us safely to the cemetery where we joined hundreds of other people of every color and hue milling around graves sites; some setting up their  picnics on the stones.   

All were gathered to watch teams try to launch their huge (some up to fifty-feet in diameter) tissue paper kites bearing prayers and messages for the departed.

 According to Damian Choxin Jolon of the Santiago Association for Cultural Development, “these kites were created by Mayas to ward off bad spirits on All Saints Day, the day in which the deceased were allowed to visit the human world. Not wanting the bad spirits to return to the earth, the kites were created to make noise to scare them off, and also to carry messages to heaven on behalf of those in purgatory. (This last custom reflects the syncretism that is still strong in the area between Maya religious beliefs and Catholic customs.)”

It was all great fun, although I noted the irony of honoring the dead while trampling their gravesites. We, as I suspect most of the participants, simply enjoyed the brilliance and beauty of the festivity, and didn’t really consider the meaning.

But therein lies the danger, even here in our American culture.

The more we lose sight of a Christ-centered worldview and the edges of our Christianity mix with the colors of current culture, like a flower in a water painting, the lines of definition will blur together in a formless pastel of impression.

While thinking about this, I wondered if the influence of Halloween and all things related was celebrated in Israel or if it were mainly a pagan/Christian(?)  syncretism. I’m not going to travel along that idea here, but this linked article, which originally appeared in the Toronto Jewish Tribune, lends a lovely perspective on the matter.

More than a warning against something, I mean to issue a call for something—for knowing what God says about living, about truth, and especially during this week, about life after death.

I don’t know of the veil between the earth and the underworld, but I do know of the veil that was between heaven and earth. The veil that was torn in two from top to bottom. The veil through which I can enter because of the blood of the Lamb.

And though I may appreciate the beauty of a high-flying kite, I don’t have to hope in messages tied to its tail, for I know my messages go straight to the throne of God.

 

How to Dump a Frump

Spoiler alert: In case you are a seventeen-year-old that has just gone on your first blind date and come here for advice, this probably isn’t what you are looking for.

Frump: that state of malaise; that vague sense something is off but you can’t quite identify it, like fishing around for the tiny hair stuck on the tip of your tongue.

It’s when that hiatus you took from the gym because you had a stuffy nose has now morphed into a two-week slump, where the thought of stuffing your thighs into that spandex suit is as inviting as cleaning up the pooch poop in the yard.

And you can’t think of a thing to say to even one of the five hundred friends you have on FB or know whether to do this or that. If you’re reading a book you think you should be raking the leaves; if you’re raking the leaves, you think you should be reading a book.

Other than a lumpy pillow, frumps can be triggered by, but not limited to:

Lack of community  

Lack of direction  

Lack of discipline  

Lack of light—both physical and spiritual

The problem, of course, is that when you are in a frump you don’t feel like doing any of the things you need to get out of it.

I think lists are helpful here because they give form and direction in the midst of nebulous uncertainty. You don’t have to solve any major problems or outfit your emergency preparedness cupboard. The important thing is to have something tangible to cross off.

Physical suggestions 

• Do something different. The brain thrives on new activity. Go to a different coffee shop at an odd time of day; take a drive around an area you’ve never explored; sort through that box of high school treasures and old cards. Just break your routine. 
• Make Contact with someone. Maybe a person who comes to mind at a random time needs a hello, or that friend you haven’t spoken to in months, or that stranger at church. 
• Tease yourself back into exercise. Ten minute stretches for a few nights might give you enough results to inspire the treadmill.
• Get some sunshine. Several ten minute breaks throughout the day are invigorating.

Spiritual prescriptions

• Examine yourself for any grievances against others or the Lord but  
• Be on guard about trusting in oppression; the self-defeating lies that include words like always, never, not, and isn’t—the Lodebars—things of nothing you hold in your hand and beat yourself with.  
• Command yourself to Bless the Lord and 
• Remember his benefits. You may not be able to control your sluggish feeling but you can issue a command. It helped me to realize this is what David did when he ordered his soul to bless the Lord and forget none of his benefits.—Psalm 103

Describing a far more serious state than frumpy doldrums, Jeremiah says his “soul has been rejected from peace, he has forgotten happiness, and his strength has perished as has his hope from the Lord.”—Lamentations 3:17-18.

