 A Quarterly International Service Newsletter |
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The Moorhill Monitor
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Volume 14 / Issue 4 / Date 4th Quarter 2005 *
In this
Issue:
[A Marine Sees
What Defeatists Don't]
[Five
Kernels of Corn]
[Animal Crackers]
[Celebrate Your Scared Calling] [USMC - God, Country, Corps]
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1.
A Marine Sees What Defeatists
Don't!
RAMADI, Iraq — This is my third deployment with the 1st Marine Division to
the Middle East.
This is the third time I've heard the quavering cries of the talking heads
predicting failure and calling for withdrawal.
This is the third time I find myself shaking my head in disbelief.
Setbacks and tragedy are part and parcel of war and must be accepted on the
battlefield. We can and will achieve our goals in Iraq.
Waiting for war in the Saudi Arabian desert as a young corporal in 1991, I
recall reading news clippings portending massive tank battles, fiery death
from Saddam Hussein's "flame trenches" and bitter defeat at the hands of the
fourth-largest army in the world. My platoon was told to expect 75%
casualties. Being Marines and, therefore, naturally #####, we still felt
pretty good about our abilities.
The panicky predictions failed to come true. The flame trenches sputtered.
Nobody from my platoon died. Strength, ingenuity and willpower won the day.
Crushing the fourth-largest army in the world in four days seemed to crush
the doubts back home.
Twelve years passed, during which time America was faced with frustrating
actions in Somalia and the Balkans. Doubt had begun to creep back into
public debate.
In the spring of last year, I was a Marine captain, back with the division
for Operation Iraqi Freedom. As I waited for war in the desert, just 100
miles to the north from our stepping-off point in 1991, I was again
subjected to the panicky analyses of talking heads. There weren't enough
troops to do the job, the oil fields would be destroyed, we couldn't fight
in urban terrain, our offensive would grind to a halt, and we should expect
more than 10,000 casualties.
Remembering my experience in Desert Storm, I took these assessments with a
grain of salt. As a staff officer in the division command post, I was able
to follow the larger battle as we moved forward. I knew that our tempo was
keeping the enemy on his heels and that our plan would lead us to victory.
But war is never clean and simple. Mourning our losses quietly, the Marines
drove to Baghdad, then to Tikrit, liberating the Iraqi people while losing
fewer men than were lost in Desert Storm.
In May of last year, I was sitting with some fellow officers back in
Diwaniyah, Iraq, the offensive successful and the country liberated from
Saddam. I received a copy of a March 30 U.S. newspaper on Iraq in an old
package that had finally made its way to the front. The stories: horror in
Nasariyah, faltering supply lines and demonstrations in Cairo. The mood of
the paper was impenetrably gloomy, and predictions of disaster abounded. The
offensive was stalled; everyone was running out of supplies; we would be
forced to withdraw.
The Arab world was about to ignite into a fireball of rage, and the Middle
East was on the verge of collapse. If I had read those stories on March 30,
I would have had a tough time either restraining my laughter or, conversely,
falling into a funk. I was concerned about the bizarre kaleidoscope image of
Iraq presented to the American people by writers viewing the world through a
soda straw.
Returning to Iraq this past February, I knew that the Marines had a
tremendous opportunity to follow through on our promises to the Iraqi
people.
Believing in the mission, many Marines volunteered to return. I again found
myself in the division headquarters.
Just weeks ago, I read that the supply lines were cut, ammunition and food
were dwindling, the "Sunni Triangle" was exploding, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
was leading a widespread Shiite revolt, and the country was nearing civil
war.
As I write this, the supply lines are open, there's plenty of ammunition and
food, the Sunni Triangle is back to status quo, and Sadr is marginalized in
Najaf. Once again, dire predictions of failure and disaster have been
dismissed by American willpower and military professionalism.
War is inherently ugly and dramatic. I don't blame reporters for focusing on
the burning vehicles, the mutilated bodies or the personal tragedies. The
editors have little choice but to print the photos from the Abu Ghraib
prison and the tales of the insurgency in Fallujah. These things sell news
and remind us of the sober reality of our commitment to the Iraqi people.
The actions of our armed forces are rightfully subject to scrutiny.
I am not ignorant of the political issues, either. But as a professional, I
have the luxury of putting politics aside and focusing on the task at hand.
Protecting people from terrorists and criminals while building schools and
lasting friendships is a good mission, no matter what brush it's tarred
with.
Nothing any talking head will say can deter me or my fellow Marines from
caring about the people of Iraq, or take away from the sacrifices of our
comrades. Fear in the face of adversity is human nature, and many people who
take the counsel of their fears speak today. We are not deaf to their cries;
neither do we take heed. All we ask is that Americans stand by us by
supporting not just the troops, but also the mission.
We'll take care of the rest.
Maj. Ben Connable is serving as a foreign-area officer and intelligence
officer with the 1st Marine Division.
Source: Major Ben Connable, 2005
Several years ago our entire extended family gathered at Grandpa’s and Grandma’s 700 acre farm for Thanksgiving. The day was beautiful. The kids spent all morning playing in the fields, the younger ones jumping hay bales and the older ones throwing a football. When it came time to eat our Thanksgiving Feast, everyone was hungry.
