I no more than just completed the thoughts about the early passing of Vietnam Veterans, and I then attend a funeral of an Army Airborne pal, who served two tours in the Nam, with two Bronze Stars and two purple hearts. He was the consummate warrior who tapped into the soul of all of his comrades in arms. He was 61 when he died.
Escorted by approximately 90 American Legion Patriot Riders to the National Veterans Cemetery in Sierra Vista, Jungle Jim Grainger took his last ride to glory.
In 2003, Jungle Jim, escorted myself, my wife, and my son on the ride of our life; Run For the Wall, culminating into Rolling Thunder in Washington DC on Memorial Day.. He introduced us to some of the finest soldiers and Marines on earth. He made me feel my veteraness from the inside, as he had a way of honoring our core being in ways that only the warrior knows.
Yet one night, at the home of his former Officer in Falls Church, Va., Tom Carhart, now an archivist for the Army and West Point, we sat on the patio quizzing ourselves about why our buddies die so young…. as if we were immune! The speculations were abundant: survivor guilt, repression of true emotions about our actions that simply take their toll on the endocrine system. Of course crummy health habits. Anger and rage turned inward. Who knows? Really who knows? War has a long half life in the soma and the psyche. I do know that when I read the Obituaries in the Veteran magazine published by Vietnam Veterans of America, the majority of the birth dates hover around 1946-50. Whats up with this?
I will just repeat what they said about Jungle Jim Grainger at the cemetery. “He never really came home.” Maybe that is the key to understanding a mortality rate that does not have to be.
Maybe it’s a simple welcome home and time for the pain to stop.
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The Healing Power of Mercy!
Posted: 07 Oct 2009 12:00 AM PDT
Hosea 14:4
I will heal their faithlessness;
I will love them freely,
for my anger has turned from them.
Everybody has some despicable little thing they did tucked away in their memory. It is that nasty cruel thing we did long ago to that kid in elementary school that drove her home in tears, or that cheap betrayal or that one deed we did that we wish we could take back and which periodically comes to mind as we are going to sleep at night. It’s not necessarily a haunting curse, but it’s that thing which, squarely looked at, makes us squirm with embarrassed revulsion. It is just this sort of thing which God knows all about — and completely forgives through Christ Jesus. The miracle of our faith, the greatest of God’s attributes, is mercy. Mercy doesn’t mean “excuses.” It means really seeing us for who we are and really and truly forgiving. Excuses are fine when what we have done is excusable. But the trouble with applying excuses where mercy is needed is that no healing takes place. The person who has done some genuinely rotten thing only goes away thinking, “If they knew what I was really like, they’d hate me.” The glory of God’s mercy is that it says, “I have seen what you are really like, and I love you passionately; enough to die for you.” To be truly seen and still loved is the cry of the human soul. God sees you and he loves you with all his heart.
Cash Green is always out there with a take that elevates.