But then he remembers: “This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord’s lovingkindnesses never cease, his compassions never fail. Great is Thy faithfulness.”

Several of the psalmists express a similar despondency: Why are you in despair, o my soul, and disturbed within me? and arrive at the same conclusion: Be strong, let your heart take courage. Hope in God.

So how do you do that when you don’t feel like doing anything? When you’re far from being strong or taking courage or mustering up hope?

Read verses that attest to who God is. Wash yourself daily with remembrances of his might, his deeds, his love, his power, his mercy and faithfulness. I keep several pages of favorite passages in the front of my journal.

Keep the focus on God rather than on verses that remind you of your own despair. Wait patiently for the stirring for it will come, and then the outburst—the “OH” of God. The worship.

Hope resumed.

Frump deflated.

“Then I said, “It is my grief, that the right hand of the Most High has changed. I shall remember the deeds of the Lord .What god is great like our God? The art the God who works wonders.”—Psalm 77

To him who rides upon the highest heavens, which are from ancient times. Ascribe strength to God; his majesty is over Israel, and his strength is in the skies. The God of Israel himself gives strength and power to the people.

Blessed be God—Psalm 68:33-35

Sasha: unexpected gift at an apologists conference

An apologists conference was hardly the place I expected to receive a personal God-gift moment.

 You know— that kind of encounter that prompts the soul to swell in a spontaneous “Thank you."

What I did expect from the Truth for a New Generation Conference was to be informed and challenged about the urgency of knowing and presenting truth in such a time as this.

A time when*

•  The Internet has surpassed TV as the media of choice, and you are one of the more than two billion people on it at this moment. (That’s a little less than one-third of all the people on this planet, including those in dense jungles, third-world villages yet to see an electric wire, and the vast barren lands of Siberia.)

•  Atheists, pornographers, and predators have an unhindered access to kids that they didn’t have fifteen years ago.

• The freckled-face twelve-year-old boy upstairs belongs to the largest consumer group of porn on the Internet—twelve to seventeen year-olds.

A time when eighty-four per cent of youth can’t explain how the Bible is relevant to them, and church pews are filled with people who don’t really believe what they believe is real.

The conference did not disappoint. Apologists from around the country offered an array of workshops. My notepad was filled with everything from how Frank Zappa’s intentional endeavor to make “ugly music” reflected a worldview that doesn’t seek goodness or God to arguments for a First Cause.

 By mid afternoon I had saturated my capacity for information and decided to go to the resource room and do one of my favorite things—buy books.

My husband and I wandered up and down the aisles gathering websites and resources. Suddenly I stopped and pointed to a display of The Grace Effect.

“Oh look. I wrote a review on this book a few months ago. It’s about the impact of God’s grace on a country and the consequent societal darkness without it. The author’s family adopted Sasha, a little girl from a Ukrainian orphanage. He tells about the horrors and corruption they had to persevere through in order to get her.”

The young man tending the table listened and then said, “That’s my father. He wrote the book.”

Glad I had spoken favorably, I rummaged around in my memory for what rating I had given it. (You never know when those impersonal book reviews will take on flesh!)

 We chatted a bit, and then he turned to the young woman next him who was bagging a book for a customer.

“And this is the one it is all about. This is Sasha.”

Sasha—the girl from a stark orphanage in the Ukraine, the girl who had no understanding why anyone would apologize to her for anything because she was an orphan and everyone knew an orphan had no value.

I looked at the lovely young woman, all lightness and confidence, working her father’s table. My heart filled with the goodness of the Lord, both for her and for giving me the opportunity to say,

 “Sasha, you are beautiful.”

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.—John 1:5

* Stats from Josh McDowell's keynote address

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