The smell of turkey, dressing, gravy, rolls and all the other special dishes drifted into the dining room. Everyone was asked to be seated.
Then, from the kitchen, my wife and her sister brought each person their first course: a plate on which were five kernels of corn. Everyone looked puzzled. Five kernels of corn don’t take up much room on a plate—or in a stomach. Almost in chorus the surprised group said, “Hey, I’m starved! What’s this?”
Then I told The Story. It is a story which most of us heard somewhere, long ago, in our childhood. But it is a story we need to be reminded of when we gather to remember why we are so thankful at this particular time of year. As the food sat in the kitchen waiting to be piled on everyone’s plate, I recounted the first winter the Pilgrims had spent in their new homeland.
Coming ashore as winter was approaching, this little band of close-knit friends had little time to do much more than build a Common House for their protection against the cold and wind.
All through that first winter they were forced to attend to the growing numbers who were falling ill. They quietly buried their dead in the middle of the night, in shallow graves under the snow, on a slope next to the Common House so the Indians wouldn’t know how desperate they had grown. (When I visited Plymouth, I placed my hand on the sarcophagus containing the bones of those who died and whispered, “Thank you”).
One day it was announced that they were down to a ration of five kernels of corn per day. Finally, the days began to lengthen and grow warmer, but not before half their number had died.
You know the rest of the Story. The Indian, Squanto, joined the survivors and taught them how to live off the land. That November, the now hearty Pilgrims, along with their Indian friends, held a feast so abundant that the table fairly groaned with the provision they had harvested.
But, when the men sat down at the huge table, the women brought them each a plate with their first course, five kernels of corn. The men looked at the five little kernels of corn before them. Each man knew what he had lost and the danger God had brought him and his family through the previous winter.
They gave thanks and ate their corn. And, then the feast began. My family was silent. Many had tears in their eyes. Our Thanksgiving prayer had a special meaning that year.
Every year our family gathers for Thanksgiving. We miss the ones who have gone to be with the Lord. We welcome the ones who have joined through marriage or birth. I am now only one person away from being the oldest in the family. And every year, when our family gathers, I am asked to tell The Story.
Source: Chris Davis, 2005
When the mother returned from the grocery store, her
small son pulled out the box of animal crackers he had begged for, then he
spread the animal-shaped crackers all over the kitchen counter.
"What are you doing?" his mom asked.
"The box says you can't eat them if the seal is broken," the boy explained.
"I'm looking for the seal."
Source: Brandon & Heather Myhrberg, 2005
4. Celebrate Your Sacred Calling!
An auto mechanic, with bruised, cracked
hands - the product of years of hard, often thankless work - fiddles with
that spaghetti–like labyrinth of wires, cylinders, and other confusing
stuff under the hood of your car, that few of us can even begin to
understand. He is a working man you’re mighty pleased to have around when
you are stranded out in the middle of nowhere. Tell me his work isn’t
sacred!
Or a doctor, like the one I visited a couple of weeks ago. After a few well placed questions, a lab test, and prescribed medication, bingo, I’m back! Thank God for that trained mind. If his work isn’t sacred, what on earth is?
Somehow we have acquired the unfounded notion that “full-time Christian workers” have a special calling above that of a drywaller, a tailor, or a financial planner. The assumption seems to be that “work” is second rate: Necessary toil for those who have not been “called.” I don’t think so! A study of church history will reveal that this type of split level thinking did not enter the church until some time in the third century.
“The prioritizing of ‘ministry’ over ‘work’ is now a fatal disease in Western Christianity. The work of the ministry has triumphed over the ministry of work. Careers and jobs are listed in the minds of believers from top to bottom in a scale of holiness and eternal relevance: missionaries and pastors on the top and stock brokers on the bottom.” Paul Stevens
Think of it: God is a worker. After six days of labor, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31a) It was in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve sinned that the Lord instructed them to work, “’…Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground’…The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (Gen. 1:28b; 2:15) (See Jn. 5:17; 9:4)
Years ago, Dorothy Sayers sagely wrote, “(Work is to be seen) not as a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfill itself, to the glory of God. It should, in fact, be thought of as a creative activity undertaken for the love of work itself; and man made in God’s image, should make things, as God makes them, for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing.”
Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is illustrative, “…You yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you.” (2 Thes. 3:7b,8) (See Isa. 65:21-23; Matt. 5:16; Eph. 2:10; 1 Thes. 1:3; 2 Thes. 3:6-15)
And almost five centuries ago, Martin Luther addressed the sacredness of work, “Just look at your tools…at your needle and thimble…your goods, your scales…everything our bodies do, the external and the carnal, is and is called spiritual behavior if God’s Word is added to it and it is done in faith.”
So the next time you are tempted to depreciate your work, regroup, and celebrate your sacred calling!
Submitted: R. Dwight Hill, 2005
5. USMC - God, Country, Corps!
Source:
USMC HQ,
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